Best Buy Confirms It Has “Secret” Website

protias said:
I haven't bought anything from BestBuy in who knows how many years. I walk in there, don't see anything that I can't buy cheaper online and walk out. I'm thinking of getting a decent TV, but it is only worth it to go there to see the clarity so I know what I'm getting is good, but otherwise, online stores are much better. Long live the Egg!
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It's not even worth that. I have yet to see a Best Buy where they have the TV's set up properly. I also have yet to see a Best Buy where the TV's aren't plugged into an antenna mult box with 9 or more sets pulling the same signal. And I have yet to see a Best Buy where they haven't artificially lowered the image quality (by monkeying with the settings) of the cheaper sets to try and convince you to buy the more expensive sets.
 
to defend bby alittle:

I worked at bby for 4 years(through college). i quit over a year ago. bby has 3 ways to check prices/inventories. first way is RSS. this isn't really used by sales guys. it has company sensitive info (customer orders, deliveries, quantity on order and at cost price depending on your permissions). i worked on the warehouse team and i had issues w/ customers mulitple times because i would use RSS and they would look over my shoulder and confuse stock numbers and then demand a product that we either didn't have, or that was allocated to another customer. To avoid issues like this, the bby.com intranet site was introduced. this gives local stock counts, in-store pricing, in-storerebate information(usually) and a friendly search function. most of the sales team will use this to navigate through store stock (cuz they were retarded and couldn't remember model numbers). even though the intranet site looks like bestbuy.com, it is linked to the local database(stock and prices) and NOT the bestbuy.com site(unless out of stock or not carried at the location). All purchases made through this bby intranet site were credited to the store, not the online location, even though it would be delivered by the online site. lastly, was the bby.com internet site. This usually isn't accessible at in-store locations(there were back ways, but most sales noobs didn't know) except for the manager's computers. the bestbuy.com site would be the same that someone would see at home. It has access to local store inventories, but when i was there it wasn't at all reliable.

with the roll out of in-store pickups the inventory syncing between bestbuy.com and local stores has increased, but it's still about a hour delayed (for you IT people out there, there are 700+ stores w/ 40,000 different peices of product in each store. that is a LOT to update in real time, especially on a busy day and that doesn't include the warehouses and stuff).

basically, it comes down to ignorant employees and poor training. I don't think best buy is an evil company and i don't think it's out to screw over customers. i think there are some managers who are willing to screw people over to increase their "numbers" but i wouldn't blame the company for that. blame low level management. Nothing ends a bby manager's career faster than other managers succeeding when he/she is failing.
 
This just in: Best Buy is full of shit when it says it was human error.
 
basically, it comes down to ignorant employees and poor training. I don't think best buy is an evil company and i don't think it's out to screw over customers. i think there are some managers who are willing to screw people over to increase their "numbers" but i wouldn't blame the company for that. blame low level management. Nothing ends a bby manager's career faster than other managers succeeding when he/she is failing.
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I will blame the company for not having proper training and pushing managers to do "creative" things to raise the oh so important numbers. I worked for three different Best Buy locations (car audio, moved where I was needed) and all three were the same. Best Buy does nothing to promote honest educated sales people, they only push sales numbers for motivation.
 
*cough* BS I'm sorry this flaky explanation doesn't explain anything.


Why are there two sites in the first place?
Why do they have different prices?


this is probably the same mess of baiting people into a store, not really bait and switch but still somewhat misleading information. You check the stock of your local store online, they have plenty left it says, its not a really in demand so you travel there to get it thinking that there are some in stock only to find it completely gone and was never in stock in the first place. Its the little lies like this that I dislike.
 
I am a former employee of Best Buy, and was employed for over five years with this company. We were always told to use the website available from the kiosks on the floor to match prices, or show customers what the "correct" price is. I figured this would come back and bite them sooner or later and I'm glad it is finally happening. I am glad I'm no longer a retail whore.
 
haha notice how alot of our former employees who worked there for long periods of time have noticed the declined in the past years. When i was hired back in 2000 i just left CC and they were on the verge of taking their major tumbles and best buy was growing and becoming the top dawg. Now since they are on top best buy has been trying to improve to keep the top spot but in the long run all their decision and changes have made them a poor provider of service and consumer electronics to the masses. The overall reason why they stay in business is that they have over 700 locations, a website, advertising, and the general public who don't know or don't care about online shopping coming in to buy items.
 
shadowfax said:
It's not even worth that. I have yet to see a Best Buy where they have the TV's set up properly. I also have yet to see a Best Buy where the TV's aren't plugged into an antenna mult box with 9 or more sets pulling the same signal. And I have yet to see a Best Buy where they haven't artificially lowered the image quality (by monkeying with the settings) of the cheaper sets to try and convince you to buy the more expensive sets.
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I never said I would buy from them or that I would not look at other places. I merely said it is nice to go there and see the TVs. I would do my homework before handing over MY hard earned money. ;)
 
jbailey said:
And just for the record, all of the techs at our store are 21 and over, at least half of them have four year degrees, and most have multiple certifications. Not that text can sway any of you, but the effort put forth to get the degrees should definitely mean something.
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Not at my BB. I work in the Geek Squad (part time-for the nice discount) most are inexperienced and don't hold college degrees nor certs. The age group back there is 17-25 (I am the second oldest at 29) and have little work ethic. This does vary from store to store.

