Best Buy is being overrun with "experience" stores

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
09/24/2015 at 12:47 • Filed to: None

I’m not a huge Best Buy fan. But after years of buying nothing at Best Buy, I’ve become a semi-regular customer, because Best Buy got their pricing act together, and Amazon charges sales tax in my state. I just !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! at Best Buy that I didn’t even need to price match. But there’s something insidious brewing within Best Buy.

If you’ve gone to a Best Buy store within the past few years, you’ve probably noticed these stores-within-a-store for brands like Apple, Samsung, Google, and Microsoft. They vary in size and staff, but they just make things more complicated. Basically, Best Buy got rid of their massive CD/DVD/Bluray sections and used the extra room to create these mini-stores.

Let’s say, for example, you want to buy a tablet. You’re not sure whether you want an iPad, Android, or Windows tablet. So you say to yourself, “I’m going to Best Buy to check out some tablets.” You might think there would be one part of the store where you can find the tablets, lorded over by tablet specialist in a Best Buy polo who will bug you five times asking if you need any help when you just want to be left alone to play with the tablets, but completely disappears when you want to actually buy something and you need him to go get it from the back from you. But you’d be wrong!

The iPads are in the Apple Experience section of the store, the Surfaces are in the Microsoft Experience, the Galaxy Tabs are in the Samsung Experience, the Nexus 9 is in the Google Experience, and then the poor orphaned Android and Windows tablets whose manufacturers didn’t pay Best Buy to create an experience for them are all lumped together. Each of these experiences has its own different specialists, who wear their own branded polo shirts, unlike the Best Buy polo shirts that your generic Best Buy people are wearing.

(This guy is not wearing a branded Microsoft polo because he is apparently the CEO of Best Buy Canada, according to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .)

Best Buy employees in branded polo shirts will burst into flames if they sell a product from a brand different from their polo shirt. Well, probably not, but they can’t sell you stuff from outside their brand’s mini-store.

If you go to the orphan tablet section, the Samsung guy might eyeball you from the Samsung Experience, saddle up next to you, start talking about how great Samsung tablets are, and try to get you to mosey on over to his section. But if you tell him you really want to buy this Lenovo tablet in the orphan tablet section, he can’t sell it to you, and then has to find someone with a generic Best Buy polo shirt instead of a Samsung polo shirt.

So now instead of one person hounding you when you want to be left alone and disappearing when you want to buy something, you have the Apple, Microsoft and Samsung polo shirt wearers hound you when you want to be left alone and disappear when you want to buy something. If you ask a generic Best Buy polo shirt guy where the Nexus 9 is they’ll dismissively point toward the lonely Google sign that doesn’t have its own dedicated guy in a polo shirt, just some random Chromebooks.

This is madness. But instead of trying to consolidate things, Best Buy is instead now going to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Best Buy already has dedicated Best Buy Mobile mini-stores, but apparently that’s not enough mini-stores for them, so now if you want to compare cell phone carriers you will have to be chased by and/or chase down separate Best Buy Mobile, AT&T and Verizon polo shirt wearers.

For the life of me, I can’t think of a more inefficient way to operate an electronics store. Instead of having people who are assigned to a general product category, every time a new brand wants to have its own dedicated mini-store in Best Buy, that creates yet more people who are only allowed to sell that one thing, even though all of them work at Best Buy. Customers have to be bothered by way more sales people, and then if they want to buy something, are more likely to encounter a Best Buy employee who can’t sell them that thing .

Yet with all of this nonsense, I’ll still probably buy things at Best Buy, when I really want to get my grubby mitts on them immediately. As long as they price match Amazon. Heaven help me if I get the Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, AT&T and Verizon guys all chasing me at the same time.

DISCUSSION (24)

TheHondaBro > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 12:53

Buy at Costco. Higher quality and lower price.

