I can't speak for the Geek Squad (as I have never needed to use them), but they price match to Amazon (and several other online stores), and will generally have what I am looking for (at least for consumer electronics). I know that I will get it that day (vs. Amazon's "two day shipping" that regularly turned into three or four days) at an Amazon price, it will certainly NOT be a counterfeit, and I don't have to give my information so I don't feel like I am being tracked.
Lately my items generally show up on time but badly packaged. I would say 9 of the last 10 books I bought on Amazon have had some kind of visible damage, from minor cover dings to folded covers and ripped pages. The worst is when they put a single book into a bubble envelope that is so oversized the book can slide around and rotate a full 360 degrees inside the packaging. This is essentially a trade paperback book in an evvelope large enough to hold a textbook. I have avoided returns because I don’t want to get banned from Amazon over my satisfaction with a $12 book (they are known to fire customers with too many returns), but I have started purchasing the books I want that I see in indie shops at full list just to avoid this disappointing experience.
Honestly i’ve bought and returned plenty of stuff from Amazon. I never deal with their shit when something comes to me less than par. When I pay for prime, I expect to be paying for any mishandling of my items as well. Nearly every item i’ve wanted to return i’ve been told to just keep and i’ve never had any trouble with them. I always tell them i’m more than happy to send it back but they always refuse and just tell me to keep it anyways. I’ve been refunded several items in the $60-$70 range and told to keep it. It takes a lot to actually get flagged in their system. Especially if you’ve been a prime member for several years. (I think we’ve been members since 2008 or so). Don’t ever be scared to ask for it when it’s necessary and get your hard earned cash back.
Amazon is a small miracle. They stock everything, it comes right to your door, the prices are competitive in general and with Subscribe and Save you are doing even better. E-books are also incredible and with Prime you get Instant Video thrown in for free.
I'm sure bad experiences happen but compared to driving to the big box suburban wasteland to browse through a limited selection, Amazon is a godesend.
In my experience, Best Buy’s return policy and process has been awful. Granted it’s been years because it was so bad. Literally the worst of any store I’ve ever shopped at.
Last time I bought a router from them it was defective. I had to stand in line for over an hour. The clerk was surly and didn’t believe it was defective. Kept opening the box, pulling everything out, looking at all the pieces. Putting it all back. Over and over.
Then he didn’t said he couldn’t accept it because the receipt was ripped - which it was when the check-out person ripped it out of the register. He said they could take it back, but I wouldn’t be able to make any other returns.
I ended up asking for the manager who took another 15 minutes to arrive, argue and get it sorted.
Counterdote: I recently purchased a monitor at Best Buy, decided after a couple weeks I didn't like it (for a variety of reasons), and returned it without hassle. Just walked up to the counter, handed them my receipt, told them I didn't like it, and they handed me money. Took less than five minutes.
Not to continue this too far but ditto. Completely fine return experience. I also don't have to worry about fakes nearly as much at brick & mortar stores. That said I still use Amazon extensively, for better or for worse.
I exchanged an item at Best Buy about 2 months ago. Took about 5 minutes. Forgot my receipt, but they were able to find it with my cc. They opened up the box to make sure the original items were inside, and brought me a replacement while I was at the counter.
Still not quite as good as Costco or REI, but at least with BB I know I'm getting the good I actually purchased and not some cheap Chinese knockoff.
> Where are people getting all these chinese knock offs? I have never had this happen on Amazon I am curious what products people are getting
Here's a 1 TB microSD card [1]. No such product legitimately exists [2], so it must be a data-destroying counterfeit.
4.5 stars, $80.
That one was easy to spot, but it's my understanding that pretty much every MacBook charger on Amazon is a kock-off counterfeit [3]. They get the case perfect, but the electronics inside are a fire hazard [4].
> This item is only available from third-party sellers.
I know that it’s not fair to expect customers to distinguish between legit and shady listings, but I consider this effectively a “do not buy this product” warning.
What have you done to verify you never received a knock-off?
I checked every one of my SD cards when I learned about Amazon's problem with fakes... Turns out I'd bought two fake SanDisk cards. They looked and worked like the real ones but the serial numbers were invalid. Maybe they'd continue working fine, or maybe one day I'd lose 64GB of photos in the middle of a vacation... who knows?
Needless to say, that destroyed my in Amazon. How can they guarantee they aren't selling malicious IOT devices, counterfeit healthcare products, cheap kitchenware made of toxic materials, or even the products of slave labor?
This has been the secret in my experience. Pay for Prime, and only buy Prime items. For me the convenience is worth it, even though I know I’m feeding directly into what Amazon wants; to not fix their massive counterfeit problem.
> This has been the secret in my experience. Pay for Prime, and only buy Prime items. For me the convenience is worth it, even though I know I’m feeding directly into what Amazon wants; to not fix their massive counterfeit problem.
That won't really help. There are prime-eligible counterfeits shipped from Amazon's warehouses due to the Fulfilled by Amazon program. Even buying from a known trustworthy seller is not enough, as Amazon commingles FBA/Prime-eligible inventory from multiple sellers of the same item:
Lower-cost electronics, mostly, and toys. So: memory cards, USB and power cables, batteries, etc. That's all stuff I now buy at Best Buy. I've purchased my last 3 TVs from Best Buy; and generally any purchase that I need to play with before fulling the trigger, like cameras.
Also: anything food-related that's by a major brand (like Oxo or Rubbermaid) I buy from a local store, as a lot of the Chinese Alibrands don't comply with FDA requirements but are advertised as if they were.
I told this story before, but I got a charger with a fake Intertek (an UL competitor) mark. Intertek had an alert on their site that this company just put their mark on a product. I told amazon cs and they refunded my money... but continued to sell the fraudulent product.
This was 2+ years ago and the last thing I will ever buy on amazon that uses electricity.
> Then he didn’t said he couldn’t accept it because the receipt was ripped. He said they could take it back, but I wouldn’t be able to make any other returns.
Looks like somebody being told by the manager not to accept returns or over return quota or something. Something shady definitely going on there... I never had such experience with local BB store, but I guess it depends a lot on local management.
This. While Best Buy can be convenient in a pinch the company, in terms of after-purchase-support is a joke. Case in point I ordered a washer/dryer set from them a couple months ago. Overall it saved about $50 but I felt like I was helping a local company as Best Buy HQ is here. Never again. Not only did they not show up with my delivery 3 times they had the nerve to show up over 90 minutes late the delivery day and had excuse after excuse after excuse. The moved me between two different escalation support people (out of TX) because of the first misstep and never provided me an easy path to contact anyone directly in the process. On top of all that ordering on .com means anyone local is 100% useless. I emailed the Best Buy CEO spam inbox and ended up negotiating $250 back after they ended up wasting well over 16 hours of my personal time waiting on no-shows and on the phone. I won't spend another dime with them after the Geek Squad manager who came out on delivery day as a "premium convenience to make sure everything went smoothly" drove back and forth in front of my house for an hour because he clearly knew the delivery was, yet again, late and he didn't acknowledge or apologize for the failure to deliver as promised. When I called him out on it he flat out lied to me. Best Buy seems to be a lot of internally segmented groups, none of which are empowered to solve a customer problem.
By law a company can not refuse to return a defective item I believe. Whether they do it or refer you to the manufacturer, one way or another you are fully entitled to a refund if the item is defective. The whole "You can't make any returns if you make x amount" is more a scare tactic.
> In my experience, Best Buy’s return policy and process has been awful. Granted it’s been years because it was so bad. Literally the worst of any store I’ve ever shopped at.
Last few times I've had to return something to Best Buy, it's been pretty painless and quick. They know their competition is Amazon and one of its strengths is its return experience.
I have a 10 minute rule. If I’m in line or get hassled for a return, I get chargeback. With Americans express, you can do it online from your phone with no hassle at all.
Most retail purchases can be returned via the credit card no problem.
I have no doubt you'll get flagged at some point. I felt the same way before I even knew they would close my account. It didn't matter that the account was created in the 90's or early 2000's or that I had been a prime member for years or that I was spending around $10k a year there. They even kept my prime payment and didn't refund it. It's just a game of chance with their systems. You simply will never know what you did that triggered them but eventually, I think many prolific Amazon users get their accounts closed. Never mind that all the returns/problems are because Amazon carries fake shit, garbage products, and lately, won't even attempt to deliver packages with their shit ass Amazon delivery service (those assholes should all be fired). This is no doubt why Best Buy is flourishing.
> It's just a game of chance with their systems. You simply will never know what you did that triggered them but eventually, I think many prolific Amazon users get their accounts closed.
For Amazon customers in the EU, GDPR is supposed to help with the "You simply will never know what you did that triggered them" part as they are required to explain what led them to close the account.
Yikes. That sucks. I’ve heard once your account is flagged there is literally nothing you can do to use Amazon anymore. Can you elaborate on how it happened to you and when? I am pretty liberal when it comes to returns but I don’t use the system unless necessary.
I'm not sure why but I just got an email that said that my account might be in violations of their return policy. I stopped using them and a couple of months later, they sent another email saying the account was closed. Whatever I did, it was very typical shopping behavior for a small household and small business. There were a number of returns of fake / broken items. I figured that was Amazon's business. Selling a ton of fake / broken garbage and eating the returns because they are aware of the shitty quality of their merchandise. It literally is most of their business!!! Whatever it was, I never got clarification because Amazon doesn't have an actual return policy that can be violated in this way. They are just a bunch of liars and thieves. They sell fake / broken shit and they steal your prime membership money. Seriously, what kind of shitty company does business this way and treats their paying members this way? Fuck them.
That sounds typical to me. This far I have had a slightly higher than 50% success rate with AmazonBasics items. I don’t think I will be purchasing many more. Especially since they have started forcing me to mail back $5 defective chargers before they will send a replacement.
If you believe your account is flagged, you can sell that account to people who are willing to purchase Aged Amazon accounts, they will buy out the remainder of your Amazon prime payments.
Sell reviews, more than likely. A review left by a seasoned account with an established and long purchase history appears far more legitimate than from an obvious shill account, and is correspondingly more valuable.
The same sort of incentive can be found in a lot of places. There's a pretty niche but healthy market for aged companies, for example. So rather than winding down and dissolving your entity, you can make a few bucks by selling it. And rather than making a new company, you would just buy one of those dormant entities. With multiple incentives, one of the primary being that the established entity will have an aged enough paper trail to pass a lot of fraud checks and credit opportunities that a new entity couldn't.
Oh yeah. When you get flagged in their system it’s pretty brutal. But you have to be extremely malicious to have it happen to you. Especially if you have a strong background with the company (member for many year + prime member for many years). Not only will they black list your address but every address on the account you own, meaning if you sent your friends a gift from amazon they will not longer be able to use amazon anymore. They go above and beyond for the abusers of the system. But to be flagged for that abuse, it typically is extreme circumstances. You can be very liberal with their return policy as long as you’re not malicious you’ll be okay.
You make a very strong statement regarding a data point of one, that is to say yourself.
Immediately thereafter you list a way you can get flagged through no fault of your own because a friend who was flagged shipped things your your address as a gift.
I don't want to have to establish a strong background of years of membership in order not to get treated like trash. I'm not interviewing for a job or a date I just want to give you my money for goods that aren't counterfeit.
When you have a large minority of fakes and problem shipments you are going to have outliers. People whom you shipped 5 fakes/broken stuff in a row.
Banning these people means that not only can I not trust you to sell me a legit good I can't trust you not to turn your back on me afterwards.
Haha, I did a lot of research back in the day when I first started using prime to make sure that all the crap I received that I believed warranted a return wouldn't have my account banned. I wasn't just using my own experiences, but my research experience as well. I do agree with the rest of your statement though. Although if you ran Amazon you'd probably have to also agree with banning people that take extreme advantage of the system (obviously extreme, not semi-advantaging the system). Unlike Walmart or Best Buy, when you return things to Amazon you also have to account for shipping to and from the customer. I understand why Amazon does it-- if even 0.5% of the Amazon population took advantage it would be ridiculously unprofitable for Amazon to be running.
Now the fact that they sell fake crap and expect people not to use the return policy is obviously ridiculous. If you're going to continue selling fake crap, then you better be willing to allow people to return that fake crap without consequences. So I definitely agree with your point.
Part of the appeal of Kindle for me is that I'm really shitty at keeping backups effectively.
Separate AWS account won't necessarily save you - if they can connect the two by name, address, credit card, etc. they're at risk. If you've got a business, having it under the business name might do the trick, but that's still a risk.
Bought a couple of fixed sleeve professional mechanical pencils from them. They came loose, along with another, much heavier item, in a box without padding. All just bouncing around against each other.
Even when padding is put into a shipping box, often it's a rectangle or two of "air pillow" that doesn't come close to filling the free space. And/or some of the pillows are broken and deflated.
I've become concerned about how they will ship things.
And, with news of their apparent "kill accounts with too many returns" overreach or arbitrary-ness... Yes, ordering from Amazon is no longer a no-brainer.
(Not to mention the counterfeit problem; that, I myself mostly seem to have avoided by paying attention to the listed fulfillers. And the $150 billion versus temp employees who have to pee in bottles and collect benefits disparity.)
Sorry, I reiterate, occasionally in comments, because at this point, I believe bad PR is the only thing I can contribute to that has any impact.
Well, also, starting to make more of an effort to shop competitors, as pointed out in this comment thread. As to that, secure your payments process. For a while, that helped hold me to Amazon.
Amazon's packing skills have lead me to order in batches that I think will ship well together. Once I see that heavy item that is going to pound and smash the other items has shipped I'll order the rest. It is less than ideal, but as long as they suck at packing they can deal with two orders instead.
