Sliding Game Sales Hammer Best Buy

[vxicepickxv]

Since they're the same guys who made Geek Squad, a 'service' specifically designed to rip off people who don't know much about technology, I have no sympathy for the company. I feel bad for the employees of course. But I've known at least one person who's worked for them and they really do gouge money from people who don't know any better.

They actually bought out the license to use Geek Squad. Geek Squad used to be good, but then Best Buy threw out everything but the name.

Not to mention they have the worst prices... well... just about anyone has better. I've had almost no real good experiences with the company to speak of.

When you have 3 people on registers at 6PM on a Saturday afternoon, with two of them having everyone else doing price checking, and the third one just opening for a single sale(which was less than what I actually had in my hand), then don't get upset when people call your manager an idiot and leave.

 

[DonTsetsi]

So what? Best buy sells a lot of things. If they lost that much money it's because they failed at making a profit from a multitude of different products, not just games. At least the workers have some form of social security and won't be out on the street as soon as they lose their jobs. And don't complain about prices, pls. Here the price is the same in euros!

 

[Weaver]

Price is the most important point for any store. They are not the "best buy" for pretty much anything. I can't really understand why these corporations don't understand that the consumer will go where they can get the best deal the vast majority of the time. The presence of stores where you can buy the same or similar products for cheaper makes the consumer way too loss averse to actually buy what Best Buy is selling. It's the same reason why used game sales are pummeling new game sales... it's the same product for cheaper. All they can do to combat such a trend is try to make their prices cheaper.

But they won't. They will face ever looming profit losses and soon they will go the way of Circuit City. And Walmart gets to rule the world.

I agree. There was a microphone i wanted to get that's $180 at best buy but a local computer store is selling it for $130. Why the hell would I even bother going to best buy? All I need to do is visit a few websites before I set out to get something and see who has the best price, it's pretty easy.

 

[cl]

Well once they pushed everyone else out of those markets they jacked up their prices just like WalMart

 

[Nurb]

Price is the most important point for any store. They are not the "best buy" for pretty much anything. I can't really understand why these corporations don't understand that the consumer will go where they can get the best deal the vast majority of the time. The presence of stores where you can buy the same or similar products for cheaper makes the consumer way too loss averse to actually buy what Best Buy is selling. It's the same reason why used game sales are pummeling new game sales... it's the same product for cheaper. All they can do to combat such a trend is try to make their prices cheaper.

But they won't. They will face ever looming profit losses and soon they will go the way of Circuit City. And Walmart gets to rule the world.

This is why apple has products made by poisoned child labor and local businesses are dead.

We as consumers are a bit stupid too because we're self-destructive. We want the cheapest price, but we miss the fact salespeople were paid well enough to care and learn about the products they were selling. We traded service and knowledge that we could trust for a few bucks off and now we have dumb kids with pants hanging off their asses who know nothing about their job drive customers insane.

Now we're close to losing brick and mortar stores because online stores can offer cheaper prices. Costing more jobs, driving down wages, and reducing choice even further as Wal-mart and Target compete. This stuff wouldn't be happening if we didn't make it successful with our money and the only reason we remember buying stuff 10-20 years ago is because the internet wasn't as easy to do business on at the time.

captcha: Face the music

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Our local electronics store is MicroCenter, the software selection sucks but they carry almost all the hardware and they price match online.

 

[Beautiful End]

Well, I liked going to Best Buy to buy stuff for my computer and electronics like that. Then I realized their prices weren't that low and other stores could easily match them. Not only that, but I hated the fact that they tried to copy GameStop.

See, Best Buy was cool. They had their own thing going on. They sold movies, CDs, computers, etc. That was cool. And then they started focusing on the videogames area more and more, eventually coming up with a card similar to GameStop's PowerUp card that gives you the EXACT same benefits, except Best Buy's selection of used games is mutt compared to GameStop's.

Not only that, but people working that section are not as knowledgeable about games as people at GameStop. People who work at GameStop work there because they love games. They want a job that relates to games so they go there. People who work at best Buy just want a job because they have so many things going on that they can easily hire more people than your local GameStop, but they can't exactly pick what area they want to be placed at.

Anyway, if I go to GameStop and I ask them if RE: Op. Raccoon City is any good, they'll be able to tell me with details what makes it awesome and what makes it lame, because they've played it. I just did that today and they even told me how to beat a boss I've been having trouble with. Best Buy employees just nod and assure you it's a good game...that you should buy. Now. It's not their fault, truly. They probably didn't up for that. The point is that Best Buy's specialty is not videogames. If a parent walks up to them asking for a game with a guy with no arms on the cover that came out around November, they'll probably shrug at them. If you go to GameStop, at least the collective employees can figure that one out (It's Rayman). So it was a pretty dumb move to try and copy the 'cool guys' as a trend. Nice effort, but dumb idea.

