Anyone ever do a preorder at Best Buy? You buy the item online, and pick it up in the store when it is released. Kind of like an in store pickup. Curious to see if anyone has ever actually successfully done this. I have tried twice, and both times, the person at the counter had no idea what I was talking about when I wnet in to pick it up. Even though I got the email that said the item was ready for pick up.

i believe all bestbuys now have an "in-store" pick-up counter, usually located at the customer service desk, that handles all in-store pick-ups. there should be a sign there too. if this is where you went to pick up your order, and the person at that counter "had no idea" what you were talking about, then im at a loss and cannot assist you lol.

if so, i guess this bestbuy "in-store pick-up process is ymmv then.

This is kind of off topic, but over the past year or so I have noticed Best Buy has some of the most imcompetent employees. It seems like they never know anything about any of the new releases or were anything is at in the store.

Ive done plenty of regular in store pickups. Those usually go off without a hitch.

The question I had pertained to "Preorders". These are done very similarily to in store pickups, in that ehy are ordered online. You wait for an email that the itme is ready for pickup, then you go to the pickup counter to pick it up. But it is a preorder. IE you order the item before it comes out.
Has anyone done one of these Best Buy preorders before, and have it actually there at the counter when they said it would be?

No shit. I handed the employee a printout of of the email they sent saying my copy of Smallville S8 with the steel case was available for pickup. They didnt have it at the counter, so the guy goes to the tv section and brings back a copy of season 7 and of course it didnt have a steel case. I dont know if it is a simple lack of product knowledge, or just that some of their employees can't read.

ah my bad. ive done many a pre-order for new release exclusives at bestbuy. ive had a regular success rate of maybe 8 out of 10 among three different stores.

I've done online preorders with them before (buy online in advance for pickup on release date in-store). They've all gone through fine and the item was at customer service when I went in on release day.

The problem with these are that they only seem to allow pre-orders on big-name titles (that they have many of) where smaller titles show "Not Available" for store pickup (or preorder) until release date. Whenever I've picked up my preorder, they've had many copies left in store (usually on a table right inside the entrance), so having to deal with CS while they take any other customers, verify your ID and then try to locate your order (and then do all the 'paperwork'), it ends up being a much longer process than just going in-store.

Thats what I was going for. thanks. So far, I have had a success rate of 0%. That inclcudes getting asked once when I placed the preorder. I replied "a month and a half ago". The response to that was that they only hold stuff for 10 days. This was on the release day by the way.

Yeah, the only time I preorder is for the exclusives. They have yet to have the item ready for pickup.

I wish they would get their act together, and once that happens, would expand the preorder titles to stuff other than just the huge releases.

Forgot to mention - but the other problem with preordering from best buy (and one that has happened both times to me) are that they tape a piece of paper with your name on to the cover - if this is a slipcase, they tear easily (and for the reflective/foil covered ones, they tear off that material leaving a dull mark behind.