Second without quoting everything you say... the managers did a good job brain washing you! Congrats. PS, the prp and psp DONT cover PHYSICAL DAMAGE.The only service plan that does is for laptops.
 
I worked for best buy for around 4 years... the intra site very rarely differed from the internet site... had the error been brought to our attention by a customer within the 30 day return period we would have gladly adjusted the price... sounds to me like a few people in one store or two just tried to screw some people over.
 
Read the feedback on the original and second articles. Happens all over the country, far too much to be isolated. That, and saying they're out of stock on items sitting in plastic wrapped at the top of the shelf is BS.

We feel, if anything, this [Connecticut] investigation has exposed that we can take more concrete steps" to make the site differences more obvious.
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"Thank you, State Investigators! We ignore our customers but when you visit us and demonstrate the error of our ways we're so glad!" Everything this idiot company's PR department releases emanates a great deal of steam.
 
I work for Best Buy's Corporate division and the geeks of us all reported this to our superiors and said what gives? The following is the email we got back.

Various media outlets (including various websites) are repeating allegations made recently in the Hartford (CT) Courant newspaper that Best Buy has a "secret" web site that contains pricing different than the pricing featured in our stores or on BestBuy.com. This claim is absolutely untrue.
However, some Best Buy employees may not be aware that the BestBuy.com kiosks in their store reflect their store’s pricing, not necessarily the online (Web) BestBuy.com offers and pricing. To see BestBuy.com Web pricing from inside your store, click Products, Services, Offerings Lookup Info on Employee Toolkit. Then, under BestBuy.com, you’ll see links to both the kiosk/in-store pricing and external Web pricing. Click the BestBuy.com (Web pricing) link to see what customers see at home.
Make sure your teams are aware of these differences, so they can appropriately price-match when needed. BestBuy.com SOP on BestBuy.com price-matching is available on SOP online, as one of the topics listed under BestBuy.com.

What I can tell you, is that no one is "trained" to be deceptive. None of the store employees even knew that there were two different sites. I will also tell you that the stores have to be VPN connected to corp at all times and they have a nasty proxy. It may only be allowing them access to an internal version. My company laptop is locked down with all kinds of stuff that requires me to be VPN'ed at all times. I can't even look up my clients without being connected to MS CRM over proxy.

But there you have it. I would prolly say it was, in fact, a mix up.
 
In regards to the other posts on Geek Squad. We have several levels that the stores may or may not know about:

Cadets: Low end computer guys. Only basic knowledge.
Double Agents (DA's): Guys that make house calls for downed routers and such. More knowledge than Cadets, but guys here would laugh at them.
Special Agents (SA's): These guys are usually 25+, with either degrees or at least an MCP. These are the guys that go out with me on business clients. They have extensive server knowledge, cisco knowledge, etc.
Certified Special Agents (CSA's): These are the "boss" IT dudes for their territory. In DFW, we have two. They WILL have MCSE's at MINIMUM. They are called in for special circumstances or in depth business client installs. They are also on call 24/7 for helping out SA's over the phone or any other emergency.

So yeah, we got some chumps that don't know anything. But they are perfect for simple things at a low hourly rate. But we also have some guys that know things about networks no one here does. Of course they make more. ;-)
 
BB pricing is absolutely sick. Sick as in "bend over and grab your ankles and you arent getting any lube either" kind of sick. :eek:

They have lower end parts at higher end prices. I went in to our local BB and looked for a SATA drive I needed for a quick fix. Needless to say, there was exactly TWO sata drives on the shelf, 100gb models for TWICE the price I could get them online, in fact, for the price they wanted for the 100gb model, I could buy a 250gb model online. Now that's just fucking ridiculous!!!

I also tried to buy my 24" Gateway display there, after I called and they said they had 2 in stock, I drove over, and they could not find one in the back and only had a display model. After looking around, I asked them if I could just buy the display model. Nope, they can't, the guy said, unless the display model happens to be on clearance. So I tell them to shove it then, I will spend my $650 at Circuit City, and I did.

I will not buy there. Ever again. I can overnight most good computer parts cheaper than I can buy one at BB.
 