I'm not saying GameStop is a godsend, but they do have better deals going on, sporadically. Just yesterday they had a 50% more sale when you trade in stuff. I never trade in games because I hate the fact they give me like $5 per game but I love shopping there. But I traded my GTA4 Complete and Skyrim copy and I got around 70 bucks, which wasn't that bad. When I pre-order things, the goodies are printed on the receipt so you can check immediately if you got the bonus content or not. They give me 48 hours to pick my game and they won't sell games to people if they didn't pre-order it and they already ran out of spare copies. Even after the 48 hours are up, the local GameStops give me a call to let me know my pre-order is in peril, so that's cool.

At any rate, Best Buy's thing was electronic stuff overall. They should have made sure they were the best at it, especially after watching Circuit City go bankrupt.

 

[Therumancer]

The problem with Best Buy is simply that their prices aren't as competitive as they used to be, and their selection has been gradually been becoming worse. Usually Wal*Mart, Target, and K-mart (yes K-mart) will carry most items like DVDs for a couple of bucks less. Not to mention the selection of genere titles has been reducing itself greatly over the last year or two, things like horror, anime (which I admit I'm not into like I used to be, but I do look at the section occasionally) and sci-fi/action movies seem to be gradually shrinking, which means I spent less money there. Of course I suspect that in the case of the horror stuff at least that Best Buy is increasingly concerned about offending people given that what made their selection great for a while was that you could find a lot of pretty non-mainstream, and fairly intense stuff that just isn't there anymore. Their PC-software section has shrunk, they rarely have strategy guides for titles, and if your looking for a console game that isn't entirely mainstream or is known to push the envelope there is a very good chance they won't have it at all.

Basically you can't sell people a product that doesn't exist. At one time (oddly when Best Buy reported being most prosperous) it's entertainment sections were nerd heaven. Now they are pretty "meh" and for most of the stuff they do have it takes at most 10 minutes to shave a couple of bucks off the price. Gone are the days when I could say load up on 8 "After Dark Horror Fest" movies for $40 ($5 apiece) for a major schlock marathon.

I guess what I'm saying is that I think they lost track of who their audience was, and also stopped trying to really compete with the competition. It seems like the whole "geek squad" mentality, which is to say mindless profiteering off the mainstream (and trying to charge premium prices for some stupid services) infected the entire store/chain and the effects are being felt.

 

[xDarc]

That and their reps are friggin awful. That Newegg commercial about askin them about the difference between the two computers and he looks at the signs in front of them then just says I have no idea? True. Totally true.

Ha. I worked at BB for like 6 months w/ geek squad and they occasionally used to send me over to the computer department and I would get asked that question from time to time. Now I'm a guy that can remember paying $120 for 4MB of RAM and I have been building computers for a long time. For the majority of their mid-range selection, as far as the average consumer is concerned, I was surprised there really isn't much difference.

You could sit there and compare specs, but ultimately it came down to asking them what they wanted to do- and if they didn't bring up gaming, graphic design or CAD- I'd pretty much tell them the only noticeable difference was gonna be branding, included software bundles and aesthetics.

Also, most laptops today are garbage. HPs especially, can't count the number of those things I saw less than a year old come in for warranty repairs with all kinds of hardware failures. The quality went down after the 2008 crash and by 2009 when I worked there, they were all garbage.

I'll be glad to see BB eventually go, their policies are needlessly confusing to help them sell laughably priced services and extended warranties that they will try to weasel out of any way possible. Basically my job was to tell people no, your warranty does not cover this or that and get screamed at. One time a guy actually tried to lunge over the counter and grab one of the other guys. Cop was in the store near by and tackled his ass. We had a good laugh afterward, but those stores just have a way of making people's blood boil.

 

[XT inc]

I love me my best buy, only because I have fond memories of buying a Really expensive gaming computer for well over 75% off because it was a floor model.

Having said that I haven't shopped there in any regularity for years. Last time I went in was just a pop in to buy some overpriced air spray because It was on the route home and I didn't want to buy a 6 pack of it at costco.

The prices aren't great, they just aren't. Mix this with current gen game bullshit and I just pass entirely until I see a complete GOTY edition, and then I buy that mother on STEAM for 15 bucks. I have no interest in paying 70 bucks for a game that I will have to pump another 50 bucks into, to get the full game.

DLC is why I do not shop at retailers for games anymore, it is just what I do. Seriously I have no Idea how developers expect me to invest so much money in untested new products. The way I play games , is to try out and enjoy as many titles as possible and not invest my whole gaming budget into one game.

They have no intention of competing and are in a bubble, just like xbox live, where many times you can get whole GOTY editions of a game for cheaper than what it would run you to download 3 year old dlc. I bought a 4 pack of borderlands goty cheaper on steam than it would cost to download the 3 dlcs I was missing for that game....

Nuff said.