Only, you have to space your orders -- wait at least a day in between making them. Otherwise, their system often combines them and you end up with one box, anyway.
Kind of defeats the quick delivery convenience/reputation they are after.
Fire customers? I've never heard of that. My household is a heavy Prime user, and we make returns pretty frequently (few times a month). We've never had any issue.
It's more a ratio thing I think. If you buy a lot you can return a lot and still have a low return ratio. Plus it makes a difference if you buy and return only vs buy, return and get a different or replacement product.
Given my rate of book damage, I also have low confidence that the replacement item would arrive in good condition so exchange seems like a waste if time. I want to buy things and have them show up undamaged. Is it so much to ask?
I’ll be the last to defend amazon but there are people that abuse the lax return policy (there are plenty of guides on the web of how best to do this) and it is unsurprising that amazon will address it.
Not that I feel sorry for them in anyway. Their stock mixing is basically fraud. The only thing that is more maddening are the corporate submissive boneheads that rise to the defense of the prime service whenever someone has a legitimate complaint.
Alibris is site that's very similar to AbeBooks, but thankfully not owned by Amazon.
I think Alibris is _especially_ wonderful from a seller's perspective. Their chat support is friendly and efficient, and does not seem to be an outsourced and overworked call center, but actual Alibris employees who can fix things.
> they are known to fire customers with too many returns
I think you are being overly cautious. I've been buying with Amazon for many years and returned a bunch of stuff for various reasons, and only times I had issues were third-party vendors, but Amazon never objected or gave me any trouble with returns. Of course I guess if you actively abuse it they have some triggers, but I don't think honest use has high probability of triggering it.
you should definitely return those things. I've never heard of them firing their customers. I don't think Amazon got to where they are by offering a terrible service. And even if they do ban you, you can always go to a indie book store and there's plenty of other places online that sell books.
• Prime shipping is no longer certain to be two days.
• Those which are assured to arrive within two days don't always do so, but I never get a credit for that delay against my prime membership for a failure to meet their SLA even though I'm supposedly covered with some sort of guarantee.
• Prime shipping is no longer certain to source from Amazon warehouses.
• And worst of all: Amazon commingles Amazon-sourced with FBA merchandise. I've had numerous issues with counterfeits from "sold by Amazon" listings in the last two years because of this.
I have been meaning to get into the FBA business and I downloaded the Helium10 extension for this. It allows you to see the inventory status of an item you are viewing on Amazon.
It is shocking how many times something that says `sold by Sony` or `Amazon` yet I press `inventory` on the menu that the extension injects into the product page and surprise, surprise, most of the stock is coming from FBA sellers.
imagine a more consumer-oriented extension that could list whether a given amazon product was likely to have commingled inventory or not - do you think this is possible?
I’ve never not gotten a monetary credit or a month of Prime when a guaranteed delivery misses its date. Quick email to CS and it’s sorted the next day.
Same experience here. I buy books from them frequently (Prime) and it's been years since they had proper packaging for books. It must save them time and money. I can't help but wonder if they're playing a numbers game, with a spreadsheet model showing it's more profitable to do it that way because "enough" customers will tolerate it and not demand an exchange. If a book arrives damaged I request an exchange, and have never had a problem doing that.
PS: Been reading HN for a while now. This is my first post.
I've had a lot of "two day" Amazon shipping turn into 3 or 4... the arrival date even on Amazon will show in the past for a few days.
What used to be a sure thing from Amazon, I now just think of as "maybe".
Having said that the crazy mess (tiny isles and disorganized) and $20 USB cables were Best Buy stores made me give up on them a long time ago. I've visited a few times recently to hopefully get a look at some laptops, but they always only had a collection off odd models and wonky specs.
I almost bought a calendar on Prime today only to see that it "usually ships in 1-2 months(!)"
Increasingly it feels like as a Prime subscriber I pay for shipping twice: once with my prime subscription, and a second time with the shipping cost built in to the price compared to other retailers. I ended up getting an equivalent item from Target, which ended up being cheaper even without "free" shipping.
That's super annoying. Amazon needs to be clear when an item is going to take a damn month to arrive. A giant huge warning at the top of the page telling me that I should be okay with waiting 1990's amount of time to get the package. And I should be able to filter it out of the search results, too.
I bought hangers, HANGERS, from Amazon, shipped and made by AmazonBasics, and they're "Arriving Aug 15 - Sep 21". Uhh? Well now I'm gonna have to go to the store anyway because I need hangers NOW not 5 damn years from now. Also how is it possible to have a whole MONTH for the expected delivery date?
Working at a distributor, it's actually really common for vendors to have ETAs that are months wide and pushed back multiple times.... Supply chains are hard.
I have seen the same thing, and I won't be renewing Prime when my current subscription expires. I mainly got it for the free 2-day shipping -- I very rarely use the Video or other services.
I see it on Amazon, but it is interesting to look it at a macro level. If you are a third party selling on amazon without offering prime shipping, you have to cut your price to equal or lower to the amazon price or else no one would ever buy from you. So it is more that prime is forcing third party prices down to compete than Amazon double charging prime users.
Having said that the crazy mess (tiny isles and disorganized) and $20 USB cables were Best Buy stores made me give up on them a long time ago.
You should pop by again and see if it's still the same. The last Best Buy I went to has massive aisle spacing and was highly organized. That doesn't mean I was easily able to find what I was looking for (headphones are scattered around different departments), but what you describe is not what I've seen lately.
Like other people have said, the only reason I go to Best Buy is because I need something right now. (Replace a failed hard drive, for example.) I don't expect to get the best buy; I'm paying for the convenience.
If you are a Prime buyer and your package is not delivered by the promised date, you can request and receive a free one-month extension of your Prime membership. I have done this several times. For obvious reasons, Amazon doesn't publicize this much.
They did that for me a couple of times, but what started to happen is packages were mark delivered, then not be there. I complained to Amazon, who gave me the run around (and kept it open), so when it came a day later, there was all the sudden no issue.
Write them anyway. I’ve had that BS, usually from USPS or UPS Mail Innovations (which is horrific service), and a quick email to CS gets me the credit (money or a month of Prime).
I think it depends who reviews the complaints. Every single time I've responded, my complaint (which I always word calmly, non-aggressively, and politely) are met with the response that "2-day shipping only guarantees that the package ships to your nearest Amazon warehouse within 2 days. The actual delivery time can vary, and while it is typical that the delivery will arrive on the same day it arrives at the warehouse, there's no guarantee." And nothing more. Well, one time I was offered a $5 credit. But that's the most I've ever been offered.
At this point I already cancelled my prime with Amazon, and generally try to buy things from other sites if possible. The counterfeit issue alone makes me avoid them whenever possible.
I have had so many of these "free one-month extensions" from late Prime packages that I currently have six months of Prime membership credits applied to my account. I've been joking lately that if I were to actually pay for 2 day shipping, I'd get my package on-time.
I cancelled Prime because far too many orders would not come in on time. They kept giving me free months of Prime, but eventually I started thinking I could do better than free months of bad service.
I rarely ever buy anything from Amazon now unless I don't mind when the product comes in, the price is competitive, and the product is not the sort of thing which is often counterfeited. Their Amazon Basics brand frequently satisfies these rules.
Part of me wonders if they allow the counterfeiting for exactly that reason, so you know the Amazon basics will not be, then they can make yet more money off of you.
I'm trying to think of the last time I've had something not show up within 2-3 days. I suppose that this issue may vary quite a bit depending on where you live. I'm in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, and there are 6-8 large Amazon warehouses in this area alone, and Dallas itself is an Amazon Flex area.
I live in Austin, and I had pretty bad experiences when trying to get packages delivered to my apartment. The problem seemed to be with the carriers, who basically refuse to deliver to my apartment. My guess is that the carriers believe packages are too likely to be stolen where I live, so they refuse delivery.
To be fair to them, I might have had one package stolen, perhaps by an employee of a carrier. I don't know what happened other than that delivery was claimed to occur but no package appeared. Amazon was kind enough to to resend that one.
I can recall one time where UPS told me to drive to their facility in north Austin to pick up a package. I told them that they were paid to deliver and I won't be doing that. I can recall another time where I got a door tag from USPS that told me to go to a particular post office to pick it up, and it wasn't there when I arrived.
The most annoying part is that I think no attempt was made to deliver a fraction of these packages. I often would not receive door tags, and I can recall one time where UPS claimed they attempted delivery but refused because I apparently was not there where I believe I likely was there. No door tag that time either. The UPS driver seemed irritated at me when they finally did deliver the package.
I can also vaguely recall at a previous apartment (also in Austin) having some problems where delivery was claimed to occur but did not actually occur. That problem stopped at some point.
Even before then, when I lived in the Washington DC area, I can recall having major problems with LaserShip, who would do last-mile delivery in the area. Amazon seemed dedicated to using LaserShip. I recall canceling Prime back then specifically because LaserShip was so bad, and then starting again when I moved and LaserShip was no longer an option. You can read horror stories online about LaserShip. I vaguely recall one instance where they left a package in the rain that made me look them up and not trust them any longer.
None of this is necessarily Amazon's fault. The vast majority of packages that I received were from Amazon, and I haven't had problems with others, however. Might be that the carriers figure Amazon packages are more valuable than other ones.
In contrast, I've had no problems receiving packages at work from Amazon, but my work doesn't want me to receive personal packages there and I don't have a car, so I can't take large packages from work.
I noticed this with past issues, but recently I was offered a best case scenario of a $10 credit on my next order that is "sold and shipped by Amazon".
One issue I have with Amazon is the lack of a concrete return policy. I was looking in to order a relatively bulky item (soundbar) and I wasn't sure if I would like it. The best item-specific return policy information I could get was that I "may" have to pay for return shipping and that I "may" be charged a restocking fee.
I went to a brick and mortar store instead, bought the same product for the same price with a well-defined return policy. I ended up not being impressed with the sound and was able to return it without hassle.
For small items where out of pocket return shipping wouldn't be too expensive I'll go to Amazon, but for large items I'll stick to places with a local presence.
I agree that they don't have a clear returns policy, and this is a huge problem IMO. Also, if you buy from a "marketplace" (aka third party) seller instead of Amazon, they can have a return policy that's different from Amazon's (or other marketplace sellers).
As far as items ordered directly from Amazon, I've found them to only give free return shipping if the item is broken or there's another issue that's Amazon's fault. They don't seem to give free return shipping if I just don't like the product. (At least that's how it is for my account. I've heard some of these policies are different for different account holders!)
For things like that,I generally order from Target or Walmart so I can an return it, hassle free and no worry of shipping fees or damage on the way back.
I also was recently in the market for a laptop and the listings for Amazon were so confusing and full of pitfalls it reminded me of the bad old days of eBay. Like three-line item titles making it hard to discern what model you were buying. I ended up buying from Best Buy.
I would never buy a laptop from Best Buy, Amazon, or any other third party retailer. Consumer PC laptops are like most Android phones -- full of third party crapware.
I only buy either the business line of laptops from Dell or HP or I'll buy from the Microsoft Store - either online or physical store.
The bundled crapware has nothing to do with where you buy your PC. Best Buy doesn’t install anything on the PCs they sell. Dell does, HP does, Lenovo does. You get the same crap if you buy direct or from a retailer.
If you buy a “Microsoft Signature” device, you pay a small premium essentially for the manufacturer to agree not to install crap. You might (or might not) get the same from the manufacturer if you buy a “business” laptop. But it all cases, it’s the manufacturer installing whatever crap comes on your PC.
> Best Buy doesn’t install anything on the PCs they sell.
This isn't necessarily true. Some PCs are Best Buy specific models, with extra bloatware from Best Buy (in addition to the OEM bloatware from Dell / HP / Lenovo).
This also affects physical components sometimes. I remember from laptop shopping a few months ago, that the MSI GS63 Stealth laptop ships with a crappier screen specifically for the Best Buy model, where as most other models had a decent screen. This was done so that the Best Buy model would have an artificially-low price in comparison to online retailers.
They don’t see it as devaluing — the people who buy the cheapest thing have very little loyalty, and everyone else isn’t buying the cheap, adware-subsidized models anyway.
This explains the second part: it’s less that Apple charges a premium than that they don’t enter low-end segments. If you compare them to equivalent quality PCs (Surface, Signature edition, etc.) there’s not much of a difference.
Most business buyers understand this so I think the managers making those calls think of the consumer and business lines as almost separate brands, with the latter being both more profitable and longer term, and thus less likely to get nickel and dimed.
I think the market is more of a gradient and less of a clear bifurcation between budget and premium. If you are spending around a thousand dollars, you are not getting a top-of-the-line PC and there likely is some less egregious bundled software on it, but it's not bottom-of-the-barrel either.
PC manufacturers lost any perceived brand difference the minute they decided to take marketing dollars from Intel and add an “Intel Inside” sticker on their computers and add it to their ads and when they decided to co Rand with Windows even to the point of including a Windows logo to their keyboards. The only thing most consumers know and care about is that it’s a computer running Windows with an Intel chip.
People use to always talk about the “Windows tax” and say that computers would cost less if they didn’t come with Windows. Actually the opposite is true. With all of the deals they can make preinstalling bloat on their computers, OEMs could make more than enough to offset the cost of a Windows license. They couldn’t do that with alternative OS’s.
They probably could -- if there were a large demand for Linux laptops, there's no particular reason they couldn't come pre-installed with Linux-based adware.
I bought a desktop Gateway from BestBuy awhile back. It had Best Buy specific crapware and the "special edition" Dell was the same price from the MS store as it was from Dell's website.
Buying the business line from Dell gets you better local support and no crapware.
