Is Best Buy the single worst-run company in the history of the world?
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My new laptop just came in the mail today. I've been pretty excited. It's a mobile quad w/ 32GB RAM and a 980M. But.... since Best Buy literally struggles with every single thing imaginable... they sent me a laptop w/ 24GB.
Their web site is riddled w/ errors, their employees know less about the simple questions I ask them than I do, and, well, their prices aren't even competitive.
Challenge: Name a worse company than Best Buy.
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Why would you ever buy something non-basic form Best Buy? That just amazes me.
Basic, in stock items? No problem if I need it now and can't wait for shipping from someplace..
But I would never have even thought about ordering your machine from Best Buy.
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@JaredBusch said:
Why would you ever buy something non-basic form Best Buy? That just amazes me.
In two words: Discounts and flexibility. The laptop I ordered is on sale for $320 dollars off:
And on top of that, you can apply a 10% off coupon at checkout, saving you another $220.
On top of that, being an elite member I get another $46-ish back in Best Buy gift certificates a week or two after purchase.
Almost $600 total off. On a laptop this expensive, that's pretty legit. It'll pay for my GTX 970, the motherboard for my Xeon, and the power supply. Not bad.
As far as flexibility, I also have 45 days to return anything I buy at Best Buy with no restocking fees whatsoever for being an elite member.
That's pretty much it.
I'm just super annoyed that I'm going to have to call them tomorrow and have them ship me the replacement.
The good news is, I cracked the thing open and it's actually an M2 SSD, so that's a pretty epic surprise.
The screen is also 75Hz and has GSync. Excited about the laptop itself, just annoyed at the incompetency of such a big company.
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You saved almost 600$, the money you didn't pay them goes towards the unskilled techs and incompetent managers.
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@creayt said:
Challenge: Name a worse company than Best Buy.
H H Gregg. Won't ever step foot into one again.
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I've never bought gear from them. Even getting cables there is a challenge.
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In a word: yes.
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Challenge accepted. Nestlè
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@s.hackleman said:
Challenge accepted. Nestlè
Why don't you like Nestè? Can't be as bad as Hershey!!
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@scottalanmiller said:
@s.hackleman said:
Challenge accepted. Nestlè
Why don't you like Nestè? Can't be as bad as Hershey!!
It is a toss up between them marketing formula as better than breast milk in underdeveloped countries, and their buying up of ground water from public municipalities. I would rather put up with a dumb kid in a Blue shirt, than support a them. I would also throw Comcast, Tyson Chicken plants, and AT&T U-Verse in the ocean as well.
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@s.hackleman said:
It is a toss up between them marketing formula as better than breast milk in underdeveloped countries....
That was 40 years ago!!
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@scottalanmiller said:
@s.hackleman said:
It is a toss up between them marketing formula as better than breast milk in underdeveloped countries....
That was 40 years ago!!
Fair, but the fight to change clean water from a need to a right, claiming "Bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world.", and the pumping out and shipping off of public water supplies is still happening today. So I would argue not much has changed. I'm just saying it is worse than under educated employees selling me a consumer electronics.
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Still all around marketing though. I'd argue that marketing can only be so bad because it always requires the willingness of the consumers to be duped by it. Which in turn makes Best Buy only so bad as well.
Hershey's on the other hand used American political corruption to bar their competition from the market in a move that made chocolate in America a nationalized, rather than capitalistic, product. Hershey's literally owns the market.
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@scottalanmiller One day I will win a debate with you, but today is not that day. I can't argue that that is not worse.
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@s.hackleman said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@s.hackleman said:
It is a toss up between them marketing formula as better than breast milk in underdeveloped countries....
That was 40 years ago!!
Fair, but the fight to change clean water from a need to a right, claiming "Bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world.", and the pumping out and shipping off of public water supplies is still happening today. So I would argue not much has changed. I'm just saying it is worse than under educated employees selling me a consumer electronics.
But that has nothing to do with the customers' experience, which was the point of the OP. You're talking about a company that is evil, not one that is poorly run. Lots of companies are evil (at least they were when I stopped paying attention over a decade ago..)
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@RojoLoco said:
@s.hackleman said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@s.hackleman said:
It is a toss up between them marketing formula as better than breast milk in underdeveloped countries....
That was 40 years ago!!
Fair, but the fight to change clean water from a need to a right, claiming "Bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world.", and the pumping out and shipping off of public water supplies is still happening today. So I would argue not much has changed. I'm just saying it is worse than under educated employees selling me a consumer electronics.
But that has nothing to do with the customers' experience, which was the point of the OP. You're talking about a company that is evil, not one that is poorly run. Lots of companies are evil (at least they were when I stopped paying attention over a decade ago..)
Best Buy isn't poorly run. The average BB customer doesn't want good advice, they want what BB offers - the social excuses of a bad store. People keep going back because they like what BB offers.
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BB? Oh you mean my Internet store front touch & test drive location of choice.
I worked for FutureShop as a highly paid commission sales guy for TV's and Computers back when that paid decent money. That was nearly a decade ago and I still only make a little more than that today.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Best Buy isn't poorly run. The average BB customer doesn't want good advice, they want what BB offers - the social excuses of a bad store. People keep going back because they like what BB offers.
I assure you it's extremely poorly run.
People don't like what they offer, it's just the only game in town for a lot of things. Where I live you can maybe find an absolutely bargain basement shitty laptop at Walmart or Target, but other than that there are pretty much no other options than Best Buy, unless you know you want a mac and are nearer to an Apple Store.
It's why it'll be completely dead in less than 3 years, going the way of Circuit City. Everything from their actual selection of what electronics to carry on a model level down to how they advertise and handle returns and membership incentives, to how they price match, to the lack of training of their employees to answer simple questions ( though, this has definitely degraded in the past 5 years as they've been bleeding money to Amazon, they used to have some pretty knowledgeable people when I was first getting into programming ) to their web site, which is riddled w/ errors, misinformation, and an inability to correctly convey local inventory information, arguably its most-important function ( I've gone to local Best Buys 3 times that said items were in-stock in the store even when I was there asking reps to check the back, and ended up going home without them. I now call ahead choosing not to trust their web site, ever, and beg an employee to physically find the product and verify that it's there ).
But, in the end, I can't argue w/ $600 off
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