Textured Soy Protein > TheHondaBro
09/24/2015 at 12:56

Costco sells the same electronics as Best Buy. Occasionally they sell Costco-specific model numbers of the same stuff as other stores, just so you can’t compare prices with other stores. Costco’s electronics selection is much smaller than Best Buy. Costco does a terrible job of listing items on their website that are actually available to buy in my local store.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > TheHondaBro
09/24/2015 at 12:57

And in bulk. For savings! 5 phones for the price of 3.7!

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 12:59

Basically, Best Buy got rid of their massive CD/DVD/Bluray sections

Kinja'd!!!

I’m only very rarely in a Best Buy, so I wasn’t aware. EVIL. I don’t know if mine has succumbed to this since last winter or so.

DrScientist > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 13:01

This, my friend, is above your pay grade.

Best Buy corporate has deals with each of the manufacturers that ensures that the manufacturers’ products will only be sold within their “experience stores” or whatever.

This limits YOU the customer from the opportunity to do a close side-by-side comparison of the two items.

This is to the benefit, and i am sure driven by, the manufacturers. They do not want you to come in and do a real comparison side-by-side with their competitors. They want you to have consumed their marketing/advertising messages, and made your decision before you get to the best buy, which is likely the only place where you’d be able to see the items next to each other. You get there, see the apple store, walk over there to pick up a tablet, and say “yeah, this ipad does make me look thinner, just like in the ads!” and walk out the door with your new machine.

Best Buy, is not going to say no to the deal, because otherwise, apple, or MS or whoever will say, “fine, we wont approve you as a licensed dealer.” ie, take their ball and go home.

Anyway, these relationships are proposed and executed through high-level corporate dealings, and seem to be logical business strategy.

TheHondaBro > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 13:03

Items sold at Costco are of higher quality. This is because Costco is an exclusive wholesaler. Whereas Best Buy would just take any products offered to be sold there, Costco chooses which companies’ products to sell. In order to increase their attractiveness, companies will raise their products’ quality to meet Costco’s higher standards, in the same way Hewlett-Packard computers have higher-quality internal components because of their clientele.

Costco also sells items cheaper because they don’t allow credit cards. Companies have to pay a fee every time a credit card is used to purchase one of their products. No longer accounting for a credit card fee, items can be sold at much closer to their MSRP.

When we got our TV, we insisted on buying it from Costco because of those two reasons.

GeorgeyBoy > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 13:06

Doesn’t Best Buy lease the space? Makes sense to me, not like they could do much else to survive.

Galileo Humpkins (aka MC Clap Yo Handz) > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 13:11

They’re pretty much going to end up a segrerated flea market version of an electronics store. I haven’t been to one in a while and am also not a fan of this whole concept.

Textured Soy Protein > TheHondaBro
09/24/2015 at 13:12

I have personally witnessed at my local Costco, electronics that are the exact same as other stores. I’ve even bought electronics at Costco that are the same model numbers and products as everywhere else. It’s not like “only the good ones” of that model are sold at Costco.

Occasionally Costco has a Costco-specific model number, but most of the time the only thing different about Costco-specific models of electronics is they have a different model number specific to Costco. It’s the same damn shit as the versions sold outside of Costco.

Costco has a more generous warranty than many other stores on things like TVs, but the TVs themselves are very much the same as every other store.

Costco does take credit cards. They have an exclusive credit card partner who cuts them a better deal on credit card fees in exchange for that exclusivity. For a long time it was American Express and now it’s Capital One.

The main thing that deters me from going to Costco to buy electronics is their not having a standard inventory of electronics at their stores, and not updating their website with store inventory information. Let’s say I’m browsing online for some product or another, and I want to find out if it’s available at a local store. Best Buy, I can find it on their website, confirm it’s in stock at my local store, and then I know they’ll price match online stores. Costco has no such online inventory. So it’s either call ahead and find out if they have this one specific item (which is literally asking a giant warehouse “do you have this one thing?”) or drive over there and find out myself. And since I’ve never had either an American Express or Capital One credit card, I’d have to put the purchase on my debit card, which I prefer to avoid using.

jariten1781 > TheHondaBro
09/24/2015 at 13:21

“Items sold at Costco are of higher quality.”