Sometimes Best Buy has exclusive models that have specific software put on there by the manufacturer. You can usually verify if you are getting one of those models by googling the full model number to see if there are other sellers than Best Buy out there.
They probably have slightly different hardware to keep a price edge. But anyway, to anyone on HN I'd think bundled software is pretty much a non-issue; I've always installed Windows fresh and I feel like doing that isn't a big deal if you are technical.
Well, I am an MSDN subscriber. But if you aren't, can't you get a "recovery disc" from Microsoft somewhere and then use the serial on the label? I can recall doing something like this in the past.
Not so much, but as recently as five years ago. They don't pre-image, but they open up the computer, and Geek Squad "optimizes" and "preps" it for you, including installing a bunch of crapware.
And then when you ask for one that hasn't been "prepared" they look at you like "why would you ever want that?" and when you insist, they'll apologize that they have none of that model in stock that haven't been prepared.
In some cases it does matter. There is a local PC store that is very overpriced, but they will build custom machines to your spec. I used to build my own machines as a hobby, but I just really don't have time for that any more. Not every city has one of these PC shops, mind you.
I prefer local stores for computers as well, since I know where they work and they know that I know where they work.
I just used my own license to install a fresh copy of Windows, so I didn't care. My laptop was a great deal so I am assuming I saved money over that route and I didn't really find it inconvenient.
I bought a MS Surface Pro a couple months back and they load it up full of "crapware" too. Thee are numerous games with constant pop-ups indicating what a deal I'll be getting if I only spend $99.95 for credits to keep playing, as well as the trial versions of MS Office that expire after 30 days.
You don't need third party crap when you're getting a machine with Apple Maps and iTunes.
Don't Microsoft make it easy to remove all the crap ware these days?
I must defend Notepad here. I enjoy having a simple text editor included on my machine that doesn’t try correct words or style anything. I often paste text from Word or Google Docs into Notepad, then paste into a WYSIWYG editor simply to remove all the inline span tags and other crust. Comes in handy when training others how to WordPress, for instance. TextEdit, on the other hand, is a rich text editor and gets in the way for this use case.
I know it doesn't add a ton to the conversation to share an anecdote, but this conversation is really interesting to me right now. Tomorrow my new Asus Q325UA arrives, shipped from Best Buy. If you've never heard of the Q325UA, or have trouble finding reviews online, that's because it's the Best Buy version of the Flip S. In theory, it's very much the same machine, though I'm not sure from reviews if the Flip S typically ships with the sleeve or Asus mini dock - the Best Buy version only includes the Stylus. I'll find out the software situation tomorrow... and we'll see how the hardware does.
ETA: With a little research, I believe the primary hardware difference is SSD. SATA in Best Buy version, PCI-e in the Flip S.
After getting multiple counterfeits from Amazon (including Ships/Sold from Amazon.com) due to the inventory commingling, if Best Buy stocks it, I'll go there instead.
As long as the SKU matches. A lot of products tend to have a Best Buy specific SKU which prevents you from price matching on amazon, because amazon doesn't sell the same exact product. I had this happen a few years ago when purchasing a router.
Yeah, lots of companies do this. Wal-mart is another one.
My television comes with a built-in DVR in most stores. But I got it at Fry's, so it has a special SKU and the DVR disabled so it can't be price matched.
My recent experience trying to get Fry's to price match something on Amazon was horrible. It was a simple USB - Serial cable, and Fry's had it for about $9 more than Amazon. They (Fry's) insisted on factoring in sales tax and then calculated UPS 2nd day shipping, even when I told them I was already a Prime member, and then argued that it was their company policy.
That was the last time I shopped at Fry's, and after 20 years of shopping there, I find myself unlikely to go back.
It's in their interest to do it anyway. Going back 30 years to when I was into photography, the local camera stores had a huge problem with customers coming in, consulting on cameras or lenses or other stuff, and then buying from Adorama or another big mail-order house.
If Best Buy doesn't price-match, some people will browse at the store and then buy online wherever it's cheapest.
"I don't have to give my information so I don't feel like I am being tracked."
Uhhh, you for sure will.
First - BB is very aggressive on getting this stuff from you cleanly, i.e. name, addy, phone number - so they can 'track you'.
Second - VISA/MC transactions will absolutely be used for that and they'll try to match up their in-store with online experiences. FYI - Visa/MC/Amex will literally sell your transaction data to almost anyone. I went in to do a deal with Amex, their only concern was selling us all sorts of your buying data.
I am curious how they are "very aggressive". What happens with me is they say "what is your phone number?" and I say "no thank you", and they just skip it. Though it may just be my experience with them.
You are correct with the credit card, they will most likely track you, but you have the option to use cash if you wish.
1. Not provide your email address
2. Pay in Cash
3. Don't give your home address
That is literally the only way you can't be tracked. But there are so many times you are prompted to provide that information:
* would you like a receipt to be sent to your email address?
* would you like to sign up for our debit card and get $40 in savings?
* would you like us to home deliver this free accessory which is unfortunately not in stock at this time?
You have to have Stallman level of rigor if you are serious about not being tracked.
I have never had the third one happen to me honestly. But really I just politely say "no" each time. It really hasn't been a big deal for me, but your experience my be different than mine.
...or you pay with card, politely decline a membership and email receipt, and provide a trivial amount of tracking data compared to the amount Amazon gets from you merely visiting a product's page.
Yes, but unfortunately credit card transactions get sold to third parties by the CC companies regardless, so it's quite possible Amazon gets to track me with that either way.
I love the puzzled looks of clerks when they ask for my phone number or address and I decline. I've only once had to resort to "I can make up a phone number if you really want one".
You always have the option to pay with cash at Best Buy, don't you?
I assume all credit card transactions are sold to third parties no matter the retailer. The only exceptions are large enough companies like Amazon/Google who are in enough categories that they can make more money using your information first party than they can by selling it. It's not that Amazon/Google respect your privacy more than other retailers, they're just sharing it with other departments instead of other orgs.
Because without quotes it would just be improper English and poor grammar; 'same day' is a term, not proper language. I would have to write "It would be nice to get stuff without waiting" or "nice to get stuff on the same day that I purchased" etc..
> FYI - Visa/MC/Amex will literally sell your transaction data to almost anyone
Any way to opt out of this? I try to opt out of all the sharing I can with my bank, but if it's being sold at the Visa/MC/Amex level, I'm skeptical that helps.
Gets a copy of. Not processes; that's still done by the CC processor. But your transactions are sold. Your name, item purchased, price paid, where, when, etc...
I was sold a set of counterfeit Powerbeats3 headphones at Best Buy about a year ago. No reason to be suspicious initially, but battery life, range, and pairing were never great. They stopped working after a month, and I brought them back to Best Buy. The attendant looked carefully at the headphones and told me that they wouldn't accept the return because the serial number on the headphones didn't match the one on the box or receipt.
Anyone want to tell me how that could happen?
In any case, I called Apple, and they said that the serial number on my headphones was a duplicate and sent me a new set. Range, battery life, and pairing with the legit model are now all great.
There's both a Best Buy and Microcenter near me (I feel very fortunate about this). I always buy from one of those two when I can instead of Amazon. It's always preferable to not deal with shipping at all, especially considering receiving packages at an apartment complex is never quite ideal, and it's always same-day.
There are other benefits as well. A year ago, I was trying to decide between a 27" 1440p 16:9 144hz monitor vs. a 34" 1440p 21:9 100hz monitor. Microcenter made it super easy for me to just try out both and return one. I suppose I could've done this with Amazon but it wouldn't have been as straightforward. (I went with the latter, for what it's worth.)
> vs. Amazon's "two day shipping" that regularly turned into three or four days
Where are you that this is true? This is directly opposite of my experience. I genuinely can't remember the last time a Prime/2-day shipment was delayed. In fact, I'll routinely and deliberately pay a premium to purchase something via Amazon Prime (both within Amazon and across internet vendors) precisely because of the confidence I have in their shipping reliability. No one else comes close, frankly.
That said, in fact I don't tend to buy BestBuy-style products at Amazon very often, precisely because these things are available at competetive prices at retail. Amazon wins for things I don't feel like "shopping" for.
> Where are you that this is true? This is directly opposite of my experience. I genuinely can't remember the last time a Prime/2-day shipment was delayed.
It happens all the time where I live. It's also not uncommon for my Prime packages to get totally lost by Amazon Logistics (I've never had that happen with another courier). At least now they automatically cancel those orders, I previously used to have to call them to tell them what to do when they lost my packages.
I've had multiple bad experiences with Amazon Logistics. They routinely ship things 2-3 days late and update the tracking information with some nonsense about "attempting to deliver the package but no one was home," which I don't buy for a second. They also routinely deliver to the wrong address. One time tracking information was updated to "delivered" and my package showed up at the building next door to mine 3 days later. I came close to canceling prime the last time this happened.
I live in the Bay Area...I've had items be very delayed. Used to never have an issue, but recently (last 12 months or so) it seems like every other order has a delay of some sort (1 day or much longer).
My favorite last experience was:
- Amazon saying a package was delivered, it was not since I was at the delivery location...
- Amazon sent me an e-mail the next day saying they were deeply sorry for losing my shipment (unprompted since I didn't report it lost yet) and they needed to contact me regarding refund or re-fufillment...
- Finally a "neighbor" a few streets over came by with my package the next day. So all in all a 4 day delivery experience instead of a 2 day one.
Anyway, I don't know what they changed up about their supply chain, but something is much less reliable than it used to be. My hunch is their move towards more usage of their own "contract driver" model rather than something like FedEx or UPS. But that's just speculation.
So their gig driver delivered to the wrong house. Amazon figured it out, and reached out to make it right. That seems pretty decent customer service to me.
Probably exactly what happened. Wasn't trying to make a negative stab at Amazon besides the fact their two day Prime deliveries have not been reliable for me recently (and it used to be very reliable). This is just one experience among others. Never had an issue for years...and then all of a sudden a number of mistimed deliveries or incorrect deliveries all around the same time.
I think Amazon gets around this with legalese by guaranteeing it will leave the factory within two days ("shipping"), but they won't guarantee the day it arrives at your door ("delivery")
> vs. Amazon's "two day shipping" that regularly turned into three or four days
I find this experience interesting. Here in the UK amazon offers next day delivery (and in same cases, same day delivery), and often delivers next day even when they don't claim they will.
From observing comments here, it seems to be regional and dependent on the carrier. In my experience it has been the USPS (though I am sure people in other regions will say UPPS is fine, but UPS is bad, or FedEx is bad). When I saw that Amazon was shipping via USPS, I automatically knew not to bother to check for it until at least the third day of the "two day" shipping. What was even more annoying is half the time it got marked as "delivered". I tried a couple of times to complain to Amazon, but that got me to no where.
I guess it depends on where you are. UPS is awesome where I am. They are always on time and have even called me to come meet them when they couldn't get up my road in the winter.
FedEx is hit and miss, depends on the contractor. One just stuffed a package in my mail box and marked it as delivered on my "Front Porch". My mail box is a mile away. Close, but no.
Amazon shipping - I hope it never expands to my area.
Same thing here. It doesn't seem to be Amazon as much as USPS thing. It is a game of pretend. I had once UPS guy do this few times, but I called Amazon and then UPS to complain.
In reality, most of the time I don't care when exactly it will arrive, but for that one thing I do, it always is day late :).
Here in the UK amazon offers next day delivery (and in same cases, same day delivery), and often delivers next day even when they don't claim they will.
The U.S. has next day and same-day delivery from Amazon, as well. It also has two-hour delivery in most cities.
But not every item is available in every delivery window. And not all delivery windows are available in all locations.
One of the advantages of living in a small country like the U.K. is that it's much easier to cover the whole territory. (U.S. is 40x larger than U.K., with 1/8th the density.)
Even though it's habitual for euro-HNers to compare themselves to the U.S., it's more often than not meaningless.
Generally agree w/ your sentiment but don't assume you aren't being tracked. You most assuredly are. If you get a chance, try looking up how retailers are now sharing/selling "Level 3" data with some 3rd parties.
not just at the point of sale though. from license plate scanning in the parking lot, to facial recognition and traffic analysis in the store, modern brick and mortar retail is not far behind e-commerce when it comes to privacy intrusions to collect data.
Also, you are probably bringing your phone into the store, and it's emitting all sorts of identifying info. I've read about businesses selling tech that uses that info to identify you and uses the signal to track where you go in the store.
I'm a lot less concerned about retail stores tracking me via cell signal, as it requires much more specialized hardware/software - meanwhile, it's likely feasible to modify extant in-store WiFi infrastructure to track that.
The counterfeit issue seems to be getting worse, not better. It's also become harder to differentiate legitimate listings from the manufacturer versus a third-party. I bought my smart TV from Best buy simply because I don't trust Amazon anymore. I'm having a hard time thinking what I wouldn't be suspicious of on Amazon...clothes are regularly counterfeit, colognes, electronics... Maybe books?
Anything worth counterfeiting likely is. A mass-market Dan Brown novel? A book is a book; as long as it's in English, you don't expect much from it, and it won't explode if improperly printed. A first-edition Lord of the Rings? Yeah, no. At that point it's less a book and more a collectible.
Software is also pirated on Amazon/eBay-- everything from resold OEM licenses (sans disc) to hacked binaries (sans DRM).
> I know that I will get it that day (vs. Amazon's "two day shipping" that regularly turned into three or four days)...
I've been seeing a big uptick in this, as well.
When I asked support, they gave me a response about "we only guarantee two days shipping time". There's no guarantee on order-to-ship time, and I've seen it go from reliably a couple of hours to 2-3 days at times.
