Jah-Wren Ryel

No, but your momma keeps begging me to marry her.

Smorri

There you go again making up stories. You've made up stories about CostCo , fantasies about poster's mothers and now insult Best Buy employees and a poster in the same post ... all to defend sillymonkey and balance the lack of empathy toward her? I'm not defending every Best Buy employee or Best Buy in general, but when you can easily assume that employees were slacking rather than that sillymonkey was abusing returns (especially after her posts here), you again show your prejudice against Best Buy and lack of objective thinking. You're failure to understand 1040ez's example and your inability to comprehend the difference between some one returning a single item or two and someone returning 40 items with different receipts, some with no receipts, working out the rewardzone credits etc., shows your own lack of operations experience. But you suggest that Best Buy should schedule for this, or that it's Best Buys fault because their employees are slackers? If you read her posts in other threads you can easily see this happening in many stores, not just Best Buy. But you still cannot understand 1040ez's point... Well all those other stores are probably staffed by slackers too.

You have clearly shown your hate for Best Buy and your willingness to overlook and rationalize all of sillymonkey's actions. Fine, you're entitled. But stop making crap up, you're not convincing anyone.

Oh, and the fascination with people's mothers... well, it's just weird.

Jah-Wren Ryel

Yes. they are all editorializing. None of your cited articles contain a statement from costco that the returns were hurting the company's bottom line.

Since this is such a big deal to you, let me spell it out in full:

The typical contract to be a costco supplier requires that the supplier accept customer returns for full credit. Thus, for almost all products the suppliers eat the cost of the returns - not Costco. Because costco negotiates for wholesale pricing equal too, or better than what the suppliers offer other stores, the net effect of costco's return policy was to increase wholesale prices across the board. In effect, other retail stores were subsidizing the returns at costco.

Those other stores, including some big ones like Wal-mart, didn't like it and put pressure on enough of the common vendors that costco could not maintain their position. Thus, as I said originally, the change was at the behest of costco's competitors.

One side-effect of the reduction of the return period is that costco ended up "grandfathering" all previous purchases from before the policy change. Since their suppliers are no longer on the hook to cover returns that are 90 days past the purchase date, Costco has to eat those costs on any grandfathered products. To handle that, they ended up moving ~$30M into an internal returns reserve fund last year as part of the change. Read their SEC filings, you will see the impact of setting up that fund on their finances. So in effect, the change in return policy caused Costco to take a ~$30M hit to profits.

Citations? Well, as I said originally, this was discussed on various forums like fatwallet by costco employees. Here are similar posts that turned up in a 5 minute google search, since this issue is so important to you, I suggest you do a little research of your own rather than just searching for confirmation of your preconceived ideas.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/announcem...64.php#c722297
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/ma...html#c96371526

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As for the rest of your tirade, I am so wounded by your brilliance. I bet your momma is proud of you!!

Goldblum

^^ You sure take your returns seriously.

Dr Mabuse

this thread is so awesome its overwhelming...

some of the forums i'm on have a sort of "Hall Of Fame" areas that are locked, only Mods can move a thread there... but the threads in that area are SO completely wild, or interesting, or hilarious, or etc... that they are guaranteed to be a good read for anyone...

this is such a thread...

even to someone who doesn't collect DVD's or doesn't even know what Best Buy is...

this thread is fantastic, just on it's own merits...

this forum has it's share of really cool threads... it might be worth consideration to start a "Hall Of Fame' section here at DVDTalk...

sillymonkey you really are a trooper, you kind of 'walked the gauntlet' on this one... and it appears you posted with candor...

i think you know you went too far... but man you're a good sport...

i mean just look at this post for one quick example...

"Hall Of Fame" material all the way...

Smorri

The gizmodo link (the CostCo employee) is referring to "consumer electronics", specifically TV's. While CostCo is a little more open to outside pressure, this thread and most of CostCo's sales are about smaller items (food, DVD, etc...). The venders of those items do not have the leverage big ticket items vendors might have. You sell to CostCo and accept their terms because of the volume you can move. I know, my company sells to them. Your own link says the same thing. This is nothing new, Office Depot, Office Max and Staples having been doing the same thing to us for years. They even demand that they get credit for unsold product without returning it (which they are suppose to destroy, but can continue to sell). But for most vendors the only option is to accept this or lose out on selling through those channels.

Your own gizmodo link says in the lead in, the very thing you are denying: "Because on Jan 1, Costco may be changing their lenient return policy due to abuse, especially in the realm of computers ". Do you understand? It said "abuse", not pressure from vendors.

