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96 Comments
- mortigon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27wtf?
- carcass350, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20or maybe it's of those new fangled intranet things.
- quazywabbit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17Has anyone tried to buy it online and pick it up locally? It still could be an online price only and if you prepay for it online and then go and pick it up you get it for that price.
- jjk5, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16I worked at Best Buy seasonally when I was in college. (winter of 2004 I think). This website wasn't a secret then. We were told right in training that the prices on the kiosks weren't indicative of prices offered on BestBuy.com. The address was even different ( http://kiosk.bestbuy.com ) If you order online from home you pay the online price even if you pick it up in store. If you come to the store and order 'online' (why would you?) you might pay a higher price. We were never taught to honor online prices, only circular prices, so checking the kiosks for an item's price wouldn't happen, you have the register for that. The only thing I can think of for the difference in price between bestbuy.com and the kiosks is that similar to GameStop, the website is run independently of the store, or that Best Buy doesn't give the online discounts in-store as they need to recoup the cost of having to service a customer in person.
- 00100001, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17Seriously, people, I don't get this. The site in Best Buy advertises the prices IN THE STORE, not online. For example, a game I want might be on special for $20 online, but ONLY online. When I go to the store to check the STORE'S intranet, it doesn't have the special price because the store computers check - guess what - STORE PRICES.
Oh wait - someone already said it. Sorry. - Freakwilly, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17Buried as lame. This is getting old.
- ddfall, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Guys, I work at Best Buy (on the Geek Squad). Go into a store. Pull up the 'online site.' It now says in a large yellow box on top that "LOCAL PRICES ARE LISTED" on the site. It SAYS that they're local now and not online prices. Quit complaining. If you don't like Best Buy, go to newegg.com or something. Hell, I work there and I GO to newegg.com all the time to get stuff. They've got more stuff for less anyway. You just have to wait a little while for it. What happened was never intentional but it only displayed LOCAL pricing (I.E. regional pricing which many retailers do vs. the internet prices which are National). I've been online at Frys.com and found a product only to go into the store and have it be 50 bucks less which they will not match at all. They'll just tell you to go to the website and buy it. At least Best Buy will MATCH their own site provided you bring a print out with you just like you were matching a local competitor...
- KayIslandDrunk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Oh I know what you referenced and it would have been funny.... five years ago! It's just as lame as those soviet russia jokes.
- monahmat, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15With the Comp USA shutdowns, Circuit City horror stories and now Best Buy's intranet scams I'd say we are ready for a new entrant into the electronics supplier business. Preferably an ethical company with some quality customer service, if such a thing exists.
- Kujila, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Jesus Christ people, it says right on the screen in huge yellow letters "THIS KIOSK REFLECTS IN STORE PRICES"
Also employees have two sites listed now:
http://forums.thepriceislol.com/showpost.php?p=260054&postcount=1 - Kujila, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10It depends on your store; we price-match Best Buy dotcom and any store that doesn't should be burned to the ground... they'll price match other stores but not your own site? Those managers are fools.
- tiberone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"Regardless, I think this whole situation has been blown a bit out of proportion."
No kidding.
You people are going ***** crazy with your revolutionary "discovery" of a "secret website" that the company's "screwing customers over" with.
This isn't that uncommon of a business practice; Items that are part of an *online sale* may be purchased *online* for that price. Most Best Buys will give the price to you even in-store if you print it up.
Maybe some employees are not quite sure how the site should be implemented when dealing with customers; that comes down to basic employee training. Blame a lack of that if you want to get all upset, but good lord there's nothing wrong with having the kiosk site. - pinkboxer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Actually, the item & price listed on BB's public website isn't an advertisement meant to signal people to go into the store and buy it for that price. It's the web price, which may or may not be the same as the store price. If you want the web price but want to get it in the store, you have to purchase it via the web and then do store pick-up, if available. Circuit City does the same thing; it's not a mystery nor is it dishonest. Nowhere does either retailer claim that you can get the web price if you buy inside the store. Maybe they give you a better price on the web because they did not have to pay a floor salesperson to help you make your purchase.
- nsjoker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Ah silly Best Buy and its tomfoolery.
- TxCub420, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Yes. WTF?
- l0tharnt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The last time this came up here on Digg, I argued that everyone that is complaining about the instore website price being different should do just this and I got flamed and buried left and right. I'm glad someone else has the same mindset as I do and isn't being destroyed for pointing out the obvious solution to this.
- Kujila, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It does. There's a huge yellow banner that says "THIS KIOSK REFLECTS IN STORE PRICING" on any kiosks
- RandomHugs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@excalibrax
What the hell are you talking about? - jjk5, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Kujila,
As I said, this was some years ago and may have changed. Regardless, I think this whole situation has been blown a bit out of proportion. It's been my own and others here first hand experiences that this isn't Best Buy's policy to use this kiosk site as a way to check prices. What's more likely is that some unscrupulous sales managers have been doing it/encouraging it. However, Best Buy still needs to save face and do something about it. - czeman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think this all started because they weren't price-matching.