Bought my tv from Best Buy (in Canada) last year. Better selection than Amazon for electronics plus free delivery and wall mount and a store in my city in case of service issues. For small electronics I can also just drive there instead of waiting two days for delivery.
I like Amazon a lot but Best Buy is doing well for themselves in the new retail era (so far). In some ways, I think Walmart may be a bigger issue for Best Buy because they have a huge selection and a bigger physical footprint.
I always use B&H or NewEgg and avoid Amazon, when buying flash memory and SD cards (in order to avoid counterfeits). I also bought an SD card from Best Buy recently because i needed it immediately.
Anyway, as for physical brick-n-mortal presence, I just wished that I had Micro Center where I live, instead of Best Buy, though. MicroCenter has far more inventories, more interesting stuff (like Raspberry Pis in store) and better prices as well.
The flip side of this is that they charge $50 more than Apple for an iPhone. Why make all your customers demand a price match for something so widely known? It seems like it would irk most people in the hopes of extracting a few bucks from a handful of folks.
But that call-in "customer support" is a deal killer. I made an online purchase, a cheap antenna (thank goodness). It arrived in a box with my address taped on it but with customized shirts inside. Boxes were damaged during shipping and when put back together, someone got my stuff and I got theirs. UPS - "it's not on us, contact Best Buy". So I decided to use this to test Best Buy's customer support. I call. Foreign accent. I explain very carefully, slowly, in detail. She didn't listen to a thing I said. Started asking questions that did not pertain to the situation whatsoever. More explanation. 10 minutes in. 15 minutes. Finally she says, oh, I have a tracking number right here and your new shipment is on its way! I said, give me the tracking number, a little surprised she found the solution so suddenly. She read it off. It was the identical tracking number of the damaged box I had just received, and UPS showed it delivered to my house already of course (the one with the shirts inside). Anything to get me off the line. I called her bluff and said "That's the same tracking number as the box that was already delivered and had shirts inside". She said "Well, it's not our responsibility anyway." Me, "goodbye". Only $15 (and 20 minutes of time) to determine to what extent Best Buy cares about customer support, and to guide my purchasing decisions accordingly.
After reaching out to their customer service to try and resolve it, the next call should've been to you bank. You could've disputed the charges and gotten a refund pretty easily.
I've had similar issues with Verizon support reps. What I've started doing is if I get the feeling they're not helping, I just hang up and call again. At least with Verizon I'd say 50% of agents know what they're talking about, so usually that works.
I know this is a shitty solution (and to be honest, I've never had to do the same with Amazon) but it does help.
I recently switched to T-Mobile from Verizon, because they were willing to straight up pay off the phone I bought a few months ago, whereas being a Verizon customer for a decade has given me basically no benefits whatsoever.
Anyway, there was a screwup with the reimbursement, and the one thing I'll give T-Mobile's customer service is that any time you contact them, they text a survey to you afterward, and if you express displeasure through the survey, man, they are all over that. You get a call back shortly after from someone in a department dedicated to fixing customer service issues.
I'm pretty sure it's the very first time that responding to one of those surveys wasn't a total waste of time. I really wish more companies handled it that way.
Call the executive office instead. I had to do that when they tried to charge an early termination fee a couple of years after the contract expired and while guy on the phone was quickly fixing that he casually mentioned that when the customer service rep seems like they don’t understand it’s usually that they aren’t allowed to do something AND can’t tell you this.
It sounded like the worst job in the world and it was unnerving how casually he described it as the natural order of things.
That's exactly what happened - makes me smile. And that someone also received their customized shirts (if all went as planned) because I noticed the shirts had a local company name imprinted. I gave the box with the shirts back to UPS, let them know what had gone down, and hopefully they took care of business.
A tiny side note, it used to be the same everywhere, but recently (I'm in Paris) businesses start to care about customer support. To the point they even advertise it quite visibly on commercials (all local tech support). There might be a change.
On that note, it's tiring to read your experience.. I had better help from minuscule ebay sellers somewhere in China..
Conversely, Amazon customer support is world-class. I've had multiple instances of things arriving DoA, or breaking some months later, and every time I've hopped on the text chat Amazon has just shipped me a new one without asking for the old one back
Like most Americans I order a shitload from Amazon. However the last item I bought from Best Buy was a TV (my old LG just ... died).
Ordered online, chose to pick up in store.
Drive 35 min to store
Pickup process takes 10-15 min
Drive 35 min home.
Left after dinner, was watching it that evening.
The only condition that would have prevented me from using this model would be traffic, as it could extend the trip by 60-90 minutes and would also increase my stress significantly.
Whereas Amazon would take 2-3 days (maybe more) and I'd be shitting bricks worrying about it getting damaged and being forced through the horrors of shipping a return.
I ordered a TV from Amazon. They use a third party service that schedules delivery with you. Two dudes came out with TV, unboxed and set it up (put on stand, plugged in power to verify its working).
A few days after delivery I noticed a red line running along the top of the screen. Contacted Amazon about replacement. There was some issue with doing a direct replacement so they had me purchase another TV and then refunded the cost.
Dude comes out and picks up busted TV, puts it in box. New dudes come out a few days later with new TV.
All of that is to say - it really wasn't a big deal to order it online. Shipping was still free. Also they took packaging material with them, so it was nice not having to deal with disposing of a gigantic box.
I can't tell whether you're happy with Amazon's service. It sounds to me like you waited for delivery, got a bad TV, waited for delivery again... but at least you don't have to deal with the box?
He could have gone to Best Buy, drove the TV home himself if he had a car a 65-inch TV would fit in, dealt with the packaging and setup himself, and then found out it was defective.
It sounds to me like he got pretty good service and avoided a lot of hassle by doing it through Amazon.
Interesting. We ordered one from Amazon, I think a 50inch, and it was put on our front doorstep in the tv box. It was undamaged thankfully, but it looked like a normal Fedex(or w/e) driver, not a special delivery at all.
I can second that. I’ve ordered 3 TVs from Amazon over the past two years - all relatively cheap TCL Roku TVs ( < $350), a 32, 49, and 55. One was lost in transit and I ended up cancelling the order. Another didn’t arrive when they said it should so I ended up picking it up from UPS. I had to unbox it to get it in my car. I probably wouldn’t trust Amazon for a more expensive purchase.
Ordered a TV from Amazon the same way. The dudes said it was not their job to actually put it on the stand despite paying for and ordering white glove delivery. Had to do it myself with a friend later as it was too big to put up alone. This was about ten years ago. In retrospect, I should have known better who I was dealing with, but like most people here, I was ignorant of what Amazon was really like. This is minor compared to all their other shit.
Did you pay extra to have it unboxed and turned on? How much was the TV? I'm wondering at what level, or price they offer this service? The TV I purchased was not expensive, and the Amazon alternative was one of their "house brands" with Alexa integrated so I wonder if they'd provide the same level of service.
Did they schedule the delivery with you or did they just show up?
It was a 65 inch Samsung KS8000, I think about 1500 at the time. The delivery, unboxing, etc, was all free (prime). I scheduled the delivery on checkout, you picked the day and from several 2 hour windows.
your parent comment got more than 120$ of benefit in a single order; if you amortize the cost of that prime membership across a year and use it like this it certainly seems closer to free.
That parent comment is now also locked-in and will justify Amazon's extortion to themselves by buying more things from them without bothering to check other stores.
They end up paying quite a bit beyond that $100/year fee.
Same experience for me. The first time, I bought TV from Amazon I was a bit nervous. But the experience was so great. No need to drive to store, find parking, fit huge box in my tiny car, park car in loading area, unload, move car.... so on.
Since then I have bought more TVs for myself and helped friends and family who were reluctant to order online. No bad experience so far.
I wonder what size TV you have to buy before that is how it works. I bought a 55 inch TV from them and it arrived shattered, shipped by UPS. The return was painless enough and the replacement was undamaged, but still, UPS and not a couple guys with the TV on a truck.
One reason Best Buy is still alive is that they effectively price discriminate between online buyers and in-store buyers.
I saw a deal for a 48” Vizio TV on bestbuy.com for $206 (in 2016, this was a screaming deal). I ordered for in-store pickup. When I went to the store, I saw the TV was listed for sale at $400 or so, with no indication of a better price online.
So Best Buy makes tons of money off folks who wander in, while doing good volume on online sales with lower margins.
I mean, convenience has a cost/value. Moseying to your local retailer and walking out with a thing has value. Now, whether that's ~$194 of value, IDK.
But like the original commenter, the thing I love about Best Buy (and other mortar and brick retailers) is the "I dont have to wait on shipping and lost orders" thing.
Oddly, I've had the opposite experience (in Canada): the online price would be the same as on Amazon. I wanted it now, so I went to the store (even though I hate driving to the suburbs/shopping mall), only to see that the item was 10% cheaper in the store.
(we always pay taxes for online purchases, so taxes are a non-issue)
How strange! I’d think that anyone who caught onto this pattern would check the in-store price before completing the pickup. If the price is lower in-store, you could just cancel the online order and purchase off the shelf!
A lot of stores have that model- effectively putting online in competition with brick and mortar. I heard the founder of Staples (Stemberg) speak to this early in e-retail. Somebody asked how they were handling the upcoming online pressure, and he said they made it a separate unit with their own strategies, etc.
Bought a TV from Amazon about 10 years ago. UPS couldn't deliver on the scheduled delivery day because the box was too big, and was stuck at the back of the truck. So I had to skip a day of work for no reason. They delivered it the next day in the early morning.
Sometimes, shipping issues are truly not Amazon's fault. Yet still they can impact us.
Good point. The difference being that "last mile", where I feel the transport has many more variables than a massive Best Buy truck moving merchandise from warehouse to store. It's also in Best Buy's interest to not damage the shit they're going to sell, whereas once the package is bought, and handed off to UPS/USPS/FedEx responsibility gets murky and easier to shirk.
The other major difference is my "return anxiety". If I get home and my TV doesn't work, I hop back in the car and swap it for a new one (round trip maybe 2 hours).
I bought two TVs from Best Buy and one from Amazon.
For both of the TVs, Best Buy tried to sell me insurance. They used the "refuse to take no for an answer" tactic. In both cases I had to say, "if you say another word about the insurance I'm going to walk out." I really meant it, too.
Amazon's shipper lugged my TV up two flights of stairs to a 3rd floor apartment.
> Like most Americans I order a shitload from Amazon.
I do too but can we say "most" Americans? Are there any stats available on their customers?
I wonder, how many Americans have purchased at least one thing on Amazon? How many have in the past year? What's the average spend per customer per year?
> I do too but can we say "most" Americans? Are there any stats available on their customers?
"Most" is almost true if you only look at ecommerce.
"This year, the online shopping juggernaut will capture 49.1% of the market, according to eMarketer's latest forecast on the top 10 US ecommerce retailers, up from a 43.5% share last year. Amazon now controls nearly 5% of the total US retail market (online and offline)."[1]
Hate to be that guy, but I have Amazon Prime in my household because my wife uses it just enough to be worthwhile. She makes only a small percentage of her purchases there, and the others in our household make none.
The 43% figure is more relevant, and that's 43% of a relatively small share of all consumer spending, with much of it being done by a small group of large Amazon customers.
So I don't think it's accurate to say most people buy a shitload of stuff from Amazon.
Amazon’s US retail revenue was $318B for 2017 [0]. There are 126M households in the US in census’ 2017 data [1]. Thats $2,500/household. That’s definitely a shitload bought by most people.
Comically shitloads are pretty cheap and are $210/ton (a big pickup kid) if you’re in New Hampshire [2]. So pedantically, we’re all buying 10 shitloads.
From your link it says,"Though Walmart remains king of sales with $495.8 billion in annual revenue and U.S. sales of $318.5 billion (a 3.5 percent increase year over year) for the fiscal year ended in January, Amazon is growing at a faster pace in the United States."
You are claiming that Walmart's revenue is Amazon's. You misquoted.
Okay...here's more statistics for you. 75% of American online shoppers use Amazon for most of their online shopping [1]. 80% of Americans shop online [2]. So approximately 60% of all Americans frequently shop at Amazon.
This is rather off-topic, but the only thing that saddens me about Best Buy is that it just doesn't feel the same walking in as it used to.
I remember when I got my first job, at age 14, in 1998. I cut, baled, loaded, hauled, and stacked hay in a barn for a local farmer. It was extremely hot and tiring work for an overweight geek, but it paid better than anything else I could have gotten at that age - I was paid by the bale and I want to say it worked out to about $6 / hour. I saved all summer with nothing in mind other than "I want to buy a cool tech gadget!"
At the end of that summer I convinced my grandfather to drive me ~90 miles to the nearest Best Buy, and walking in that day was the best feeling in the world - a whole store full of cool toys that I didn't have! I walked out that day with one of the first MP3 players, a Diamond Rio PMP300, and a 32MB SmartMedia card. I spent about $350 on them, which my family thought was absurd.
I proceeded to go home and fill it with songs I downloaded from UseNet, and took it to school. I went to a rural school, and I don't think anyone had a clue what it was - several people asked me if it was a MiniDisc player. I explained to them what an "MP3" was.
I wish I could recapture the feeling of walking into Best Buy in the 90s. These days I have pretty much every tech item I want, and there are very few things there that can hold my interest. It makes me a little bit sad to walk through the doors and not be excited about what I'll find. It's pretty much the very definition of a First World Problem, but it is what it is.
Back then, I wasn't really wanting "toys" as much as I was thirsting for knowledge and fields to explore. That little MP3 player introduced me to UseNet, then Napster, and finally Gnutella. It ended up being a pretty big part of what got me interested in technology in general and development in particular - I went from "Hey, this is cool, free music!" to "Hmm... LimeWire is open source, I wonder if I can figure out how to fix this bug..." over the few years following.