----------------------------------------------------
" BY DUTCHFLAT AT 12/10/06 01:41 AM

All you have to do is look at the line of people returning stuff to Costco to see that the return policy is being abused. Computers coming in, Flat-screen TV's coming in, etc. Looking at the boxes they are coming back in, it's obvious half the stuff is being returned because of "buyer's remorse." These idiots buy something they know absolutely nothing about, then find out they're too stupid to run it, or that they bought the wrong thing in the first place. So, back to Costco. Too bad these bad apples have to spoil it for the legitimate customers. "

" BY 2POINT8 AT 12/09/06 05:05 PM

Good for them, bad for us. I worked consumer electronics retail for three years and I too can testify as to how cheap some people are. (Go look at the line of people returning TV's after the Superbowl) It always used to shock me how they would take things back and give you cash! When I was younger our TV broke, and we took it back after like four years and they basically handed my mother the amount of cash it would take to purchase a brand new TV. It sucks that people had to abuse it with computers and stuff that was old vs actually defective. "
----------------------------------------------------

As for the Marginal Revolution link, its basically saying CostCo employees are nice. Umm... ok.


Grow up.

Jah-Wren Ryel

Again, show me one place that an official costco representative said that. You can't, because they didn't. Good job on confirming my explanation of how all the pieces fit together though.

"Costco requires suppliers to credit all returns and drops suppliers whose goods are returned too often. The terms are really stiff but suppliers cope with them because Costco will move large volumes to high-quality retail customers."
-- http://www.marginalrevolution.com/ma...html#c96371526

Ok?
I heard yo momma yell that at you last night while we were in bed together.

whotony

zzzzzz

Sean O'Hara

It depends greatly upon when it happens. If it's 11:00 Thursday morning in February, a store should be pretty much dead, so if some crazy woman decides to return five months worth of purchases, with twenty receipts and she doesn't know what's on which receipt, and the store doesn't have enough employees on duty for a second CS register, I blame the woman for being an idiot, not the store. If it's 4:00 Saturday afternoon the week before Christmas and they only have one CS register open, that's a completely different issue.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Hey Guys!!! I laugh at your "sources" that come from reporters. I get my news and facts from comments and people on forums because they are a much more trustworthy than reporters that interview the source of the news.

edit: Here's a source from the owner of Costco saying Jah-Wren Ryel is wrong and that the returns were hurting the bottom line.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/ma...html#c96371526

Smorri

Are you really that dense? Thats exactly what I was saying. How could you possibly interpret that as proving CostCo changed it's return policies due to pressure from vendors?

Jah-Wren Ryel you are a complete joke.

diaclonex

great thread. very amusing.
2 things I must say:

uhm, perhaps the hour car ride, with the cheese that is supposed to be refrigerated, caused the cheese to mold at a higher rate than normal?

Not everybody with a job has the luxury of having internet access at work to make an online order, to save them that copy to pick up after work. I know I sure dont.

fitlissa76

Are you trying to be funny ? If so, you are failing miserably. Do grow up.

Mosskeeto

He seems to be a strong supporter of her actions and nothing will get him to reconsider his position. These responses are getting too personal; not mine I hope. As R. King said..."Why can't we all just get along".

John Galt

No, they aren't. Retail stores intentionally understaff their return desks to make returning items as unpleasant as possible in hopes that it will discourage customers from returning an item on a whim.

DVD Josh

John couldn't be more right. When I make a return to Best Buy, I can always count on the six checkout clerks standing around talking to each other while the one return clerk handles a line of 10 people.

diggerbeast

WOW. I FINALLY finished this thread, and, after working for 2 years for Best Buy, I have to agree with them, and I really hate BB after working for them. You attempted to return 40 items in one trip, something that REALLY makes you a target. Plus, LP gets to know people when they come in and out, they have to sticker every piece of returned item, so, I'm pretty sure you were being watched for awhile.

Now, I know you don't think buying 3 new release items per week is "eating up" anyones inventory, and, in reality, it shouldn't. But, it does. If 5 new titles come out, and you pick up three copies of each, that's 15 copies that are just GONE, but, for only a week or so until you return them. You mentioned more than once "you snooze you loose" but, come on, if you got there "too late" you'd be mad right? It's just not fair to others, and, you're making BB loose potential sales, by people who would not be returning those items.

You also said it wasn't taking much time to return these items. Well, sure, one transaction. But, once a WEEK for multiple returns, it adds up. There's the CSR returning, the CSR from the media dept. taking it back to DVDs, a CSR possibly having to re-price it, and then a CSR re-stocking it, possibly having to make room for, lets say, seasons 1-10 of Star-Gate. That can be a 10 mins process, weekly, for something that shouldn't have to be done. 10 mins x 4 times in a month x 12 months / by 60 mins = 8 hours. (I think I did my math right!) THATS A WHOLE SHIFT OF RETURNING YOUR STUFF! Say, that was me doing that. I made 16 bucks and hour when I quit. 16 x 8 = $124 bucks. and you returned UNDER $100 worth of stuff? No, you have NOT paid my salary for the year. In fact, your obsessive returns pretty just wasted a day of my time.

