Best Buy... Lost our business...

[ratbuddy]

Yes, it was advertised in a sense. It wasnt advertised as to what exact model, but it said name-brand 1080p LCD tv. If you call them, they give you the Make/Model.

Id say thats advertised as you could walk into the store and purchase it :/

Again, BB acknowledge the price, and said they COULD price match it under their policy but they WONT due to the fact that they dont have enough "price margin" in the TV at that price.

Granted, my little couple grand a year is a drop in the bucket, but its still a lost customer who is knot happy and will spread that which in effect will hurt business later on (my buddy who is like me has already said f'em and is going to buy elsewhere and he spends about the same, it adds up).

Why exactly did they lose a customer for following their policy? You demanded something unreasonable and they said no..

 

[beenthere]

Ah yes and the debate goes on...

 

[MooMasster716]

Why exactly did they lose a customer for following their policy? You demanded something unreasonable and they said no..

It's advertised in the paper. So It does follow their policy.

 

[doz]

When I worked at Microcenter I could check the retailers cost on items. They lose money all almost all of the processors they sell (how else do you spend $199 for a i7 930).

The markup on TVs was roughly 5-10% give or take a few, so not a large margin. BB definitely would have lost money selling you a TV that is normally $900 for $580, there's no way they wouldn't have.

EDIT: I'm not saying they shouldn't have done the price match, just saying they weren't lying to you and they aren't raking in cash on these things like you think they are.

Again, for like the 3rd time, the markup is MUCH MORE!!

They have the TV advertised for $900. Onsale for $810. They told me straight up that they wont make ENOUGH to sell it at that price. They looked up the cost of it (their cost). They werent going to LOSE money, they werent going to make enough though.

Stop saying that TV's have no mark-up. Thats the biggest bunch of BS.

 

[satandole666]

Again, for like the 3rd time, the markup is MUCH MORE!!

They have the TV advertised for $900. Onsale for $810. They told me straight up that they wont make ENOUGH to sell it at that price. They looked up the cost of it (their cost). They werent going to LOSE money, they werent going to make enough though.

Stop saying that TV's have no mark-up. Thats the biggest bunch of BS.

I'm not lying to you. You can make assumptions or you can listen to people who know what the markup is. Tech items have low markups in general, mostly due to the large availability online.

EDIT: I know this for certain too, I'm not making **** up. The employee discount at Microcenter was 3% above cost. There wasn't a TV in that place that I would get more than $100 off (and that was a Sony Bravia 50 odd inch TV that was around $1800 retail if I remember correctly). I looked hard because I wanted a brand new big screen.

 

[beenthere]

Folks... it doesn't matter what the mark-up is. If a store has a price matching policy then they should honor it on any legit price. From the OP's posts the price was legit and Bad Buy just had no interest in honoring their price match policy. As a result they lost another customer who obviously has bought a lot of goods from them in the past.

Arguing about mark-up, profit margin, etc. is a waste of time. Bad Buy made a decision to not honor their price policy and the OP made a decision to not support an unscrupulous store. Bad Buy can't possibly reap any good from their decision. It's a lose-lose situation for Bad Buy, which is no surprise at all based on their unscrupulous Biz practices. See State AG actions against Bad Buy and decide for yourself how they operate their Biz.

 

[Mooyo]

Again, for like the 3rd time, the markup is MUCH MORE!!

They have the TV advertised for $900. Onsale for $810. They told me straight up that they wont make ENOUGH to sell it at that price. They looked up the cost of it (their cost). They werent going to LOSE money, they werent going to make enough though.

Stop saying that TV's have no mark-up. Thats the biggest bunch of BS.

Just my two cents - having worked for Best Buy there really wasn't much markup on TVs, computers, or other "big ticket" items (excluding appliances anyway). It was typically cheaper to buy the on-sale TVs then it would be to purchase a normal priced TV with an employee discount.

 

[doz]

So then I guess 10% markup, that would mean $810 onsale is a GOOD price for a $900 TV. That would mean Fry's selling the TV at $580 ($320 mind you) is INSANE and they are losing TONS of money for "marketing purposes".

I just dont see this happening.

 

[Mooyo]

They probably need to get rid of it. Marketing/advertising doesn't always make much sense if they want to push something - I'm typing this on a Logitech Dinovo Edge keyboard that I bought for $40 at BBY, at the time it retailed for $200.

Without knowing Fry's inventory software I have no idea how it got priced that way, but I do know that at BBY it was pretty common that if something went on closeout and there was X+ number of units left in the store the pricing got slashed to all hell.

Whether you want to believe any of this is completely your call, but most of the larger items really *do not* have much mark-up on them. TVs can fluctuate a little bit but there is *NOT* $300+ on most TVs.

 

[ratbuddy]

Folks... it doesn't matter what the mark-up is. If a store has a price matching policy then they should honor it on any legit price. From the OP's posts the price was legit and Bad Buy just had no interest in honoring their price match policy. As a result they lost another customer who obviously has bought a lot of goods from them in the past.