Ultimately, it led me to my career. I wouldn't quite go so far as to credit Best Buy with that, but it's fair to say that the store contributed a great deal to building my interest in a technology.
I think that's just the process of getting old. I'm 32 and remember fondly the 90s-00s when I discovered the internet, bought my first iPod at like 400$ cad (lol), but these days I find that I'm losing my interest in tech, especially gadgets. I love well crafted products, don't get be wrong, but I guess I lost the fascination with technology.
It's probably because I'm seeing more and more the problems it creates, like adiction to smartphones or unsecured gadgets with back doors (smartTVs, IoT devices, etc).
We're the same age and this was exactly how I felt going to CompUSA in the late 90s. My first big purchase was spending $85 on a 32mb SIMM module for my Pentium 1 system (maybe it was 2 16mb, I can't remember if they needed to be installed in pairs, maybe that was only ECC?). I would ogle the DVD burners and SCSI cards but couldn't afford either.
And then you discovered that there were online vendors who sold that same stick of RAM for $22 + S/H.
Back in those days, the price difference between stores and online/mail-order vendors was enormous. Mostly because the customer populations didn't overlap much, so they could get away with it. Also, the cost of shipping usually canceled out any cost/benefit with smaller items.
I was still much too naive about online orders back then. But you reminded me of the "rebates" fiasco. Remember those days? I once got my rebate rejected because I sent the original receipt and not a photocopy.
I worked at a CompUSA in college. Rebate rage was an incredible phenomena... I had a knife pulled on me once because of it in a return situation.
There was one crazy Packard Bell/AOL/Viewsonic rebate combo that was like $600. It had specific instructions that many people screwed up, and they were left with unreturnable (no bar code) crap gear. One guy got arrested for chaining himself to the bollards in front of the door in protest.
The amount of fraud these guys ran into was incredible too. We’d get raided by bus loads of Chinese people who would engage every employee while another crew cleaned out things like video cards and other small items. It was like a Viking raid. People would buy computers, print fake UPC/serial number stickers for rebates, strip the memory/disk and return them.
Yeah. I've always been obsessed with music, and what I miss about Best Buy circa 1998 is walking into a sea of CDs with $20 and likely leaving with 2 new CDs. I never understood how the mall music stores worked, like Tower Records or Sam Goody, because their CDs were always like $18.
I don't know if all Best Buy locations were like this, but for seemingly every artist that was signed to a label, they had their full discography + singles with amazing b-sides + even imports from Japan (imports cost like $20 though). Just aisle after aisle, so much music to buy and making really hard decisions about what's going to fit in my budget.
It what's I imagine a candy store is to a 6 year old.
I still sort of get this feeling going into Micro Center. They still have a ton of in-store inventory and cool stuff like electronics components and prosumer networking gear that you'd otherwise have to order online these days.
I feel like the main difference is not that the Best Buy stores have changed that much, it's more the dissemination of information has shifted so that the internet is where people are now discovering new products and toys. But I agree, I too have very fond memories of exploring the electronics section of stores.
I had a very similar experience, replace baling hay with mowing lawns. I was an awkward shy homeschool kid but going into circuit city and getting that 32mb mp3 player on Black Friday made me feel like the coolest kid in the world.
I suspect the recording were either much smaller (Let's call it 30 songs which seems insane still if compared to an ipod but it wouldn't exist for several years.) or there was audiophile quality hardware in it in which case carrying 1 album HiFi wasn't too bad. You could change it out after school the day you get bored of it.
You really can't beat going into a physical store for a large ticket item purchase. No waiting for shipping, easy to return, viewing the product in store.
Recently purchased a MBP from Bestbuy. The first one I received had noticeable back light bleeding near a screen corner. Walked back in the store the next day to return. The process from an online retailer would have taken weeks.
A while back we had a refrigerator die, and I was like "no problem, I'll run to home depot and get one".
they could NOT handle it. Everyone seemed annoyed that I wanted to do this. They have refrigerators on the floor but only a few are for sale, and they can do delivery in theory but they didn't seem to know if their delivery guys were available or not.
I went over to Lowes next door and it was the same deal. I was astonished. Couldn't give them my money.
So yeah I got it online, which was a very smooth experience but was without a refrigerator for a few days which is not good.
Yeah I was somewhat surprised when I bought a new washer and dryer. Took my truck to the store so I would have space, get there, and they are like yeah its going to be two weeks for delivery. They keep none of those items on hand, as they are too large. Its all out in a warehouse somewhere else, and they just aren't prepared for someone who wants something now. It makes sense, but is not something I thought about before experiencing it.
Interestingly, the one place you could do this (walk in and buy a new washer/dryer/fridge and drive away with it) was Sears which has closed their stores in many major metro areas and are basically going out of business...
This is only true of a small portion of the sears with warehouse attached (aka the ones not in malls). Even then, I purchased my last two dishwashers there, and in both cases it took a couple days to deliver.
If you want something right now, go to one of the scratch and dent appliance places. Same basic deal as hd/lowes/bestbuy when it comes to appliances, just about the only ones those stores have in stock are the ones that got returned.
I worked at a Sears when I was younger. The location didn't have a large warehouse attached (smaller one, but it was only for smaller home and garden/electronics items), but there was one in town so for some items we'd sell and they'd go there to pick up. I do recall at points where items were sold from the store, but that was a rarity.
Huh, interesting. I bought a dishwasher a few months ago from Home Depot and it was smooth sailing. Picked the floor model, they pulled the item from the back, we payed, and then they helped us load it into the car.
I'm not sure if anything has changed there. Huge bulky items have always been delivered from a warehouse ~days later. Online hasn't changed anything with that, I don't think. Sure, sometimes you'll get lucky with a popular model they keep a few of in-store, but that feels like the exception.
You can't go to a mattress store and walk out with a mattress either, generally.
But they do have these items in the store out on the floor, they could have done it but it just seemed like they didn't want to make an effort. I realize your choice of model is going to be limited if you are in a hurry, but if you want to compete with amazon, being eager to sell people appliances day of would be a good way.
I'm surprised. I went to Lowe's, finally decided on a new dish washer and they got it down so I could stick it in my car. Perhaps refridgerators are a little different though since they don't fit in cars quite as nicely...
That's your experience. When my fridge was dying, I went to Home depot. They had one, I ordered it, they delivered it, even took off the door off the hinges to bring it in, installed it and placed the doors back on the hinges.
It's great for a big-ticket, low-margin purchase like an MBP, but poor for cheap, high-margin items like cables and accessories. Which is, of course, where they really make money.
They'll price match a laptop to Amazon, but cannot price match a $2 Ethernet patch cable because they're retail space, not a warehouse.
All that said, if what you need is a cable to get your big-ticket item working right now, a lot of us will find the markup on the cheap, high-margin item well worth it.
I'm not sure you save time: That round trip to the store might take an hour. Conversely, you could defer the task that needs that cable until the day after tomorrow, take 2 minutes to buy it on Amazon, and spend the next 48 hours on other stuff.
To me, the hour trip to go to the store is much more burdensome than 2 minutes on my computer plus 48 hours of doing everything else that I have in my life...I run my brain on a round-robin scheduling algorithm, and there are plenty of other tasks that can keep me busy while I wait for that interrupt to return!
I've bought plenty of SD cards online for my raspberry pi and dashcam. They all die and start giving errors within a month or two. Even tho I went of my way to buy name brand, and not the cheapest 4 star cards. :-/
These are some of the most counterfeited items of all, so I'll only buy them from industrial distributors. I figure they are accustomed to vetting their suppliers and have a reputation to protect.
I love the Raspberry Pi, and all the good it's done for computing. I have 3 of them currently. But, I don't want anything SD card driven for my next SBC. They are too volatile for heavy use.
Can confirm the other comment. TV's are very low margin. It's not uncommon for them to sell at a loss, or even severe loss (if you're buying other higher margin items).
Audio isn't typically so bad, but I think it depends on the systems.
The "home theatre in a box" items outside of Bose tend to be pretty low margin in a lot of cases.
Real amp/stereo/surround setups can be pretty decent margin.
My knowledge is derived from a smaller, mid/high-end outfit, so I'm not too sure about Best Buy but I assume the TV's are about the same.
Just out of curiosity, why didn't you buy the MacBook Pro directly from Apple? If I'm not mistaken the price is exactly the same in both stores. Is Best Buy just closer to you, or do you have a specific reason for going to Best Buy over Apple?
I think at the time they had a better sale price. It was a slight discount vs msrp. I also was able to sign up for a store credit card to get 10% back in rewards on the first purchase. Top that off with like 3+ Best Buy locations within a 30min drive of my area.
Ended up being a very good deal. If I bought from Apple would have missed out on free rewards, msrp discount, and the drive to Apple store is a bit longer
But they could have been difficult about this right?
In the EU at least, buying online means you can always return no questions asked within 14 days. Buying in store means you are bound to the shop's returns policy.
Not Best Buy related but I tried purchasing an elliptical online from Amazon along with assembly. One company does the shipment and a third party does the assembly. The assembly guy cancelled on me because it was raining (not really hard) and he couldn't come out at a reasonable time.
I cancelled the assembly, had the box returned to Amazon (of course its not their regular shipping). I then ordered from Sears. They came on time with the equipment and they did the assembly.
Back on topic. I'm debating whether to use Geek Squad to mount my TV (I have no mechanical skills) or purchase it through Amazon for half the cost.
I ordered a MBP from Adorama and got shipped an empty box. It took about a month to get the notebook. I ended up ordering from B&H and having Adorama just refund me because they were taking legit forever to "investigate". I hate that I didn't throw the box back at the UPS guy when I realized it was empty :(
Yesterday, I went into a Best Buy for the first time in ages because I needed a USB A to USB micro b cable and I was on the road in a small city (fewer than 50K).
I was surprised by how clean, well-organized, and well-staffed it was. When I asked where such cables were (not having yet left the front of the store because, not having a lock with me, I needed to stow my bicycle up front), the associate on the floor came over and directed me precisely and accurately to where the cables were.
I hope Best Buy figures out how to stick around because the cable I bought is actually pretty nice (braided cable) and I like having the option to buy quality electronic accessories from a clean storefront when I'm on the road (i.e. urgent electronics need and I don't want a low-quality no-name throw-it-away-after-5-uses knock-off).
The thing I find Best Buy really useful for is things that actually need to fit you or do not have a standardized size or really varying quality like headphones or mice. I get attached to models of both of those items and eventually they get deprecated and I have to find new ones and the Amazon experience just doesn't work for those things unless you want to buy 3 and return 2 that don't work for you.
I also feel like it's the same with phones- you can can go and see if it feels right in your hand or if you want the XL model or something and since it's not a mobile phone store primarily it's less apparent pressure then the dedicated stores for those sorts of things.
I think they do have a place going forward if they keep the experience up, the other big box places you can buy electronics such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Staples end up just being depressing supermarket-esque experiences with half the products on the shelves being out of date by 3 or more years or just being the absolute bottom of the barrel in quality. It really feels like a struggle for other stores to carry decent quality middle of the road products, but Best Buy does well in that aspect.
Their prices are not too bad anymore. They usually are about the same as online prices and returns are easier in store, so I have got a few things from Best Buy. Most recently a Macbook for my wife was $50 cheaper in Best Buy vs in the Apple store.
If you don’t want to live in a world dominated by one company, you have to shop at the other guy as often as you can. That means picking #2 whenever they are no worse than #1, not just when they are better.
When amazon has no competition left, the experience will worsen. If for no other reason than that the stockholders will insist.
I've often saved on Apple products over the Apple stores, and their reward program is an automatic 2% back (obviously only matters if you buy enough there to ever cash in, which I do)
They price match anything sold directly by Amazon and you can get some pretty good open box deals if you know what you want (e.g. people buy and immediately return MacBooks all the time)
Don't forget, Best Buy's Geek Squad has been acting as an extension of the FBI for awhile. The FBI regularly pays Geek Squad employees to report on suspected illegal activity worth investigating further. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/geek-squads-relationsh...
I worked at the Richfield HQ in 2010 before Joly came in and it was a disaster working there. Environments would go down and stay down for hours or days. I would come in at 8am and not be able to work until 1 or 2pm. They had such a consistent turn over, they would have 3rd party vendors and have no idea who the contact was or what company actually operated large chunks of their network. They essentially had a 70-80% contract workforce so the code was unbearable to deal with. Nobody cared about how bad the code was, they just cared the site looked nice. The amount of hacks I saw were shocking. Writing a 25 line script to indent an H3 title two spaces? Yeah, that was pretty common.
I left after 8 months. Several of my friends stayed on and noticed how different it was when Joly came on. Several years on, things have gotten significantly better. They've modernized a lot of their apps (even through their website is still clunky and old) and are in the process of revamping their site to a far more modern stack. Joly cleaned house and brought in people who want to modernize their software, and from what I know now, the people who stayed on are a lot happier nowadays.
I did a couple of 2-year stints there as a contractor; about a dozen years ago, and a few years ago. When I worked there most recently, my team was at first given a lot of leeway to use our own toolsets and and processes, things were going well, but then we got caught up in some turf battles between the IT and BBY.com organizations and everything kind of fell apart. Everybody left or got let go and they eventually offshored our team. Regardless I think things are way better than the Brian Dunn years.
I noticed that in the article, Joly gave back the employee discount and said it was a big morale booster. I think morale is important, especially for retail. Employees run the business, and store floor employees are the face of the business.