And honestly, it doesn't matter if you spent 15k a year there. If you're not worth the trouble, they're willing to let you go, or, have another store deal with you.

Seriouslly, you sound just like a customer I had in Sephora when I worked there. This woman would come in weekly, return $200 of products. She had a giftcard for about $600, and she never paid cash for any of it, she continued to use her GC, putting the returned $ on it. She'd come in to get the free gifts we gave out, excessive amounts of samples, and would always return products and purchase the EXACT SAME ONES. It made NO sense. I agree, places should alter their return policies, and yes, BB was rude to you, they should not have made a spectacle of you, but, to be honest, you had it coming. You could not hoenstly think that spending that much money granted you some type of saftey.

neiname

Nice analysis, really puts the $ amounts in perspective for me.

neiname

Hilarious, good show

Shoveler

I'm sorry, but when she says "I buy extra copies in case any of my friends want them...", that is clearly a form of reselling! Unless, of course, she gives them away, but then I wouldn't expect people to turn down the gift and put her in the position of returning the unwanted copies.

She is basically turning herself into a small business, with a small customer base limited to her "friends", using BB as her supplier, and expecting BB to accept her unsold "stock". I don't know exactly how the manager treated her and whether it was out of line, but I don't think he was at all out of line to suggest that she was reselling the DVDs. That is exactly what she was doing, even if it was for no profit!

Look at it this way... if BB has a DVD on sale as a loss leader, the goal is to attract customers into the store to spend more money on other items. So if she buys these loss leaders and then makes them available to people outside of the store, BB is taking the loss on the item without gaining the benefit of another ass walking through the door. Furthermore, I don't care if she spends $15 MILLION dollars a year, her spending habits suggest that this equals very little profit to BB and possibly a loss. if every customer did what she does, they would be out of business. Either that, or they would never put anything on sale.

Trust me, I have done my fair share of returns, and used to think of myself as a compulsive buyer before I started reading this thread! And based on the fact that sillymonkey keeps acknowledging a significant compulsion, I'm not so sure I buy it when she says "If they had just warned me, I would've stopped!" I'm not sure she could have stopped.

sillymonkey, just out of curiosity, how many DVDs do you have in your collection that are more than 3 months old and have never been opened?

Shoveler

I agree, you should never shop there again! That'll teach them to be rude to you!

This reminds me of this annoying kid in high school who used to sit with me and my friends during lunch. We felt bad for him, so we didn't try to discourage him at first, but he made it impossible to carry on a conversation without his idiotic interruptions, and we didn't want to hurt his feelings, so we went to the chaplain and asked for advice. The chaplain told us to pick up his tray, move it to another table, and tell him we didn't want him sitting with us anymore.

It's a fine line between direct and rude.

mzupeman2

I worked at a toy store and there was a collector that came in, he bought from us all of the time, and he was a nice guy, but he'd turn around and return a lot of stuff all the time too.

Taking stuff off the shelf on a whim and spending a crapload of money, may be considered fair in your eyes because you're shelling out the dough, but you're also making it more difficult for other people who will take the time to go out of their way to get an item they're searching for. But there you are in the store, picking up copies for you, copies for your friends and family because the deals are so great... and then you bring them back to the store later to return them when the store could have sold them to customers who really could have used them. It infuriates me to know there are people out there that buy copies for their friends who may not even want that product, when I went to a store specifically to buy the same item. As said, 'you snooze you lose' is really just another way of saying 'I'm a jerk and I could care less what the hell you want'. Go to a store, buy what you want, and leave. Don't just throw stuff in a cart based on what else you might be able to sell off and get rid of yourself. That's what the STORE is for.

And returns? That money has to go back out. You helped their sales one day, but you return a boatload of stuff on another day and you hurt them, because that's just that much less money that they'll have towards their daily sales goal figure.

Don't get me wrong, BB employees are idiots. I've had terrible customer service from them when it comes to DVD's, and I hardly ever return anything. I literally once went out in the parking lot to my car, openned up a boxed set, and saw discs were loose and scratched, brought it back in, none were left, and they didn't want to refund my money because 'you can only do an exchange'. The gall of these people.

But really, you were really kind of abusing the customer transaction unwritten code. A store doesn't have to put up some a buyer who wastes their time on a regular basis.

c0ld29

jesus... use that $15,000 a year on a therapist... (and I only read page 1) I hope your spending habits aren't like that for everything (clothes, accessories, etc.)

fitlissa76

he he he... you'd know that if you read the whole thread. LOL Yes, her habits ARE like that.