No, Costco specific products may be higher quality than say Walmart specific products, but it’s really hard to compare since they’re made for one distributor only. Ones from general product lines are identical.

But you are correct, Costco does have some real advantages over other brick-and-mortar stores...that’s just not one of them.

TheHondaBro > jariten1781
09/24/2015 at 13:24

Costco is very picky about what it sells, which means companies have to make their products seem more attractive to Costco. Items sold at Costco are built to a higher standard because of that.

Stapleface-Now Hyphenated! > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 13:27

I read an article about this a number of years ago, and there’s a reason this exists. And it really has nothing to do with the customer. They (Best Buy) rent out this space to the experience stores (Apple, Samsung, Google etc.). This helps Best Buy pay the rent, and can in turn allow them to charge cheaper pricing on the stuff they do control, because there’s now less overhead. They can now be more competitive with the likes of Walmart and Amazon, which gets people in the door. Once there, they can sell them the stuff they make the real money on. Accessories.

StoneCold > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 13:28

Next thing you know, you’ll be hearing “If you buy this iPad today, we’ll throw in the TrueCoat which will save your aluminum finish from oxidation problems. Let me just get my manager to okay this price.”

Kinja'd!!!

Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. > TheHondaBro
09/24/2015 at 13:33

Costco Canada takes mastercard now, where is your god now?

 V8 Rustler > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 13:52

Don’t know if it affiliated in any way to Best Buy, but in Hungary there is a store called Best Byte.

Kinja'd!!!

Rico > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 14:48

who will bug you five times asking if you need any help when you just want to be left alone

I worked for Best Buy my senior year of HS (roughly 2007-2008) for about 8 months. Let me just tell you that our supervisors MADE us do that. Even if I told my supervisor that I asked you if you needed any help and that you told me you were just browsing she’d force me to go up to you again. She’d stand and watch to make sure I did it too.

The final straw for me was I was written up because I refused to force a $150 Monster power surge onto an old lady who had to be close to 90 years old who was buying a 22” LG TV. They kept telling me to lie to her and tell her she absolutely needed it. I refused, got written up and quit a week later when a supervisor tried to take my phone from me when we were vacuuming the store after it was closed and all customers were gone. I cursed her out, left and told her to be sure my direct deposit hit or I would be back to embarrass her.

TLDR: Fuck BestBuy as a corporation, company and as a muthafuckin crew.

jariten1781 > TheHondaBro
09/24/2015 at 14:56

I don’t know enough about other products, but that’s just plain not true for electronics.

A specific model, (picking something random; let’s say a Samsung UN65JS8500), is identical no matter where you buy it. It comes off the same line, with the same components, often in the same lot. They don’t change the production line based on the distribution scheme. Anyhow, they’re comingled in warehouse/shipping and service would be nigh-on-impossible if they had to back track to determine where an item was purchased to determine what troubleshooting and repair procedure needed to be followed/what replacement part # to use.

Sometimes there’re sub-models, in this hypothetical would be something like a UN65JS8500a, which have different components or features in the same case. Usually those are streamed to different distributors (regularly they’ll have lower quality components...rarely higher if it’s going to a boutique shop) and sold at different price points. Costco may choose not to sell the lower tier submodels (don’t know, I’ve only worked on the supplier side) and potentially they leverage to get the mainline models for the price of the sub-models. Regardless, while UN65JS8500 and UN65JS8500a differ, every UN65JS8500a is the same as every other UN65JS8500a no matter where it’s sold.