I've gone to Best Buy mainly for store pickups - but generally a good experience. One time I was there for pickups, and in general looking for a new vacuum cleaner...so I wandered over there. An employee approached me with a positive demeanor and asked if I had any questions, and even asked if I wanted a demo. I gently declined, she said I can find her if I have any other questions and she didn't bother me.
I didn't buy my vacuum cleaner from there...I found a clearance at Walmart that had great reviews. But if I wanted to buy one at retail value (or at least, non-clearance price) I'd go to Best Buy...good customer service, and they'll match anyone.
Happy employees = good business. I work for a big company, and management always does surveys. One of the biggest complaints is we don't get free coffee. The executives addressed it and responded...no free coffee. Would you rather want free coffee, or hire more employees? (funny thing is we're not hiring)
> Would you rather want free coffee, or hire more employees? (funny thing is we're not hiring)
Indeed, an amusing twist on the traditional false dichotomy: the truth isn't that you can actually have both, but, rather, that you can't have either one.
I was almost hired a few years ago to work on OpenStack at BB HQ, any word on how that project went? I've heard through the grapevine that the project was scrapped.
Amazon won me over with "real two day shipping". It was truly glorious when I signed up. It lulled me into this constant consuming state - shipping was so fast (and 'free' with prime) I could just mindlessly order any thing without waiting for a big shipment. I would order from Amazon a few times a day for days on end - any random thing I remembered I needed. It would all quickly stream into my house - I stopped even thinking about shipping and delivery days. It was wonderful.
They lost me with "not really two day shipping." Today, two-day shipping means "two days from when we ship it, not counting weekends, and not counting however long it takes for us to actually process the order, and then not even actually two days." 'Free two-day shipping' often comes in about a week for me. My constant state of consumption was interrupted by going days thinking, 'where is that thingamajig I needed to finish that project?' - often manifesting by ordering something on Mon/Tues assuming it would be here for a weekend, only to have it not show up in time, forcing me to run to the local hardware store (or whatever) and then return my Amazon item.
I still buy some stuff on Amazon - mostly things that I don't really care about when it comes as long as it comes. I've gotten into the habit of compiling lists at home of stuff that I absolutely need at a certain time and then making trips to local stores when needed, including Best Buy.
Similar to a lot of people in this topic, I recently visited a Best Buy for the first time in years, and was impressed with the new interior and layout.
I ended up leaving and buying what I needed on Amazon though. I had limited time in the store and didn't feel knowledgeable enough to choose between a handful of products, so I went home to do some research before ordering.
I wonder if Best Buy would benefit from a lounge, where you can sit down in peace, read product reviews, and browse online to make an informed purchase. Or maybe they could have tablets on stands next to groups of products with reviews. For example, you go to the printer section, and there's a tablet that shows all the printers and their user reviews. Then you can quickly compare options, sort by price, and see what printers are best reviewed.
Sometimes I try to check reviews in a store with my phone, but I usually feel out of place standing in an aisle for 15 minutes looking at my phone. So, it would be cool if they had a place where you could actually sit down for a while to educate yourself and make a decision.
If I'm browsing around a Best Buy, I almost always pull put an item i am looking at on Amazon, so that I can check for price match and check reviews/research.
kind of a reverse of the old model of playing with something in store, then buying it online.
I remember years ago on HN, there’d be debates over whether it was ethical or decent to go into a Best Buy store, then do a price check and order on Amazon, effectively using BB and other brick-and-mortar stores as showrooms. I remember the debate seeming split on generational lines, with younger folks pointing out that BB should adapt or die, and older folks arguing that brick-and-mortar was at a huge disadvantage no matter how low they cut prices, and that shuttered stores were a blight on real-life communities.
I still buy most of my stuff of Amazon but the nearby Best Buy stores are good enough that I see them almost as a premium shopping experience. Not at the level of Apple of course, but good enough that I’m happy to spend money there. I think the turnaround moment was a few years ago when I noticed a premium wireless mouse going for an incredibly low $20. When I tried to checkout, the cashier said that according to the system, it appeared the mouse was labeled wrong on the shelf, to the tube of $40 off. But without hesitation he gave me the discount anyway.
I would’ve predicted back when Amazon released its Price Check app that Best Buy would be decimated. I don’t use their tech support/consulting so I still am surprised they are surviving. Ironically, I now take advantage of Amazon in order to buy at BB. When I see something I like on the shelf, I check to see if the Amazon reviews are good. If so, I can buy it without the same level of nagging doubt about the product’s authenticity.
The moral arguments extend beyond "brick and mortar" vs online. I think the bigger issue is how they treat their employees. One company uses "third party contractors " to skirt labor laws and has their employees pissing in bottles to stay in good standing.
Ironically, I now take advantage of Amazon in order to buy at BB. When I see something I like on the shelf, I check to see if the Amazon reviews are good. If so, I can buy it without the same level of nagging doubt about the product’s authenticity.
Same here! Amazon's a cesspool of Chinese knockoffs buoyed by for-pay reviews, but any item that's also sold at Best Buy must be legit (since BB went through the trouble of sourcing and buying it), so Amazon ends up being a great place for real reviews.
Recently I've found myself at Best Buy a few times after not having been in years. There's a few reasons.
For big ticket items like TVs, Amazon usually isn't much cheaper if they are at all like it seemed to be a few years ago. Being able to see them in person and take them home same day is also nice.
Amazon's listings are mess. Sometimes the listing are just skeevy looking and have missing or wrong information. Even when the listing looks good, I'm not always sure I'll get quite what I ordered. I've already started to basically not use 3rd party sellers, but even when Amazon is listed as the seller, I've gotten items that were clearly used(when they were supposed to be new) or just not the right item, once being a counterfeit of what I was ordering.
I also noticed that for "gravy" items like cables and stuff, where Amazon was often 3 or 4 times cheaper, Best Buy is at least not as bad as they were in the past. They've still got some very overpriced options, but they also have some more reasonably priced options. So now its a decision to spend $3 or $4 more on that HDMI cable at Best Buy when I get the TV rather than $15 more. The decision to to spend the couple more dollars at Best Buy for the cable isn't just convenience, but is bolstered by cheaper items on Amazon being even more of a crapshoot than they were in the past.
I actually think it's Amazon that has the poor business model, and I'm puzzled how it's working for them. They are usually not competitive on price compared to other sites, and sometimes it's the same price off the shelf at Best Buy. Big ticket items from Amazon usually have free shipping, but it's a 3-4 day wait unless you pay for "free" shipping by joining Prime. But I quit Prime a few years ago after 10 out of my last 10 orders arrived late. I can understand the convenience of using a single website, but when you can find the same items elsewhere for $30-$40 cheaper, I don't see why more people aren't shopping around.
For big ticket items, I'm usually shopping around for the best price. For little items I try to price shop but the convenience of having it delivered, saving time by not having to go to the store, simple returns (UPS will often pick up package for free), saving 5% on many items with the Amazon card, and their amazing customer service makes me forgive some higher prices.
Part of it is stock. When I built my last PC newegg was sold out of almost every part I needed. Amazon on the other hand had almost everything and the prices were only slightly higher.
> But I quit Prime a few years ago after 10 out of my last 10 orders arrived late
I have a hard time believing this. I've never had late shipments with amazon nor have any of my friends. Are you exaggerating or is there any omitted context?
Prime member for the last 8 years but I'm seriously considering canceling next year (mostly due to the price hike in Prime).
I've had plenty of items arrive late or not even at all, with stretches where I've had back-to-back-to-back issues with Amazon, so frustrating that I considered canceling Prime right then and there (~3 years ago).
A couple times they were delivered to our neighbors house next door (who dropped them off to us, thankfully) and a few times we had to contact Amazon Customer Service who just sent us a new one. In general, I trust Amazon to get me my item, but they're definitely not perfect and I wouldn't be surprised if OP isn't exaggerating...
BTW, I live in the Bay Area (and not out in the boonies).
I live in Los Angeles and have had the complete opposite experience. Been a prime member for 4 years now, I order from them all the time, and shipments always come on time with no problems whatsoever.
I live in LA as well. While most of my Amazon purchases arrive on time (and even occasionally early!), more of them have begun arriving late. My Prime Day purchases, for example, were originally supposed to arrive same day...but are currently on track for Saturday and Sunday. I could have just stopped by Best Buy on the way to work.
Honestly, the worst was DHL. I got so frustrated with them, I contacted Amazon's customer service and offered to pay extra to NOT have DHL deliver my items.
The agent offered her apologies and noted they couldn't offer that (did refund me delivery costs), but would note the preference. Not sure if that "note" actually did anything, however I started getting substantially less DHL deliveries, which was a plus.
These days, most problematic is Amazon's own deliverers. They tend to deliver the same day, but usually late in the day or to the wrong address.
USPS and UPS are the best, with UPS edging in delivery time. I've had two USPS packages marked "Delivered" but show up the next day. FedEx seems to miss delivery times a lot.
Interesting. I've had problems with all of the carriers (and some that are no longer around), but for the most part I'd be willing to "forgive" Amazon for the transgressions of a third party that's going to screw everyone equally. I've less sympathy for Amazon's own logistics company though.
Timing of residential deliveries are pretty unpredictable with FedEx and UPS in my experience. One of the nice things about having a PO box is that packages are available for retrieval by 10 AM.
Things arrive late all the item. Obviously, it depends on what you buy and where you live.
Before I started paying for Prime, I used to live somewhere (DC) where standard free shipping was always 2 days or less because I lived close to a fulfillment center. Now I live in a place (NYC) where things are late all the time, even with Prime.
No, this absolutely happened. Since I no longer actually bought many things from Amazon due to price, I would only buy something from there if I really needed it fast and couldn't buy it locally. They were usually cheap, fairly rare items. Looking at my order history, they're things like some transistors, tent stakes, and printer ink. I imagine that played a role in the fact that they arrived late. Since I needed them fast, and they cost more than elsewhere, and arrived late, it pretty much means I overpaid for an item that was useless to me, and I had to do without it when I really needed it.
They were. Specifically said things like "Get it Tuesday" which was a requirement for me ordering them since I needed them by a specific time.
I will add that even without Prime, a lot of shipments still arrive in one or two days even with standard shipping. But they're usually more expensive items like $100+ items.
It's amazing how many things Best Buy is doing right that have largely gone unnoticed over the last few years. While still not perfect, they've done more than almost any other retailer I can think of to modernize the shopping experience, while leveraging their existing advantages:
* Local Inventory with Google Shopping - if I search for almost any product on Google, Best Buy is usually the only major retailer that shows me local inventory for that product. I can't believe how few major retailers do this. If I search for an external hard drive on Google, I can see right away if I'm able to go down the street and pick it up.
* In Store Pick Up - this is almost as seamless as picking up an order at the Apple Store. Just yesterday I placed an order for in-store pick up at my local Best Buy. 20 minutes later I received a confirmation email that my order was ready, and all I had to do was show my ID when I showed up to the store. No signing a receipt, or making sure I had the credit card I placed the order with. The whole process took less than 3 minutes, and I could even add additional name(s) of people who were authorized to pick it up for me.
* Open-box items - I know these can be hit or miss, but at least with Best Buy you can inspect open box items before deciding to take them home (as opposed to Amazon Warehouse, where you have to go through the process of shipping it back if it's not what you expected). They even have these "outlet items" highlighted on both their app and website, so I can see which Best Buys around me have a specific open box item I'm looking for.
* Geek Squad Protection - this isn't perfect, and it can be expensive, but it's nice to know that if something goes wrong with a large item (such as a TV or appliance), someone will actually come to my house to check it out. They are also very willing to give you a brand new replacement if the repair is going to be expensive or labor intensive. I know I probably sound like an old fogey, but dealing with factory warranties directly through the manufacturer is always such a pain, and they almost never offer a full replacement.
* Best Buy APP - their app is great! It keeps track of all of my orders, and even tells me when something I've bought has an open recall. I think Target is the only company that does a better job combing both the in-store and e-commerce aspects into a single app.
They've also IMO done a good job keeping the in-store experience consistent between locations. I'm sure there are still some locations that have less helpful employees, or less reliable inventory, but this is happening less often for me.
Yes I'd second the comment on local inventory control in general - unlike other box stores with "fuzzy" inventory listed online, Best Buy seems to have a very accurate representation of what is in each store. If I want an item now I have high confidence that when I go there it'll be there for me to pickup.
The GPU bubble kind of blunted that instant-gratification appeal for me recently. They've apparently begun to accept reality, but some of their GPU prices are still significantly inflated compared to other vendors. For example, their in-store Vega 56 card is $629.99 vs. Newegg selling comparable cards for under $500, and that specific model number seems to be exclusive to Best Buy so they can refuse to price-match.
Speaking of GPUs. I bought a ATI card for $600 during a mining craze. I had issues with blue screens, and they took it back 6 months after purchase and refunded me full price, even though it was selling for $370 at the time.
Pretty good customer service if you ask me. I mainly want to support local store because Amazon used to have much better pricing than all the physical stores, but now it is not the case. However, it is much convenient to find the item online instead of going to store and finding out the item is not there.
Best Buy still exists mainly because you can go and demo the gadgets. For certain things, you want to see them in person and they always price match Amazon for anything Amazon has cheaper.
I bought an 85" 4K tv a few years ago and it was not a cheap item. Do you really think someone would just buy something for $10k on Amazon and hope it is ok? I also paid them to have a team of 3 people come and install it on my wall. This is a case where the local store beat the online store.
Over the last few months, I decided to try and reduce my Amazon.com shopping as much as possible. As a result, I have been doing my item finding on Amazon and then going out and buying the item at a brick and mortar. I find it to be an interesting reversal. It has also been pretty shocking to see how much money I save when I don't have a Prime account. It turns out that most things I want are things that I don't actually need.
