fujishig

Hey all,
I have no idea if it's just my local Bestbuy or not, but I went in today to get Megaman Zero for GBA, and saw a cart full of hintbooks. These weren't old hintbooks either:

NFL 2K3
Jedi Starfighter
Crazy Taxi 3? (Gamecube one)
Maximo
NFL Fever

and a few others. They were a little beat up, but the sign said 50 cents, so I picked up some NFL 2K3 ones. (it's not that useful, since they don't even diagram all the plays, but hey, 50 c!) So the guy rings it up after I verify that the price is really 50 cents, and someone didn't just accidentally throw these in the cart (since the 14.95 retail sticker was still on it). He rings it up for... 1 cent! 1 cent!

wedge

This is actually a VERY common practice at Best Buy. Certain products are classified as "junk out - destroy in field". What that basically means is that when the company stops carrying the product, they throw it away and the manufacturer gives the store credit for whatever wasn't sold. It's done that way because it's cheaper for both parties than shipping all that crap back to the manufacturer, who then has to sit on old product.
Happens with cables sometimes, but mostly with hintbooks.

The way the store employees can tell that it's time to junk out
something, is that it is re-priced in the system to 1 cent. If the store is nice (like yours is, apparantly) they'll just leave them out and sell them for a penny. I mean, they're going to throw it away anyway. Most actually do destroy them, which is a shame. It's a good way to get hint books for super cheap.

fujishig

Hmm... if the manufacturer gives the store credit for what wasn't sold, then isn't the store contractually obligated to destroy what they get reimbursed for? I mean, even if it sold for 50 cents, that's 50 cents of profit that they shouldn't have gotten, right? And how does the manufacturer know the number of unsold copies a store has, without physically inspecting it?

I always did wonder what happened to the old hintbooks, since there are usually tons of them when a game comes out, and I've never seen them on sale. It is weird, though, since NFL 2K3 came out just a month ago...

Cyberock

which store did you find this at?

Decker

Just started a thread about this yesteday. I got Maximo and Golden Sun guides. We also had Driver, but I would have loved NFL2k3. Damn

tor_greg

I haven no interest in hintbooks when I have gamefaqs.com for free.

donnie5

Don't feel so bad about not getting the NFL2K3 book. I feel like I got ripped off and I only paid a penny! There is no info in this book at all! I fell sorry for those who paid full price.

Starlover

I got MGS 2 and Mark of Kri for 1 cent each!

goLUCKY

I didn't find any marked for less that 14.99.

Matt

Just because they were marked $14.99, doesn't mean that they would all ring up at $14.99. A lot of the game guides were marked down to a penny. Your store probably just didn't re-price them. It would probably be worth it to have them check the price of any game guide that's more than a month or two old.