Then, and this is where it gets confusing, sometimes they’ll do specific runs for individual distributors. Let’s say Costco gets a UN65JS8502 and Walmart gets a UN65JS8505. While UN65JS8502 may be higher quality than UN65JS8505, with the same feature set...it’s unlikely to be higher quality (though it may be the exact same) than UN65JS8500 since that’s the one sold directly in manufacturer -> consumer sales. It’s really hard (pretty much impossible unless you want to purchase both and do a tear down) to compare those since they’re specific runs...but I never once saw, nor heard of a vendor specific product line that was higher in quality than the manufacturer line when I worked in electronic production; a manufacturer would be stupid to do that.

Circling back...if they’re the same model number, and they usually are, for all intents and purposes they're identical no matter what the point of sale. Full Stop.

Textured Soy Protein > Rico
09/24/2015 at 15:23

I don’t know what it is, but apparently when I need to change up my signaling behaviors for Best Buy employees.

When I play around with gadgets at a Best Buy, I really just want to see what the gadget is like. I want to be bothered later, after I’ve decided this is the gadget for me, but Best Buy employees see this behavior as a signal for “I NEED ATTENTION.”

Then when I’m done playing with gadgets, and stand near the gadgets looking around the store for a person in a blue shirt, which to me says “I HAVE MADE A DECISION TO BUY SOMETHING BECAUSE WHO ELSE STANDS AROUND IN A BEST BUY SCANNING THE HORIZON FOR BLUE SHIRTS?,” nobody picks up on the signal.

I used to do online orders for store pickup to avoid all this nonsense, but inevitably I’d submit the online order, hop in the car to the store, and arrive well before anyone had gotten around to grabbing the item off the shelf.

My local Chinese takeout joint can receive an online order, print it, and make my kung pao chicken lunch combo by the time I arrive, but Best Buy cannot pick up an item off the shelf in the same time.

Rico > Textured Soy Protein
09/24/2015 at 15:36

I’ve had pretty bad experiences with instore pick up from every major chain EXCEPT Home Depot. Once in Target I spent 45 Mins standing around waiting for them to bring my TV out, they then brought out the wrong model and had to spend an additional 15 mins getting the right one.

As for Best Buy the best thing to do is to tell them that you are interested in getting a [gadget] but want to look around first, if I have any questions where can I find you. That usually lets the person know that you don’t want to be bothered right now but want their help if necessary. And when the Supe comes and asks the employee why he isn’t riding the customer’s ass he can say exactly what you told him.

DasWauto > Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again.
09/24/2015 at 18:44

Intredasting. Looks like I’m getting a MasterCard.

Tohru > Textured Soy Protein
10/03/2015 at 12:01

Last time I was in a Best Buy was the one up in Stevens Point in like 2013. Before that it was the East Towne store in like 2008.

It’s hard to believe they just keep going downhill.

Textured Soy Protein > Tohru
10/03/2015 at 12:08

The thing is, they’ve gotten much better on the things I actually care about when buying electronics: price and selection. In the past 2-3 years I’ve gotten a couple TVs there, a washer & dryer, a tablet, a smartphone, a JBL bluetooth speaker, probably some other things too. Sometimes I had to do an online price match, other times Best Buy was already the same price as online, or in the case of that washer & dryer they were the cheapest.

It’s just the shopping experience itself is a mess.

Also they still price gouge on accessories. They wanted some ridiculous amount of money for the hoses to hook up the washer and the power cable for the dryer. I went to Menard’s before the scheduled appointment for Best Buy to deliver & install the appliances and bought the hookup accessories for like half what Best Buy wanted, then Best Buy’s install guys used the Menard’s hoses and power cable.

Tohru > Textured Soy Protein
10/03/2015 at 12:15

See, I’m just a poor hick and I buy stuff used.

Kittyfs > Textured Soy Protein
10/12/2015 at 02:20

The associates in different branded polos do not work for Best Buy. This is why they will get a generic Polo shirt to assist you with other brands, it’s in their contracts with their employers i.e. Samsung, Apple, Marketsource, etc.