So about a year ago I decide on the TV I want and start the look for it at the best local price search.

I decided to go with Best Buy with the pickup at store option... go to the end and get a bug where the financing changes from what it said in the ad online to less time same as cash.

I call the store I planned on picking to get the item from and they start getting snotty with me telling me I have to call a different # for web problems even though they are the store I'm trying to get the item from.

I explained to the manager that I really didn't see it as my issue to fight with them to spend about $1500 at their store be it ordered on web or not.

Solution - go to Circuit City - explain nicely to the manager all the grief NotSoBestBuy gave me and work with him on a compromise. End result - I paid $50 more - got a little less time same as cash, but got it delivered to my apartment and installed which saved me a bit of work since I'm 2nd floor at an apartment complex and would have snagged a friend to help me get it to my apartment anyway.

So of course - tv arrives - DOA... really glad I had the delivery built in since they went back to the store and 45 minutes or so later had a working 2nd set delivered and setup :)
 
D-OveRMinD said:
I work for Best Buy's Corporate division and the geeks of us all reported this to our superiors and said what gives? The following is the email we got back.
What I can tell you, is that no one is "trained" to be deceptive.
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You really ought to take an in-depth look at the types of crap going on at your Store #52 Battlefield, MO then.

The geek squad there is awesome, they would never do anything like reccommend $500+ in service and parts versus suggesting that someone go and buy a new computer off the shelf for less.

The supervisor there would also never suggest that employees lean towards offering that kind of service as opposed to doing the right thing and telling them to get a new box. No, no, no. Never Ever.

Not those guys.
 
of best buy for 3 years i have known since day one that there has been an internal site. I really dont agree with many of their processes and ethics, however this site has been known to all employees in my store. Also when making sales i use that site to allow people to know that these items reflect store pricing and that if they wanted access the real site i reccomend them to use the prices on it. I'd really say its more of a personal choice of the sales people you talk with. I know they are all shady, but ask questions and see what happens they arent all bad.
 
My little episode with them was one time when they had a 20% off printable coupon online. I took it to my local BB to get a harddrive and at first they wouldn't honor the thing because they claim it was fake when they were too stupid to get it to apply. At the bottom it clearly tries to bring instructions to the cashiers to scan the coupon first and then the item and not the other way around. I ended up standing in line for 30min to wait for that lazy cashier to call up the manager and only to end up trying to explain to me they have no such coupon and they will not honor it. I was like "okay fine. Just get me ringed up and let me outta here". She rings up the price of the drive and it's $30 higher than advertised. I asked and she says that's the price. I told her it says different on the shelf and she wouldn't hear it. I had to run to the back of the shelf MYSELF, to that shelf and pick off the price tag to show her. GREAT service. After that, she tries to write up a pricematch ticket to note the price difference which I think would prevent me from returning it. WTF is that!?

So finally, I get ringed up and there were also MIR's being printed. At that point, she tries to THROW THEM AWAY!! I was like where are my rebates? She tries to tell me because I have this pricematch, they will not allow the rebates. I was pissed and demanded they get a manager to explain this. During the wait for the manager, I read the bottom line on the coupon, which specifically says they had to scan the coupon first and then the item, not the other way around. Great, way to go moron.

The manager finally gets here, I explained all the crap that I had to put up with from that biatch and he explains that the price has not been reflected in the system yet for some reason and that he would give it to me without the "pricematch" so the rebates would work as well as finally showed her how to scan in a coupon. Would've done more good to teach her how to read and should talk to a customer. After that at least they didn't have the guts to try to sell me one of their damn plans.

Needless to say, after that one, I never went back. Over 1 hr wait and dangerously high blood pressure for a stinking HD. At least it ended up being a $20 160gb WD.
 
mycomputersucks said:
to defend bby alittle:

I worked at bby for 4 years(through college). i quit over a year ago. bby has 3 ways to check prices/inventories. first way is RSS. this isn't really used by sales guys. it has company sensitive info (customer orders, deliveries, quantity on order and at cost price depending on your permissions). i worked on the warehouse team and i had issues w/ customers mulitple times because i would use RSS and they would look over my shoulder and confuse stock numbers and then demand a product that we either didn't have, or that was allocated to another customer. To avoid issues like this, the bby.com intranet site was introduced. this gives local stock counts, in-store pricing, in-storerebate information(usually) and a friendly search function. most of the sales team will use this to navigate through store stock (cuz they were retarded and couldn't remember model numbers). even though the intranet site looks like bestbuy.com, it is linked to the local database(stock and prices) and NOT the bestbuy.com site(unless out of stock or not carried at the location). All purchases made through this bby intranet site were credited to the store, not the online location, even though it would be delivered by the online site. lastly, was the bby.com internet site. This usually isn't accessible at in-store locations(there were back ways, but most sales noobs didn't know) except for the manager's computers. the bestbuy.com site would be the same that someone would see at home. It has access to local store inventories, but when i was there it wasn't at all reliable.