I went to Best Buy recently on a whim to try and _not_ by something from Amazon.
I had found a product on the Best Buy website, a $79 55-65 inch LCD/Plasma corner wall mount. So I drove to the store and looked for it. This was roughly 2 months after Christmas.
The store had about 300 units of a $199.99 version and 0 units of any thing the below $150...
I spent about 15 minutes looking for somebody to tell me what I already expected, they only carry the expensive one in store.
I bought the same brand (slightly different model number off Amazon.com [likely to prevent price matching]) while in the Best Buy for $69, shipped to my house.
It was $10 cheaper, I didn't need to leave my house, I didn't need to talk to anyone...
Best Buy completely lost my sale because they didn't have inventory and pushed a more expensive and way higher margin unit ...
I was so disappointed because I really, really tried to _not_ buy from Amazon.
It's no wonder Amazon is eating the world while only being mediocre... Retailers are simply botching any advantage they have (being local) for the last 15 years...
(disclosure: I worked for Sears Electronics department part time for about 3 years while going to college [sears no longer sells electronics like Televisions or radios])
Last time I went to BB was to buy a Pixel 2 charging cable. A BB employee helped locate it and reminded me that it's called "USB C" cable not a "Pixel 2 charging cable".
What was the "reality check" part about Ms Kordash's day at the end? She sold a TV, provided what appeared to be prompt and complete customer service, and the customers seemed to like her. The main drawback -- a relatively older clientele which may not necessarily be big consumers of the latest shiny -- was more due to the area she was serving. Certainly the level of service is expensive to provide, but it seems like Best Buy is either able to handle or at least reasonably aware of that cost.
Maybe, but the choice of words implied that there was some limit on their aspirations. However, she seemed to do very well in the field and clearly represented a competitive differentiator. I'm sure Amazon is taking notes.
In the last year counterfeits have become such a big problem for me that my trust in Amazon has eroded dramatically. I wonder when that will show up in their stock price.
After years of not stepping into one due to them pushing Monster cables with every purchase I went back to look at appliances. I was pleasantly surprised. Sales staff was knowledgeable and they had a good selection. A much better experience than the home improvement stores I went to. Even better - my fridge went on sale the following week for $500 off my price, they gave that all back to me as they price-match post-sale.
If your item has a high price, something like a laptop or TV, it's in the best interest of the consumer to see it in person, compare it directly with other models, and potentially walk out with it then and there. The lower the price of the item, there will be proportionally higher % of total cost to the consumer in going out to a store, in terms of labor and time spent.
Do I need to spend 25 minutes going out to pick a new phone charger for $10? My time is valued more highly than that. But for a $800 TV, the % of costs in the time/effort slice become proportionally much less. It will take me slightly longer to pick a TV out, but still, an hour of my labor at $35 is not even 5% of an $800 dollar TV, whereas the time/labor for me to get the phone charger in person is going to be much closer to 50% of the total cost.
I don't trust Amazon for technology purchases any more. Best Buy offers the same level of convenience (next day delivery in most places), with the added benefit of being able to pick up something same day in-store. No fear of ever being stuck with counterfeits or missing deadlines on pre-orders.
I will pop into best buy from time to time to see if there are any good open box items or any cheap blurays. I am always amazed that they continue to give as much floor space as they do to appliances. I guess they have good profit margins and someone must be buying them to keep offering them?
In Germany we have Saturn and Mediamarkt, and these shops seem to work the same way they worked 15-20 years ago. In some regards the products available even went down, at least in the areas I care about. So really, every time I go into one I regret it. Not even USB cables are something I want to buy there because of the small amount of choice, because they are hard to find, and because they price cheat (i.e. put up a good price in front of product which actually costs too much; then claiming the way too small string on the price label says it's for another product), like many physical stores do these days here.
So I really want to support local, European companies, but there is no competition to Amazon here. I'd even consider Taobao before I purposefully would go to a store here.
The in-home service is the last thing I'd want. But I have been shopping at Best Buy way more than I used to.
Here's why. A few years ago I bought a big-ticket item (TV) and obviously wanted to see it before I bought it. They were able to provide generous no-interest financing via their co-branded Citi credit card. They have a policy of offering 12-month no-interest financing on many products and split up over that much time it's easy to talk yourself into buying things you probably don't need.
Also the Gamer's Club Unlocked is better than Amazon's game discount system because it works anytime, not just up until release. I've heard that they have ended the program though which would just send me back to Amazon.
I recently ventured beyond the in-store pickup area of a Best Buy for the first time in a while, I was pleasantly surprised. It seems they're positioning themselves as the smart home destination, pretty extensive inventory in this area, with product samples and descriptions clearly visible. They've also lowered the shelf heights and the store feels less cluttered (without feeling like an apple store clone). They also seem to be distributing inventory across regional stores to offer greater in-store pickup options. There are several Best Buy stores within reasonable distance to where I live, and typically at least one has the desired product. Staff seems generally more friendly as well.
Reducing the amount of music and movies they sell in store has helped a lot in that regard. They've reclaimed a lot of that space for the "store within a store" concept for things like wearables and smart home stuff, which brings a more inviting, open feel to the stores instead of feeling claustrophobic.
What is Best Buy anymore? I recently bought a refrigerator there and it was a really bizarre experience. It seemed more like a small mall than a big box store. The appliances were in a section called "Appliances by Pacific Sales", where Pacific Sales is a chain of stores in LA. We actually bought our oven at Pacific Sales years earlier. Then they had the "Apple Store at Best Buy," next to the "Verizon Store at Best Buy." I couldn't really tell whether Best Buy was directly selling anything or not. It just seemed to be a collection of stores within the Best Buy store. It was like a small mall, but only with electronics and appliances. So odd.
Not sure what you're expecting. Did people forget what an electronics retailer is?
A retailer such as BestBuy never sold their own "BestBuy" branded electronics. Retailers have always been the middle-man between the electronics manufacturer and the consume, so that the electronics company doesn't need to rent or build their own stores. It's cheaper for BestBuy to not hire their own bestbuy salespeople. Instead Verizon and Apple hire their own knowledgeable staff and put them at Best Buy.
This is more common than you might expect. Another example: The electronics and games section at Target is staffed and run by a company called Marketsource.
Best Buy often has competitively priced weekly sales that beat Amazon regularly and they'll price match the rest. Their free shipping offer is reasonable, and in store pickup and return offer a huge advantage Amazon can't match for near instant transactions at nationwide scale. (Arguably, same day shipping offers at Amazon are close, but those are only in a few localities.)
I'm not surprised they're doing okay, especially since a lot of their retail competitors in the electronics, appliance, and movie businesses have closed up shop. Physical retail will always have a certain draw, when the market for it is reducing, you just need to outlast your competitors.
I have had good experience (on multiple occasions) when buying consumer electronic from the Best Buy. They do price matching, you get to experience the product, and the customer rep was really helpful.
I can't say the same about the snob at the Apple Store.
You have to keep in mind though their "price matching" is basically dependant on whatever manager is currently working. Ive had them outright refuse a match on Amazon because the margins for them were too thin, or even add in the cost of same day shipping to the "matched" price.
One of the main benefits being reported here is the instant purchase, however with Amazon Prime Now (1-2 hour delivery of some items in metropolitan areas), this somewhat goes away. I recently used Amazon to buy new computer parts to upgrade my PC, and when they arrived and I started assembling it, I realized I had gotten the wrong RAM. So even at 9pm I was able to order 2 sticks of decent 8GB ddr4 ram and get it delivered that same night by 10pm and finish the build.
What I prefer about Amazon are the reviews and selection. Even when I'm in Best buy, I'm on my phone reading Amazon reviews for the products I'm considering and exploring alternatives.
> One of the main benefits being reported here is the instant purchase, however with Amazon Prime Now (1-2 hour delivery of some items in metropolitan areas)
I remember Amazon came out with this, but I initially dismissed it, thinking that the selection of items was too limited and never looked again.
I do, still, believe that limited selection is an issue, but what's a far greater issue is that I'm generally not even aware of what that is, due to lack of integration with their main shopping experience. Having to go to primenow.amazon.com and not seeing a "Prime Now" option prominently displayed for an item on their main shopping site means the option probably doesn't even occur to most people (as it doesn't to me).
Nowadays, there's also the controversy surrounding how Amazon "Flex" workers are treated and paid, which can have a more direct effect on the Prime Now experience.
Up until a year ago I didn't do much shopping at Best Buy but now I do a bunch. What changed? I got a PS4 last year and joined their Gamers Club Unlocked program. $30 for 2 years and I get 20% off all games (new/used/pre-ordered) as well as double Best Buy points on games/gaming accessories. I also can get $10 gift card for pre-ordering certain games (which would still be 20% off). So for FIFA 19, I preordered and saved 20% off list price and then will be getting a $10 Best Buy credit on my account once the game is shipped to me. Oh yea, they will ship the game to my house for free too.
I go occasionally, usually when I am going to make a larger electronics purchase like a laptop, camera, etc. I still like being able to check out a physical copy of something and make sure it is what I am wanting.
I still like the breadth of options on Amazon and being able to get a lot of items to my door in 2 days. It actually happened yesterday where I went to a local shop and they didn't have what I wanted in stock, either wait 2 weeks for them to place the order and have it delivered or just get it off Amazon and have it on my doorstep on Saturday.
Recently I've started buying small tech items (wireless mouse, laptop bag, temp cell phone, etc) from Best Buy again. Being a WA State resident, I'm paying the same 10% sales tax on Amazon purchases (or near enough to not care), and not only can I try out items before I buy - I get free, immediate delivery too, no Prime needed.
Then, after getting the product, no worries about it being counterfeit - like the pants I bought from Amazon, sold as adult pants but must have been children's pants, as my foot wouldn't fit through the leg.
Best Buy is nice because I like being able to actually handle and try the products I'm going to buy. Plus buying from a physical store supports the local economy with jobs and sales taxes.
A lot of people are talking about the respective pros and cons of dense metropolitan use of amazon vs. everywhere else and shipping times, and how they're slipping.
But what really matters to me is the lock-in, or lack of it. When I order from Best Buy online (I don't go in person anymore) I don't need to pay $100 for just the privledge of shopping there. That kind of anti-consumer practice I simply won't abide.
I recently bought a washer and dryer at Best Buy. I was thoroughly impressed with the selection and customer service. They even gave me a deal on the higher tier model after the ones I wanted were on backorder. I think they partner with Pacific Kitchen and Home to do the appliances.
Their remodels have gone a long way in getting me back there, personally. I had otherwise steered clear and was an Amazon/BH junkie.
Funny enough, I just went into Best Buy prior to a long road trip. My phone is old and has no memory left and I wanted an mp3 player to listen to some podcasts as well as a splitter cable to listen to an audiobook with my wife. I found cheap, but high quality products pretty fast. I love Amazon, but sometimes you need something right now. I'll be sad when all brick and mortar stores are gone.
Looking over the comments, it looks like no ones thinks Best Buy should be dead. I don't either. Although I usually avoid it because I can't get through the store without several employees badgering me, it still has a place. Especially for non-tech people who actually want someone to sell them a TV/tablet/laptop because there are an overwhelming number of options now.
I was gifted a 25$ Best buy gift card, I thought I would never remember to use it. One day the lady is looking at makeup and I see a Best buy. I go in looking for a new mousepad. The place is full of washers and blenders etc. The only mouse pad they had was 60$ (extreme gaming blah blah). I ended up grabbing a Pink Floyd vinyl for 22$. I found it odd but if it works it works.
Buying someone a gift card is another way of telling them that you're a consumerist idiot who doesn't give a shit about them. "First and foremost, I don't care about you at all. That said, instead of giving you $20 in cash, I'm going to give that same $20 to BestBuy and force you to shop there or forgo my gift in its entirety, because I'm an imbecile." Intelligent people who don't give a shit about a person will always go cash.
They have become the showroom for new or high-margin tech like Oculus, Dyson, 7K refrigerators etc and they collect a hefty margin and shelf fees for the effort. They make more money B2B than B2C probably. On smaller stuff their markup is ridiculous ($40-50 for an iphone screen protector that you can buy in a different brand in a pack of 3 for $10 on amazon).
Agree, with one caveat. When viewing via the website, a large fraction of items are "Online Only" through their 3rd party resellers. I'd like to touch but can't. Note: Canadian experience, may be different down south.
I walked into a best buy for the first time in years, and I was surprised how much it had changed, how modern it looked, and how many staff were there. Unfortunately it was right after opening, so they all had energy to continually ask if I needed help, which was a bit obnoxious, though I'm sure super helpful if you actually needed help.
As long as you remember the first rule of Best Buy (never buy cables at Best Buy), you can find prices as good or better there than Amazon, and I have to say, the people there are very helpful and friendly. I especially liked their Magnolia store-within-a-store concept for higher-end audio products.
I would say they are staying afloat, but still pretty far from shore.
Their stores are actually rented out retail space for Apple, Samsung, and other brands.
Their online is still somewhat of a disaster, they were #2 for a while but Jet/Walmart will probably pass them as they attempt to challenge Amazon.
Best buy is making no real attempt to challenge Amazon in online retail, a lot like Target isn't either.
Their IT is divided between dotcom and bricks and hate each other, and their IT will be lead by dinosaurs in brick and mortar for the foreseeable future, so the IT innovation that does exist is constrained by executive politics.
Their CEO is just punching the clock and doing what is necessary to trigger stock options.
So, again, treading water and not floundering, but "thriving"? That's like saying you're in the guillotine and there's a really nice breeze, and the blade hasn't been dropped.
