[greenman100]

I applied there, got called for an interview, and called back for another one. It looks likt they're hiring me as a computer tech, which isn't my first choice, but I'm good at it and enjoy it. THe question is, as anyone worked there, and if you have, please share experiences, like pay, etc.

[JoT]

I've heard that the BB staff gets nice discounts on everything (get anything you want at cost, plus some %).

[AMD Phreak]

I recomend not getting involved too deep with the politics there. Just do your job and go home at the end of the day.


BBY Employee from 2002-2003

[greenman100]

Update:

I had an interview with the general manager today. Seemed to go well, though apparently I'm not going to be going into computer repair, as they hire from within for that. Car audio, inventory, and merchandising also had openings, so we'll see what happens. They're supposed ot let me know this week.

[BigRed]

Originally posted by AMD Phreak
I recomend not getting involved too deep with the politics there. Just do your job and go home at the end of the day.

That applies to Any job, lol

Moreso for retail though.

[JerMe]

My brother worked there, in car audio. One of the worst things you have to do is try you arse off to sell the "PSP" extended warranty to the customer. He hated doing that, cause he knew it was BS, and more than half the time it turned off the customer to the point of ruining the sale.

The door between the store and the install bay is a sort of sacred door? I forget why.

If you're planning to "hook up" your friends with cheap gear, you can do it, as long as you call it "gift" or something. You get the biggest discount with accessories. The discount for things like TVs and computers aren't so hot. You can go to any Best Buy and get your discount, they'll ask for your employee code at the register.

If you make friends in the install bay, have them install your system. A lot of times, those installers compete in IASCA events, so if they like you, they might hook up your gear between customer installs.

[greenman100]

I've installed my own car audio system, and I've installed systems in other people's cars.

No real plans to hook anyone up, I'm just doing this because I'm good at it.

And the PSP warranty deal can't be as bad as commission-based RadioShack...they try to sell you everything from a cell phone to a credit card to their mothers.

[JerMe]

Just trying to help? I've done several installs, too. It's always nice to get input on those who make car audio a living, though.

As for the PSP, my brother's managers were always forcing their peons to shove PSPs down the customer's throat. =T Hopefully your manager won't be such a tool. But it's definitely not as bad as how you described Radio Shack.

Good luck on your callback!

[tom10167]

The employee discount is 5% over wholesale price on everything in the store, their biggest profit is always extended warranties, about 90% profit. From what I hear ALL the management is bad, this is from several different people different stores, different regions.

[Ebola]

I knew two of the guys who pretty much built the best buy web site. From their stories it sounds like corporate is much worse than retail.

[XunknownX]

I did sales in the computers and accessories area of Best Buy seasonally a few years back. And to my suprise, many of my co-workers had very basic knowledge of computers, however, they were good at selling PSP's which I sucked at. I didn't believe in them and I don't like to BS people.

All I cared about was getting the customer the right computer or accessory. I had several repeat customers come to me directly for advice which made me feel pretty good and I'm sure they appreciated my no BS attitude.

But hey, if you are a good sales person and can talk people into buying something they don't need, PSP's, then it's a great job.

Oh yeah, and the discount is not that great on computer parts since they are sold almost at cost. Now car audio, that's a completely different story.

[Mr.Rotory]