 

[Reyalsfeihc]

Honestly Best Buy needs to take a look at Fry's Electronics which is there only major electronics retail competitor and see what they're doing right vs. the crap that corporate is trying to pull at Best Buy.

Seriously, yesterday I reviewed Best Buy's price match policy and it was so dense it essentially wouldn't allow you to price match a single item unless you went to another store and took a picture holding the item that was dated with the price in the same frame. -_-

 

[mjc0961]

the company as a whole is reportedly suffering at the hands of consumers who use it as a "testing ground" before making their purchases at discount retailers like Walmart and Amazon.

And of course, they won't take notice of that at all and lower their prices. They'll think laying people off and closing stores will be enough, but it won't. Then they'll be gone just like Circuit City.

The prices aren't great, they just aren't. Mix this with current gen game bullshit and I just pass entirely until I see a complete GOTY edition, and then I buy that mother on STEAM for 15 bucks. I have no interest in paying 70 bucks for a game that I will have to pump another 50 bucks into, to get the full game.

DLC is why I do not shop at retailers for games anymore, it is just what I do. Seriously I have no Idea how developers expect me to invest so much money in untested new products. The way I play games , is to try out and enjoy as many titles as possible and not invest my whole gaming budget into one game.

Yep. So many developers and publishers have trained us to just wait for the GOTY version where we can get everything. Then they wonder why their games sell poorly at launch, and try to blame used games and piracy. No, publishers, it's because we're waiting for the full version of the game. That's why we're not buying your $60 games with no DLC included at launch. Not from GameStop. Not from Amazon. And not from Best Buy either.

 

[Sight Unseen]

Best Buy actively tried to rip me off for like $400 a couple years ago when I tried to get my laptop fixed there with the Geek Squad. My laptop was overheating and causing freezes and crashes constantly and my wireless card had stopped working, so I brought it there because that's where I had gotten it originally.

The diagnostic test cost something absurd like $50-$80 or something like that. When they got back to me they told me that my hard drive was fried and that I needed to get a new one, but offered to be 'helpful' and do it for me for me for $100 with their $300 or so hard drive. My father knows some things about computers and asked them to back up the BIOS, OS, and other startup programs onto a DVD so that he could buy a cheaper hard drive and re-install it himself, but they said that they couldn't because apparently my DVD drive was also fried, which they hadn't told us about prior to that.

We told them we'd think about it, brought the laptop home, and contacted microsoft customer support. They offered to extend our warranty, which had recently ended, for a year, covering anything, for $100. We did that, sent my computer in, and like a week later had it back and fixed. the problem? My wireless card was broken, and my fan needed to be turned up higher. Nothing to do with the hard drive or the DVD drive.

We demanded our money back for the diagnostic, and amazingly we got it back. But never again...

So fuck you best buy, you deserve the fate you're getting.

 

[SquidVicious]

I really only go into Best Buy now if I need something and it can't wait a couple for shipping. I had my USB hub go down a couple of weeks ago and needed more than just the two slots on my work computer. I did go when Game of Thrones was released on DVD but that was more a splurge buy then anything else.

Their service staff are also pretty inexperienced and on more than one occasion have tried to sell me something that wasn't even related to what I was looking for. The other week I was looking for a firewire cable to speed up the transfer of information from my bosses old Macbook Pro to her new one, and the clueless pillock tried to sell me a USB Wifi card.

 

[1337mokro]

Best Buy Executive: "I have a great idea guys, if we DOUBLE our prices compared to our competitors we'll make twice the profit! It's an amazing idea right? Can't believe no one ever thought of it, it's so simple yet genius! We'll be rolling in cash"

Rest of the Chimps in the room start flinging poo and dancing on the desks in joy.

Goddamn fucking morons. This is why people RUNNING a company, should never be allowed to RUN the company.

 

[Axyun]

Years ago I'd go to Best Buy once or twice a month just to see what they had and pick up some cheap anime. It's been ages since I last went there. Amazon and Newegg cover 99% of the stuff I normally buy that's not food, clothing or hygene consumables at very good prices and great customer service. The very few time's I've had to RMA products to either company, they've made it as painless as possible.

 

[William Dickbringer]

-Snip-

Oh god don't get me started on that preordered mass effect 3 collector's edition both me and my friend...my friend barely got his (they didn't label games preordered by people only a select few got labeled) and I had to wait a few more days for completely unrelated reasons and the e-giftcards we get for preordering....we have to 6-8 weeks to be sent in email makes no sense what so ever

 

[Epona]

I have heard bad things about their return policy. I have heard that's is short (like 30 days) and that it's conditional (they'll hassle you, charge a restocking fee, etc..). That's fine but Wal Mart gives me 90 days and will take stuff back, no questions asked. Why buy a computer or a game console/handheld at Best Buy when the customer service is much better at Wal Mart. That's sad too because Wal Mart isn't known for it's good customer service.