Arguing about mark-up, profit margin, etc. is a waste of time. Bad Buy made a decision to not honor their price policy and the OP made a decision to not support an unscrupulous store. Bad Buy can't possibly reap any good from their decision. It's a lose-lose situation for Bad Buy, which is no surprise at all based on their unscrupulous Biz practices. See State AG actions against Bad Buy and decide for yourself how they operate their Biz.

No. The Fry's special was unadvertised. It didn't qualify for the price match.

 

[satandole666]

So then I guess 10% markup, that would mean $810 onsale is a GOOD price for a $900 TV. That would mean Fry's selling the TV at $580 ($320 mind you) is INSANE and they are losing TONS of money for "marketing purposes".

I just dont see this happening.

That's fine if you don't see it happening, but it does.

Just like a car lot, electronics vendors will sell items at less than cost to clear shelf space for the newest products. Just because one vendor is clearing inventory (at a loss), don't expect them all to do the same.

Think about Occam's Razor in this case. If they would have made $1 selling that TV to you it would have been in their best interests to do so. Instead, they didn't sell it to you, risking your future business as a result of that refusal. What is the simplest explanation? The fact that they were going to lose money on your sale, probably on the magnitude of a couple hundred dollars.

I'm not saying they made the right choice (although someone mentioned all price matching was at their discretion), but your idea that they are making tons and tons of profit on this and they didn't want to sell it to you because they would make less profit is BS.

 

[nd4spdbh2]

im going to end this once and for all when i remember to pull some strings and get the price bestbuy pays for the actual unit.

 

[MooMasster716]

No. The Fry's special was unadvertised. It didn't qualify for the price match.

This is how their advertised in the paper. It is advertised.
Source

 

[TorqueRanger]

lol Just call the Better Business bureau and let handle them!!!!!My friend use to do it to walmart when they refuse to sell me something at the marked price because someone priced it wrong.. The BBB would go through the store and rip them apart and give them a huge fine for false advertisement lol...

 

[ratbuddy]

This is how their advertised in the paper. It is advertised.

No, something is advertised. Good luck using an ad that doesn't mention a model number for a price match. It's very clearly an issue of an overly demanding "customer." $580 would certainly have been below the MAP for that TV, getting Fry's in trouble with the manufacturer if they did advertise it, and again, they did not.

 

[Khemikal]

The ad does not specify make or model. ratbuddy hit this one on the head. Fry's did what they needed to to get customers in their door to find out what TVs they had for really good deals without allowing other competitors price match. This was a great job by the Fry's marketing team. Yes Fry's has a TV for sale for $580, but they do not specify which exact model(s) they have for that price. Following BB's policy, since the make/model is not printed on the ad (which you must present to BB) they have no way to know which item is being sold at Fry's for that price.

So did this suck for you hoping to get a good deal, and save 20 miles each way, yes. Did BB follow their policy, yes. Would it have been great if BB had given you the deal and not had to worry about losing your current/future business, yes.

 

[DBZ]

Most stores policy is to call and verify item make/model/price and if its available in stock or not.

So its their policy to price match but don't want to and its ok? Unless Fry's state its a price mistake then BB don't have to honor but this wasn't a price mistake. Sure they could have lost 200 bux or so on this sale but if they play nice about it, Doz probably would have gone on the net and spread the word about how awesome BB is instead of trashing it. When you pissed off one customer with crappy legitimate reason, you lose more than just one customer.

 

[ratbuddy]

Most stores policy is to call and verify item make/model/price and if its available in stock or not.

So its their policy to price match but don't want to and its ok? Unless Fry's state its a price mistake then BB don't have to honor but this wasn't a price mistake. Sure they could have lost 200 bux or so on this sale but if they play nice about it, Doz probably would have gone on the net and spread the word about how awesome BB is instead of trashing it. When you pissed off one customer with crappy legitimate reason, you lose more than just one customer.

The last thing Best Buy wants is a reputation for being easy to take advantage of. They can do without the slickdeals crowd.

 

[benbaked]

The last thing Best Buy wants is a reputation for being easy to take advantage of. They can do without the slickdeals crowd.

+1, I'm with you and Khemikal on this. Especially after seeing the generic ad posted above. I still don't see how Best Buy did anything wrong. Why should the onus be on them to call Frys and verify brand/model for an ad that is broadly generic? Frys had a few ads listed there, 46", 42", 47", all the same, very generic. That's a broad range of TVs Best Buy could take hits on if they allowed this type of thing to go down. The situation would be different if the ad was more clear. If you guys have to blame someone blame Frys for the generic ads in the first place. I agree with Khemikal it was a pretty smart marketing move on Frys part.

 

[TorqueRanger]

The only way for you to could get the rules to bend in your favor would be to purchase the item from fry's and then go to bb with the receipt and the ad to prove that it's the same model for that price in which case they have to give it to you because of the price match guarantee..