Ok Ok Ok, lemme tell a little story I WORK AT BEST BUY. First off which city do you live in? Second, here is how it all goes down, trust me I know, I've worked at that hell hole for the last year and now continue todo so, even though right now i'm on vacation. TECH IS THE ONLY POSITION YOU WILL EVER WANT AT BEST BUY. If you work in saling computer, you need to know absolutly nothing about them, you can tell that due to the last 3 supervisors that we have had all had not even ever touched a computer before they came there as a SUPERVISOR! All you need to do is sell sell sell. If you dont, (this part depends on how crappy your management is, and how bad they all wanna success, which is usually always because their job depends on it) you WILL BE FIRED!!! Even though this is a none commision enviorment, you will be pushed worst then ever to sell bull**** products, not just psp, no it doest stop there. For you see, Best buy does not make ANY, money on a single computer, especially the cheap cheap emachine that is always on sale for 389.99 AMIR that includes monitor and printer. Now! since they dont make any money on the computer, 40-30 on the monitor and maybe 3-5 on the printer, you must, and I mean must sell atleast 3-6 inks minimum on each sale, along with paper, along with cdrw or dvd along with the biggest crapper of them all, the BACK UP UPS, thumb drives, usb cables, or any other cables, all that and thats not even including the PSP, the biggest of them all, because that is were all the money for best buy is. Dont worry if this is too much for you, you'll most likely get a list of all the things you are suppost to sell along with each computer. Now on top of that the computer techs are suppost to sell their services and products, the biggest and the ones most improtant, and it isnt all that bad, are Norton Antivirus and System customization. The norton part is really self explanitory so I wont get into that, except to say that they tell you to sell a "different" packaging type of Norton, and tell the customer that they are not able to buy that version from you in the store (which is crap they can too, BB management wont let them) so they have to buy it for 29.99 however the gip is that they have to pay you to install it, so as a tech that is all you care about as far as money goes, well that and system customization, and lets see what is that?!! well here is what you do, you change over the windows virtual ram to a higher number, and then type msconfig in the run program and shut every thing off, that and clear the cookies, haha all that for just 24.99, and you sell it as if god comes down from heaven and blesses the god for sacken computer that is now is new . In each department that you are in, YOU WILL BE PUSHED HARDER THEN ANY OTHER PLACE YOU'VE BEEN TO SELL, SELL, SELL. Simply because the highest education in my whole store, including all management is a high school deploma, so they are all retarted washed out sales people, trying to make it to the top as fast as possible, plus if they dont sell, they will be jobless really quick, in the last 6 months i've seen Corporate (really high up) cut down to sales managers (half the pay) in a night, and General managers cut down to pretty much nothing, most if not all cheat while doing it and lie to the customer, I find working at best buy very depresing, however I'm the head tech, who used to sell like crazy for them in computer and no longer does, because they gave me the raise that I should have gotten and let me go over to the tech bench, which i'm loving, simply because you basicly dont have 98% of management allways around you, and you really are one of the most powerful people on the floor. You will learn how you can make things dissapear and people will return stuff and so the manager of the department that you are in will not want to take a hit on that and will ask you to "get ride of it" which is completly unethical (not uncommenly used at BB) and if the company that BB is selling for would ever find out, they would probably cut off their contract with them. Every day I am very tempted to go to the BBB. But there are things that you can do to make you life easier, first off all this wont fall on you right away, maybe after working there for about 2-3 months it will, secondly if you are a computer tech, a car audio sales man or installer, or you are an inventory man, then your life becomes much much easier, simply because your number dont really mean much over all (computer tech might make 500 dollars, same for car audio, and inventory doesnt have to sell, if lucky in a day, when computers will make 60 thosand) so managers dont get on your ass much. If you asked me, get into any of those departments that i've mentioned, the most stressful however most powerful position out of those is the tech. Anyways, have some type of life plan before going in there, but for the love of god, if you are a good sales man and they do then start trying to move you up (with their constant mind games) always remember, this is a **** you job, and i'ma take a wild guess at the pay that you have gotten, 8.25? Anyways, good luck man, oh and the discounts are always good too! and you will sometimes find decent people there, just remember that usually they all have families and will look after them before you, good luck.


P.S. ask any questions that you might have, I've been their golden boy, child you name it, they love me at my work, however I wont sell for them anymore, cant lie, feel to bad selling them junk they dont need just to max out their credit or take out of their wallet and i dont even get anything for it but a pat on a back. Plus as a tech, I see all the things that people promise during selling of the PSP and how much of it the customer accually gets to use, bunch of crap, anyways, I get paid there and I just do my duty as told, just not as "passionate" about it anymore, plus I tell the whole truth to the customer, not just parts of it and other parts not, they cant fire you for that, you did your job, you offered, if they didnt buy then its tuff luck for BB but management will basicly tell you, get passionate or your hours will be cut or they will just figure out a way to get ride of you, good luck!.

[everclock]

I'm guessing u dont live in Russia now then?

[stryder2720]

I also work at Best Buy...
Store #258

[NiTrO bOiE]

Sorry for thread hijack, but what age does BB hire at? I need a summer job, because my mom won't let me stay at home in peace with the computers anymore . Also what position should I apply for? Inventory? I don't think they'll hire me as a computer tech no matter how much I know about computers, and I don't know much about car audio, and I'm not much of a sales person either....

[raven]

Originally posted by tom10167
The employee discount is 5% over wholesale price on everything in the store, their biggest profit is always extended warranties, about 90% profit. From what I hear ALL the management is bad, this is from several different people different stores, different regions.

Also I happen to know that they also totally rip you off on cables.. The store sells say a 10ft USB extension cable for $40.... 5% above cost is $5..... 40$ profit on one 10ft USB extension cable.. So its good to work at best buy for the discounts...