> Their stores are actually rented out retail space for Apple, Samsung, and other brands.
So, it's now largely a convenient place known to consumers that serves to connect them to third-party sellers where originally it was entirely a direct retailer itself.
So, it’s like a bricks-and-mortar version of Amazon?
There's something to be said for just walking in and buying something you can hold in your hands and look at, at least if there isn't a tremendous difference in price.
Best Buy price matches Amazon (for the most part) and if I have to pay tax I might as well get what I want today, vs in two days. And if it sucks I can return it to the store.
every-time I go nearby store it's mostly empty... (price/sq.ft. ratio)
I'm also not happy with their price match... I had a BB gift card so went there with Costco headphone deal to price match, which they did with shipping of 3 weeks from order day... If you'd have to guess it... yes... shipping after the Costco deal would expire... I wanted to give benefit of doubt but when they canceled my order after 3 weeks... it kind of felt like a trap...
At least in Canada, they changed their website quite a bit, accepting PayPal, having a marketplace with 3rd party sellers, similar to Amazon. Good for them, honestly.
Sometimes they have some good deals online. I buy and get in the store. In the store itself, it's kind of a mess. I went to buy an $80 item that I saw online but the price there was $100, had to talk to manager to get the price (price matching themselves?).
The thing that makes me usually go to Amazon or elsewhere compared to Best Buy is the return policy. Best Buy will give you only 15 days to do a return with refund. Many times 15 minutes is not enough to install the product, test it and go to the store to return it.
I personally don't really like Best Buy, I feel like they are still kind of overpriced and don't have what I need a lot of the times.
However, I am not really who they want in their store. They want older people who only want basic stuff and don't know how to use it.
It's a smart play to cater to people who don't know how to do much. There is a massive market for older people who hate learning how to use their devices on their own.
Why should it be dead? Poor management and bad money practices of some other competitors does not mean the retail segment is dead. Just that over leveraged companies are risky. No?
Best Buy used to have extremely shady practices, and to some extent still does. They used to have lower prices online, and higher in store, and IIRC not match their own website, nor online competitors. As I understand it, this has changed, their policy looks sane now.
Last time I walked in to purchase a laptop, the only ones available had a small packet taped to them of 'upgrades' or antivirus or whatever that cost a ton. I had to track down an employee who had to get a ladder to find the same model with no such attachment.
to be honest, I don't remember what it was now. If I remember right it was some slip of paper that indicated Geek Squad had optimized it and put antivirus on it. IIRC it was around $100 extra. And it wasn't clearly indicated, I didn't even notice or find out until checkout.
It shouldn't necessarily be dead. The floated premise doesn't actually make any sense. It's a media panic click-bait parade that has been going on for 20 years (only briefly pausing after the dotcom bubble implosion).
The death of physical retail! When the media serves up that headline, they get an easy win every direction. If it becomes true, they're on the money with their fear mongering. If it doesn't come true, they can breathlessly write stories about how physical retail survived miraculously (against a narrative they invented about impending total collapse).
Physical retail will remain a massive segment. Amazon - the poster child for the media's click-bait scam on this topic - long ago figured out that there is immense value in physical retail (for various reasons), which is of course why they bought Whole Foods and are bothering to experiment with Amazon Go store concepts.
To be fair, retail is different than it used to be; there is now little role for professional salespeople who really know their product (like a high-end, dedicated stereo store would have had in the past). At least this is my impression.
My guess is the role of professional sales people in retail was always over stated. People like having a personal relationship when they can, but often that is a major luxury and probably doesn't actually help in the product selection.
It may be so, but these people did exist and now mostly do not. It certainly does seem to be the case that most are unwilling to pay for this expertise (although I've found that, for instance, with sneakers, it makes a huge difference).
And, oddly, with sneakers and similar, I've found it is majority snake oil. I've been ridiculously soured on consulting experts for any sort of consumer item. :(
Going to a Marathon Sports and wearing shoes their employees recommended after watching my walk has made my knees feel way better and I'm completely willing to pay substantially more for sneakers for it. But I can't speak to anyone else's experience.
I'd be curious to know if they actually tailored their recommendation to you. It is entirely possible that you saw benefits just from getting attention and spending a bit more. Simply stated, I've seen studies showing that paying more does increase the effectiveness of things. Even if there is no difference in the thing. (Sadly, I have not followed up on those claims, so I don't know if that replicated.)
I have gone back several times and seen different people and they shared the same observations about my gait and recommended the same kind of shoes, and what they told me seemed to be corroborated by things I read (though I would not have known what to look for before). More than one person told me that they noticed wearing the sneakers corrected my gait. Also my knees really hurt (as Abe Kobo writes in the Ark Sakura, the knees are the bane of all fat people) and now they rarely do. It is not a double-blind experiment but I am pretty convinced that they know what they are talking about and that it's not just a parlor trick.
Now that I know what I'm looking for, I could go on Amazon and find the exact same shoes for way less, but I consider their expertise a service I'm willing to pay for despite higher prices and smaller selection.
The question I have is essentially if the shoes you are wearing are better for most everyone. Most shoes are bought for fashion, not any sort of fit. As such, if someone is complaining about knees or any other walking pain, it is not impossible that the same shoe would help.
That make sense? It could be that you just finally got ergonomic shoes. Consider people that have RSI and similar pains move to ergonomic keyboards. It isn't that those would not be ergonomic keyboards for everyone. They would. Just not everyone has pains and so not everyone needs them. However, an astonishingly high number of people will suffer wrist pains and not do anything about it until someone recommends they get an ergonomic keyboard.
With shoes, I grant there is something about knowing these exist. There could even be different kinds of ergonomic shoes. I'm just a little skeptical there. I'm guessing there are more marketed types of ergonomic shoes than there are actually beneficial types. (If that makes sense.)
Looking up "pronation" would probably be enough to convince you the answer to your question is no.
To stick with your RSI analogy, you're proposing that everyone with RSI could be cured by having a fixed desk with the monitor, chair, and keyboard tray at exactly the same height.
Not the same height. But I'd wager a large number of folks don't get heavily tailored solutions.
The question is ultimately if shoes are more like ergonomic keyboards, or like eyeglasses. My hunch is the former, since it doesn't take professional training to find stuff like pronation. (Which, yes, I already knew.)
Don't get me wrong, help staff can be good. I've yet to have a shoe associate give me any detail I didn't already know, though. Eye doctor? Yeah, I don't have the equipment to test my eyes.
If you are willing to do all the research yourself figuring out what type of step you have and what type of shoe is good for it and then what kind of options there are in that style then I suppose you don't need anyone's help. If you don't want to do that you can visit a professional who knows what they're talking about and be done with it in minutes.
I don't see that this is very different from any other service. If you're willing to figure out what parts you need and do the work, you can save money -- way more than you'll ever save on sneakers -- by doing auto repairs yourself. Most people would rather hire a mechanic who already knows how to do it in a fraction of the time. If you have RSI and seek occupational or physical therapy the therapist is "just" going to tell you a series of exercises that are good for your injury that you have to do yourself; given enough time and energy you could probably develop your own exercise plan.
Either way, I feel like this is straying pretty substantially from the theory you started with, where I just liked the shoes because I spent more money on them.
Ah, my point was a bit more rambled than it should have been. I actually had several thoughts that I blurred all together into one.
First thought was that you likely just got good shoes. Something surprisingly few people have.
That led to the thought that the sales people probably did give you attention, and did do well and suggest the correct shoes. However, my thought is that the correct shoes for most people probably align more often than we give credit.
My point about the effectiveness of paying for something was a complete aside that would only explain additional efficacy. I did not mean it accounted for the entire effect. (So, yeah, I should have left that out entirely.)
> However, my thought is that the correct shoes for most people probably align more often than we give credit.
Let me spell out very clearly why I do not think this is so:
1. As I alluded to before, a big axis when choosing shoes is whether you have a tendency to over-pronate, under-pronate, or neither. Shoes that correct over- or under-pronation have different properties. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to understand why someone who underpronates wouldn't do well with shoes designed to correct overpronation. Assuming (dubiously, I guess) that these traits are all evenly distributed, and ignoring any gradation within these categories, already you only have a one-in-three chance of getting the right shoe.
2. Some people have wider feet than others; different shoes are appropriate depending on this.
3. There are other complications: for instance, I wear orthotic inserts, which further narrows the number of shoes I can wear. Anything with little space on top or with elaborate built-in arch support is out.
4. Anecdotally, every time I am recommended a similar style of shoe which represents only a small percentage of the inventory of the store. When I watched my wife be fit, they gave her a different style.
If you visit Web sites about long-distance running (for natural reasons most of the people who really care about their sneakers are runners) you can find a lot of information about what shoes are right for what people and I guess probably what models are currently available with certain properties. But then again, you could also, you know, skip all that, and visit a specialty store (i.e., not Foot Locker), and have them tell you. I personally also discovered that I had been buying shoes too small for me because my ideas about how a shoe "should" fit were not quite right.
I suppose for a certain definition of "most people" you may be right: most people don't walk or run that much and won't experience any discomfort no matter what shoe they wear. But for anyone putting a heavy load on their legs or experiencing discomfort I have no doubt whatsoever that a visit to a specialty store is worthwhile.
I think you won me over on this several posts ago. :) I should have made that clear. I do think I was somewhat misunderstood, but I fully concede I think I am wrong, as well.
I'm probably still more amenable to the argument that most people just don't wear shoes that fit. But, I think I would have a hard time quantifying that.
With the exception of Apple, Costco, IKEA, and New York-scale independents (e.g. BH and the Strand) brick-and-mortar seems to be on a consistent trend of dying. Departmwnt stores like Sears, Macys, and JC Penney’s. Even Nordstrom is running into hurdles as it attempts to go private. Entertainment chains in particular have been dying — Virgin, Tower Records, Borders, Barnes and Nobles. Among BB‘s direct competitors, who else is around except for Fry’s? Circuit City and CompUSA have long since died. To blame it all on “bad money practices” seems simplistic, as if there weren’t intractable costs that caused them to turn to bad practices.
Ignoring the pronouncements of "retail is dead", and what BB's competitors might do, I've always felt that it was obvious the CEO of BB had never put on a pair of jeans and gone shopping at his own stores on a Saturday morning.
Now, granted, it's been a number of years since I've stepped foot in a BB. But laptops all came with the $49 "antivirus and optimization package". You could get one without after you tracked down an employee and gave the secret handshake. They wouldn't honor their online prices in-store. They would try and beat you down with extended warranties and over-priced Monster cables that "it won't work without".
In summary, from the moment I walked in the door it constantly felt like they were trying to pull one over one me. Add to that poor selection, and horrifically bad service, and I would have rather done without than go to a BB.
Sounds like they might have improved recently, though.
Leveraged buyout failures have taken out many large retail companies recently, such as Toys R Us. These are leading many to declare the "end of the mall" as they see anchor stores closing. But there are still many opportunities in retail.
> That generation has nothing but problems with their devices, it's like a mini game for them.
This isn't a generational thing. I know folks from all generations who have trouble with technology. Sometimes this is because things really are broken. It's not like a lot of things are high quality. Sometimes it's because stuff is hard to use. For those of us in tech we have a higher tolerance for learning pain and have enough understanding stuff is easier to pickup. For many others the UX is just painful to learn.
Poking at this as a generational thing can cause us to miss some other underlying issues worth paying attention to.
agreed. MOST people don't know much about technology. I'm 44 and teach at a community college. I have 17 year olds (taking dual credit classes for high school) and 60 year olds. Most of them don't know how to use computers well and I can't assume that someone will or won't because of age. The problems they have do tend to be generational - younger people tend to do most things on phones and don't know how to use a mouse and keyboard-based computer efficiently (so few of them ever maximize the browser window. I don't know how they work that way) while older people tend to have problems with things like getting connected to the school wifi.
I cringe at the tech issues I see daily regardless of age. They are mostly small things and not earth shattering but it proves that "digital natives" are not computer experts.
Example:I give them a link to something and I've gotten in the habit of making sure to just post news.ycombinator.com and not https://news.ycombinator.com because so many of them don't know you normally don't need to type https:// or a www.
interesting. the 'digital natives' are definitely not computer experts. They are 100% users and know how to work a phone/tablet , connect to app store, download apps and play them. They don't know too much about what is actually happening.
I've said it to my wife so many times now it is engrained in her... we are driving somewhere (live in midwest). she pulls up phone and tries to do something on internet. when it takes more then 3 seconds she is like ugh what is going on. I have to say, honey let me tell you what is happening. Your phone is sending signals up to outerspace, bouncing around and eventually some data makes it's way back to your phone. Patience young padawan learner!
I'm 44 too and hate people that maximize their window, as they are so many things running at the same time, don't you tile your applications, ah interesting there is more than one way to do it I guess.
that is valid if you do have multiple things going at a time. I do it frequently.
These students don't have multiple things going. All they have is the browser and I see them having to scroll left and right because the site doesn't fit inside the browser window. The rest of the monitor is just the desktop.
This is an interesting point. Is it more that the younger generation prefers to figure out the problem themselves, possibly due to fear of social embarrassment, whereas the older generation doesn't share those fears, and thus are more willing to engage in public conversation about their technological shortcomings?
Or maybe it's willful ignorance? They "don't have the time" to figure it out so they just want someone to give them the answer. It's like asking them for their password, they don't know it, but it's written down on a post it note somewhere. Vs the younger generation has it memorized.
Might just be your neck of the woods? I went in last week looking for a portable speaker[0] and was pretty young, of course my metro skews young so it might just be my neck of the woods.
[0] - If anyone has a recommendation for a good one that lacks a built-in microphone / assistant I'd be very grateful.
