bwsmom

Best Buy's secret website...

They got some 'splainin' to do....

rich-y

Wow! Total and blatant fraud. Something tells me they're going to pay a pretty penny over this!

UAIOE

"As a company, everything we do revolves around our customers' needs and desires. It is never our intent to mislead them as their loyalty is incredibly important to us"

This BB comment is total BS. Never was "customer needs" ever stressed when I worked there....unless "customer needs" equals "that customer needs a 120 CD holder to go with that CD in their hand".

DVDsAreMyLIFE

Would you expect less from best buy? I used to work for best buy and you wouldn't believe the shit they pulled on customers.

Pookymeister

I wonder if this 'secret intranet site' is what you see when you walk up to a kiosk and go to bestbuy.com from there.
If thats the case - AFAIK the prices you see do reflect in-store pricing and not the online price.
Price difference go both ways. There is a thread on dvdtalk about anime clearance dvds. You can order stuff for far cheaper in-store via one of these kiosks than if you accessed bestbuy.com from home. Reason being that the titles were clearanced a long time ago from the store.

fujishig

Yes, I thought that it was common knowledge that internal bestbuy.com was different from external bestbuy.com...

Wildo1966

Damn Blue Shirts! I knew it, they are the devil! Burn Baby Burn!

dx23

Doesn't Best Buy employees give you the "Bestbuy.com is not part of the company, so we can't give the lower price shown there" crap?

jjcool

To which you reply "well, how can I pay Bestbuy.com and pick up an item from the store if you arent the same company?"

Sam Goody tried to pull the same shit when they launched their webiste. We got dot bullshit.

IDrinkMolson

Hmm. That happened to me once. I ended up printing it at work, and taking it in the next day to get the correct price.

UAIOE

I think they've been saying that "we are separate entities" shit since the website launched.

But I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

They can't track CD storage sales from the register (or so they claimed), so how could they manage to link up both their stores and website into one big orgy of DVD/CD/electronics/appliances sales?

fitlissa76

Yeah, you know, something else that sort of goes with this too is their practice of changing prices online when they have such and such amount off coupon link offers that you click on. The link takes you to the site & registers that you have, for instance, 15% off whatever you put in your cart. Well, there was this one time I knew I was going to be using that link, but had just typed the address into my browser to first find what I wanted. So, I found a game that with the free shipping offer they had at the time would have been free. So, I go back & click on the link & lo' & behold the game has doubled its price. So, I started comparing prices between the 2 windows. In the original window I had opened everything was cheaper than the link I clicked through which was supposed to be a discount. For instance a game might be $10 through their site regularly, but clicking on the discount link brought up that the game was $20. A movie might be $5.99 on their site, but through the discount link suddenly it was $11.99. And so on.
So, to outsmart the system I put the item I wanted in my cart in the window without the discount. Then, in the window with the supposed discount I just clicked on my cart. There was the item at the price I wanted, and so I checked out that way. The discount was applied to the original price since I put it in my cart in the original window.
Very sleezy on the part of Best Buy.

Btw, FTD.com does this too. You have to find the item you want by going through ftd.com, but don't place the order there if you're using a gift card or coupon. Call in the order, otherwise the price will be raised on you. (happens to me all the time there.)

Tarantino

We used to be told that, but not anymore. At least at my store. We price match the website all the time.

And I too, thought it was common knowledge that the BB kiosks were different than bestbuy.com.

No sweat off my sack.

= J

hotwls13

We can pricematch bb.com at my store as well.

And, while I have used the Kiosks to order Anime at lower prices, it is a little strange that you have to click on "bestbuy.com" to shop through the Kiosk. I didn't know they were separate websites, I just thought, due to the fact you are accessing bestbuy.com from in-store, it would apply some sort of local discount that was set by the local store. After all, I can log into my bestbuy account from anywhere, including the store Kiosk.

As another note, I have also noticed that not all local pricing is the same. For example at my kiosk the Excel Saga Imperfect collection comes up $34.99 (the same price as bb.com internet) but at most (if not all) other kiosks it is coming up $17.99.

mmconhea

My goal is to make sure everyone I know knows about this BS that BB pulls. I say Boycott! Who's with?

DVDsAreMyLIFE

Even if this did make national news and everyone knew about. You know people will still shop there. They won't lose any AVERAGE sales over this.

Draven

I ran into the "Bestbuy.com is a different company" line when I was buying my HDTV about 4 years ago.

I could buy the TV from BB.com for a lower price with free delivery. To buy it instore would have cost me more and they charged a $65 delivery fee. I asked the guy why wouldn't I just get it online then, to which he replied "you probably should."

What a strange way to run a business.

Alan Smithee

I'm a "Demon Customer"- the only things I buy there are DVDs, and only when they're priced lower than anyone else. I'd never buy a big-ticket item from them.

UAIOE

I'm probably not on their good list either. The last time I bought a big item (which was a below $100 TV set) I didn't get a service plan.

Most of the time I just buy DVD's or CD's.

TimeandTide

Ditto.

lamphorn

I KNEW there was some shit going on!

I went to Best Buy a few weeks ago to get an iPod because I got a BB gift card. The site had said they were on sale for 237.99 (down from 249.99). The tags in the store had the regular price and when I asked the blue shirt, he took me to a kiosk and said "look, it's not on sale" and I could see the exact same website that I had looked at, but without the sale price. I just figured it must have ended in the couple of hours since I had been online!!!

Motherfucker.

paulringodaman

sell the gift card on ebay or something...do NOT go to Best Buy!!!!! Well only go if 9.99 DVD's are incorrectly B1G1!!!!

TomOpus

Same sort of thing happened to me when I was buying a digi camera. It was on sale on their website ($25 off) but not in-store. I told a blue shirt and he said he would check while I was checking out. He came back and said it was not showing the sale price but he would give me the sale price since I mentioned seeing it online. He said it's a good idea to print out the website price and bring it in.

atari2600

can someone explain what that means - "secret intranet site" and how they can use it to block some consumers from getting bestbuy.com prices? how do they know who they want to block it from? whats to stop these people from going home and buying them normally on bestbuy.com?

atari2600

still dont get how they konw whos a good customer and whos a bad one.