Raven

[XunknownX]

Originally posted by raven



Also I happen to know that they also totally rip you off on cables.. The store sells say a 10ft USB extension cable for $40.... 5% above cost is $5..... 40$ profit on one 10ft USB extension cable.. So its good to work at best buy for the discounts...


Raven

The discounts do vary. Take a video card for example, you get very little off of the original price.

[greenman100]

Originally posted by NiTrO bOiE
Sorry for thread hijack, but what age does BB hire at? I need a summer job, because my mom won't let me stay at home in peace with the computers anymore . Also what position should I apply for? Inventory? I don't think they'll hire me as a computer tech no matter how much I know about computers, and I don't know much about car audio, and I'm not much of a sales person either....

I'd imagine 18 (I'm 19), and they apparently hire computer tech from within.

[AC Slater]

Well, well, well. So you are joining the Best Buy team huh? I worked at #362 for 9 months and hated it. I started out on the Mobile Electronics (Car Audio) sales and moved back into the install bay. Working with car audio was awesome, I love it and was an avid Db Drag Member from 1999-2001. In September 2001 Best Buy was moving in and I got a job on the grand opening team. I figured with my knowledge of the car audio industry this job would be super fun and I'd get paid decent, started at $8.83 per hour. Well it wasn't so much fun. The people in my department were all totally clueless with anything pertaining to car audio. The managers pressured the Supervisors with selling the PSP's and accessories, which in turn led to them pressuring us. Each hour the stupid manager on duty walks around, not managing just showing freaking profit numbers, and if your department isn't hitting it's "goals" then they try to "coach" you on how to better sell more worthless PSP's with every product that can have them.

Once I moved back into the install bay (after I had gone through 3 supervisors on the sales floor in 6 months!) I thought that it would be much easier, but it wasn't. The new Supervisor was an idiot that used to be a salesman at a local shop and so he thought he knew everything. He overbooked us every day. My shift was supposed to be from 1:00 - 7:00 each day but I rarely got out before 9:30 because of overbooking even with 2 installers working. I got lunch about twice a week and never got breaks, never even got them on the sales floor because they were so stingy about hours we would never have 2 people working except on saturdays and holidays. I loved it when the sales supervisor was supposed to go to lunch and I had to cover the floor. I would close the bay down and get out there asap and then he would wander around the store for 45 minutes before punching out, thus getting an 1 hour and 15 minute lunch each day and none of the managers seemed to even mind.

I got yelled at on a continual basis for getting overtime, which was because the stupid sales people would over book us and guarantee same day installation on everything. I never got trained on how to accept checks and one time I wrote down almost all the information on the persons ID on their check and nearly got fired because I didn't write the experation date of the ID on the check! I fired back at the manager with "Maybe I should be trained on how to actually take a check before you guys let me run a register" to which his reply was "Yeah, you're right, I'll get right on that". I never got trained for that at all (we didn't have a register in the mobile department so none of us sales people knew how to use one). One funny thing was that our install bay was ranked #1 in the entire company one month for profit margin. Why is this funny you ask? Well it's because we charged each install at least 1 custom labot ($15) regardless if we needed it or not. Speaker Savers? I have about 20 pairs in my toolbox right now from installs that the customer paid for but my install Supervisor told me to just keep them. When I was on the sales floor I did cycle counts each week, our counts were always the most accurate because I took pride in doing them and the inventory manager knew that and respected me for that. Once I went into the install bay the sales floor cycle counts started going downhill fast and I got to see how the install joke...errr...I mean supervisor did theirs. If they had too many of a product, which was the case on almost everything, we either got it for free or it got thrown out to keep their numbers accurate. I don't remember how many Ford wiring harnesses I watched them throw away but it must have been as least 150.

There were some real cool people that I worked with but there were also a lot of 40 year old managers making $40000 thinking that they were gods or something. Turn over at Best Buy is very high, and after working there I see why. Sh*t rolls down hill and the managers put a ton of pressure on the sales associates to "get the numbers up" because their jobs depend on it. I have not walked in a Best Buy since June 2001 and never will walk in one again. Just thinking of the store makes my stomach get upset. I loathe Best Buy and if you can think for yourself you will work there for a short period of time and find out that you will probably feel the same way.

[Mr.Rotory]

Originally posted by raven



Also I happen to know that they also totally rip you off on cables.. The store sells say a 10ft USB extension cable for $40.... 5% above cost is $5..... 40$ profit on one 10ft USB extension cable.. So its good to work at best buy for the discounts...


Raven

HAHAHAHAHAHA! if only, its more like .80 cents

especially the Basix junk, thats crap that is genericly made by BB and is always breaking.