- mille716, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4According to the article, the cd the person found online was advertised as $9.99 for both in store price or online. To me that was an important part of the article (if its even true or not)
I also think that if so many people are finding the prices online and are assuming the price will be matched in the store, the company has a responsibility to correct that misunderstanding. Its very possible Bestbuy honestly didn't want to confuse anybody but they apparently did and should take actions to correct it. - tiberone, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6okay stasis "you idiot," have one of the "plenty of people" you know turn to page 36 of their employee handbook and read section 3 aloud to you.
Slowly, and repeatedly until you understand the basic English it's written in. - goeric, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I work at Best Buy and there is now two options available in the toolkit. One is the local BestBuy.com (kiosk) and one is national. The local one reflects local pricing, it even says so in big bold letters at the top. The national one says it's being worked on at the moment but I think eventually it's going to be the real BestBuy.com
Regardless, most stores will price match BestBuy.com prices if you just ask. - Philbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"It makes sense to have a system for employees to look up in-store prices"
There is a separate system for price checks, part of the Employee toolkit. A website would be easier though, the Toolkit is plain text and often has confusing names for products. - lejake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It makes sense to have a system for employees to look up in-store prices.
It is a good practice to do price-matching with Dot Com and that is Best Buy's policy.
It can be impossible to get all 100,000 employees (many in their teens) to understand the difference between the two.
The solution: make them look different from each other so that there is no possible confusion. This is not a dirty business practice, just a confusing system that they are working to change. - Philbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Right but apparently they're telling people "see this is the price on the website, you must've misread it" or something along those lines. I find this interesting actually, I worked for them for almost a year a couple years ago and I never heard about this.
- davidrools, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3i bought online and picked up instore for the correct price. pretty straightforward and satisfactory. none of that "reservation receipt" shananagans that CompUSA was doing. In fact, one time I ordered and paid online for instore pickup, then I was told it wasn't available at the store anymore (even though it confirmed inventory when I ordered). And they gave me the option to have it shipped for free...and they did...and I had my game within like 2 or 3 days.
I'm not a fan of BestBuy at all, but when they have a crazy good deal online, their instore pickup option works for me. - spyd3rweb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3no one has mentioned the secret employee toolkit website for bby yet with all the 'employee' prices on things yet :P you'd be pissed to know all media cables, accessory things, are marked up 1000% and car audio is about 200%
- ccanni1028, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2We know that, but they are claiming that they are going ONLINE to the main BestBuy website to check the prices.
- tiberone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Philbert and ccanni's points are valid in that employees sometimes just don't want to explain everything to a customer or don't understand the entire system in the least bit or are just plain retarded.
Best Buy should have done a better job educating employees about the differences, I guess. At my store, they explained everything very well to us and told us how to access the *real* bestbuy.com site from in-store if a customer wanted a price matched from the site. Now the real site is one of the menu options and the intranet site is labeled "WARNING: THESE REFLECT INSTORE PRICES ONLY!!!" or something ridiculous like that in giant bold letters on a bright yellow background...jeez. - AeonTorpor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No more tomfoolery, no more ballywho!
- MDrake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1At the Best Buy I work at half the managers still had no idea we even had a 'secret website.'
Goes to show that impressive business major, or lack thereof, in action. - spookyttws, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I believe Fry's is getting dugg down because (at least the one by my house) they employ less knowledgeable people than any other electronics place around, that and they're just about as trustworthy as Best Buy.
- Branden, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A Best Buy store and BestBuy.com are two completely different stores. Lets say you see a movie at a Best Buy in City A. Would you automatically figure that movie at the City B store is exactly the same price? Some stores for various reasons, like overstock, will place an item on sale while another store will not. Just because your friend got a movie for $9.99 in one store doesn't mean that same movie will be $9.99 in another the next town over. Different stores can mean different prices and the same should be assumed for their online store, since it is in fact a separate store.
"I also think that if so many people are finding the prices online and are assuming the price will be matched in the store, the company has a responsibility to correct that misunderstanding."
It will be matched in store IF you bring in something that says it is on sale at either BestBuy.com or another local Best Buy store. The misunderstanding is you assuming they know all the prices at BestBuy.com and every other Best Buy store. If they don't honor that, then you have something to bitch about. - Philbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I'm not a big fan of Best Buy either as I think they are hugely paranoid about theft. Mostly internal. I interviewed for them and internal theft reporting questions came up came up very often. But I think this Best Buy scam is not so much a scam as all electronics retailers do the same, in-store and online pricing have different deals."
I can agree with that. I worked there for almost a year and constantly heard about loss prevention for employees. One day I got in (minor) trouble for not having my shirt tucked in a full hour before the store opened. Thinking this was ridiculous I got a "don't argue" attitude. Eventually another employee who'd been there longer told me if your shirt is tucked in it's smooth against you and obvious that you aren't stealing anything, but if it's untucked you could easily hide something in there. - stisev, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Those *****. Best Buy store in Daly City, Colma They pulled this stunt on me a while back.