with the roll out of in-store pickups the inventory syncing between bestbuy.com and local stores has increased, but it's still about a hour delayed (for you IT people out there, there are 700+ stores w/ 40,000 different peices of product in each store. that is a LOT to update in real time, especially on a busy day and that doesn't include the warehouses and stuff).

basically, it comes down to ignorant employees and poor training. I don't think best buy is an evil company and i don't think it's out to screw over customers. i think there are some managers who are willing to screw people over to increase their "numbers" but i wouldn't blame the company for that. blame low level management. Nothing ends a bby manager's career faster than other managers succeeding when he/she is failing.
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Sorry about that cow shit I threw that hit your face, I really didn't mean for it to go into your open mouth.

I swear, people will find an excuse for baby killing someday.
 
Obviously, bad experiences last a lifetime and good ones are just expected. I hate corporate America as much as the next person, but lets be real. Every company does stuff like this to some degree. Everyone has a horror story about some company that other people love.

I think the bottom line is that you can always find a better deal and most of the time better service online. We all know that. But that's not Best Buy's competitor. They are a retail big box. You really have four choices in that realm: Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, and Fry's. Fry's usually has the best deals and biggest selection, and they will take almost anything back on return. The problem is, most things they have on the shelf HAVE been returned or opened, and they don't discount them at all. Then you get home and pieces are missing. CompUSA and Circuit City are both on the edge of going under, and neither has the worldwide presence or marketing or brand name recognition that Best Buy has. In all honesty, I don't even consider Best Buy a computer "part" store. They bring people in the door with low CD and movie prices to sell higher margin items like appliances, car stereos, geek squad services, etc. Fry's is the place for most people on this forum.

However, the issue is with this "internal site" and the implications. I still don't believe it was malicious and that there is some kind of mix up. I just got back from a corporate training in Chicago for BB and the entire focus was on "Customer Centricity." They REALLY believe in playing fair and it shows in every Standard Operating Proceedure put in place by the company. But again, all it takes is something like this getting out of hand and no one having the answers to tarnish all of that.

Even with all of this to light, it will not harm their stocks in the least...not for more than a day or two at least. People will still go there and will still buy from them. And, like I posted earlier, the emails through corp are already making the rounds letting everyone know this needs to be addressed and taken care of. So at least they are doing SOMETHING about it. That's more than I can say for some companies...
 
I don't know if this was said already, but I knew there was an internal bestbuy site for over 2 years now.
It was mentioned (without much fanfare) on a deals site as they found the listed price on a new piece of hardware (I think it was a laptop in this case as well) was about $200 lower on the internal site than on the external.

The way it was originally found out was the person asked to see the price of the item from a bestbuy employee who then checked the internal site and said the price.
The person then went to one of the computer displays that had internet access and checked the external site from that computer as the prices differed from what he saw when he checked at home.

I am glad it is finally getting the bad attention it deserves as this is shady business on bestbuy's part, but I am amazed it took so long for more people to notice and get upset.
Also, for bestbuy to claim ignorance and human error is just flat out lying in order to try and shift blame and reduce the damage.

D.
 
The problem with the Customer Centricity focus of BB is that by the time it filters down to line level it may as well be your ABC's: It's a bunch of shit everyone has heard before and they don't pay it much mind.

The other problem is the numbers required by any manager wanting to move up. Numbers say everything at BBY, and corporate is just as disconnected to what really goes on in the store at BBY as any other multi-tiered, vertically, oriented company.

It's the same old, same old. Corporate wants this and this with these restraints but the bottom line is numbers, and every manager there who wants to go anywhere needs their numbers to be strong. And thats where problems like this come into play.

It will never change, the company must be customer focused but there will always be some store level shithead, or a district run by a shithead that will foul up the works.
 
Igg said:
CrapBuy sucks along with Geeksquad, it's like dirty businesses seems to clump together under the same roof?
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And like magic, DirecTV reps are now pushing their garbage @ BB, too.
 
Oh man.. before the forum overhaul here I had a hugeeee "Best"Buy story in some thread. Its too long to type over again.. but I wish I stored it in a .txt file somewhere. :(

Long story short, I am totally banned from buying a PC at BestBuy. Yes.. I'm blacklisted. :p

I'll try any way possible to fcuk over BestBuy. I really don't give a shit if it ruins it for others. When they had that $30 off laptop accessories coupon a while back that they screwed up on, I got like 12 free laptop bags or something and they couldn't do anything about it. ahahah.. I totally cleaned off their shelves. :D
 
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