The web site listed logitech joypad for $25. I went to the store and the guy said $39.99. I really wanted the joystick so I insisted I see the site. $39.99 sure enough.
Those ***** bastards - tiberone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah the text one is just a disaster to use.
It's best to search for the product on the website, then copy the SKU number into RSS. That way you know it's the right product, price, and availability. - mjbk24, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1these kiosks say in bright yellow writing that it represents "local pricing" and to click to see national or web pricing. Both the customer and this best buy worker were to fault. Best buy as a company is not trying to screw anyone.
- radio1mike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I understand that it is 'fraudlent' for BB not to honor it's websites prices. But I also thought that many electronic big-box stores web sites were a different entity from their brick and mortar counterparts...? Wasn't it because that would stop BB from having to pricematch their competitor's web site prices at their local stores? I mean to pricematch now, you have to have a circular to pricematch (anywhere).
I hope BB gets hung up by it toes.
But there are steps you can take from this happening to you:
1) Do your research.
2) Limit your choice to one model.
3) If that item is cheap on BB.com, buy it- you don't get charged until you go in store.
4) Show up with your web page 'receipt' or email confirm.
This always works for me, but; I know it would burn my ass if I did show up at BB and the price was mysteriously higher. - finleya, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Quit Complaining, here is how it works:
you're at home, and you go to the best buy site, you find a product you like, lets say the logitec G15 keyboard, on the website(you are still at home) the price is $55(i know its not this price but for this demonstration, it doesn't matter), if you buy it on the site, you pay that much, cause its an online deal(buy online, get better deal)
you want the product now, so you go into the store, and find that the product is $70(in-store price, not online), you tell them that you saw it online(at home) for $55, they show you the "secret" site and it says $70. That is because the "secret" site, shows in-store prices, not the price you get if you just get the keyboard online.
Most of the time, you'll get better prices if you go online.
So people, please quit whining and just buy the product online, and if you don't like that fact that BB has a "secret" site, buy your stuff somewhere else - czeman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's typical. Rat Shack was doing the same thing when I worked there 9 years ago.
- mikehill33, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4another Consumerist rant? buried as lame...
- SuperSloth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yep. Intranet is not the Internet. When you get out of school and get a job at a real company, you'll learn that.
- radio1mike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I dunno, people who don't know squat about technology. People who don't read digg all day. People who don't want to wait 5 days to get their product. People who like to touch/see the product before buying. People that can easily return a product. People that don't have access to the internet. Should I go on?" - JoeB4ever
Replies in reverse order:
1) If you don't have access to the internet, this argument is moot. The "secret" site will just be "the" site.
2) You can return your online-bought products to the local BB store.
3) Who needs to "see" a router? Anything else more expensive: like audio, video or computers- you should be doing some type of research before purchase.
4) 5 day wait? How about 1-hour wait- if it is in stock at a local BB store of yours.
5) Many people read Digg all day and don't shop at BB.
6) If you don't 'know squat" about technology- you should learn a little. Trying to find a scrupulous and knowledgeable salesperson at a bigbox-store is going to difficult at best. You know the saying, 'a fool and his money are soon parted...'?
If you can't do any of these, you are better off going to your local (non-national chain) shops, they will usually provide more assistance in product choice/info and competitive pricing.
I am no shill for BB, I am just an advocate of some common sense. - TxCub420, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Why should I have to ask a store to price match itself?
- pcharles23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1(Frys and Micro center... get bigger guys) ....!! Best buy sucks and so does comp usa and circuit city!
there is only one micro center in michigan and its 2 hrs away. but its still worth the drive, that is one place i go and when you check out the dam price is almost always even LOWER!!!!! they have great products also a pretty good apple store.
i was told that all the product that resides in all the closing comp usa stores has been purchased by a liquidator, So i doubt you are going to be seeing that big of price drops. i went in there and the place looked like a normal store it was loaded with product. i was thinking... this is no liquidation, this is bull *****!. prices marked up 400% only to take 10 or 30 or 40 $ off. - bigj7489, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The point is, it shouldn't HAVE to say anything. The prices should be the same.
Anything less is an intentional attempt to fool/screw customers, which is unethical. Period. - PleaseJustDie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sucks to be you guys I guess, the Fry's by where I live and the one a few hours from where I used to live both had great customer service and people who actually knew what they were talking about working in the parts of the store they knew about.
- JoeB4ever, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I was actually comparing best buy to other competitors, mainly online.
but thanks wasting time for not understanding my comment. - skew009, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I worked at Best Buy for a total of 3 years. Everyone in our store knew the kiosk price may be different than the online price (it is not updated as often). We just used the internet to check the internet price, not the kiosks (the kiosk computers were sloowwww..even though this was in Minneapolis the headquarters of best buy). Our store frequently matched internet prices even from competitors websites...or at least I did. :) From my experience I can tell you all that everything is pretty much store specific at Best Buy when it comes to policies. Corporate operating procedure exists, but isn't always strictly followed. Some stores bend the rules and some are asses about it. This isn't some huge corporate conspiracy, it's just a case of some employees being *dumb* or stubborn (emphasis on the dumb).
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