Silly Best Buy price match "Policy"? (1 Viewer)

[troy evans]

Was the printer $6.00? If not, then it's a little different with regards to the price match policy. The original point here was to discuss why an employee of BB would call CC to confirm a $6.00 price on a $10.00 regular price sd dvd. The $4.00 difference doesn't seem worth the effort or time wasted.

 

[JohnRice]

Actually, I think Scott hit on the real issue. Policies aren't really about common sense anymore. Yes, it makes sense to check on large items, though sale prices from places like CC are going to be legit and not some sham like someone earlier said they "could" be. It just strikes me as a waste of time on a run-of-the-mill sale price on a DVD. Particularly, as I had said before, since BB had run this DVD at the same price before and after this particular sale.

I think some of the responses illustrate part of the problem as well. These big retailers offer regular sales and other things to get people in their doors, and then resent customers for using them. There is this bizarre hostility toward customers anymore. Yes, some people will abuse anything they can. That doesn't make it a good policy to assume everyone who walks through your door is going to try to rip you off.

I'm not a very consumerist person. I don't buy much, but I try to get things on sale when I can. I also virtually never take up one moment of the sales peoples' time. I had been wanting to buy this title and had seen it on sale for the same price many times, but I don't typically make a special trip. This time, it was on sale and I was going right by BB, so I decided to get it. The result is, next time I just won't bother.

Two days ago I bought new tires and tubes for my bike, which is my main mode of transportation in the summer. I needed a little help, but the "sales" person seemed rather inconvenienced. There was "no difference" between the different tires. Then, when I said I also needed tubes, she handed me two boxes. After I had installed everything, I realized the tubes were too small a diameter (I noticed on the boxes), so I had to take everything apart again, drive back, and exchange them. The manager had to handle the exchange and didn't seem to be the slightest bit apologetic, or surprised about the whole thing.

All this contempt for customers is just odd to me.

 

[Mike Williams]

This entire thread has me completely baffled, mostly because of every single thing that Brian has written. It is one thing when a store has something on sale, but is not listed in an ad. Then it is reasonable for a competitor to call that store -- NOT to see if they have the item in stock, but to see if they indeed have the item on sale. But if a customer brings in a competitor's ad listing a sale price lower than the store they're standing in, it is unreasonable to call that store. Whether they have the item in stock is completely irrelevant. The fact the item IS on sale for a lower price is proven by the ad and that should be the end of it.

Stores CHOOSE to engage in price-matching policies. Why? Because those stores want you to buy the item in THEIR store, where you may also buy other items; if not this trip, then perhaps another. If the stores wish to treat price-matching in an adversarial manner, then simply drop the price-matching policy. But if you're going to have the policy, then abide by it.

If these stores have lost business to the internet, then it would be in the best interest of these stores to provide the customer with something they can't get on the net: one-on-one, face-to-face, quality customer service.

Customers are not the enemy of customer service reps. Customers are the reason CSRs have a job.

 

[JohnRice]

Mike, that really is my point. Some retailers choose to have the policy. It is by no means required. It succeeded by getting me in their door rather than CC. Then, they spend 5 minutes trying to find a reason to send me away empty handed and angry. I don't know about others, but I wouldn't grudge them checking on a Plasma that some place was blowing out at 30% off, but that isn't the case here.

 

[Mendoza]

Generally speaking, working low-level retail/customer service jobs can be a depressing, alienating, dehumanizing, and relentlessly soul-crushing experience. All 9 of my jobs have been retail/customer service jobs so I have a pretty good insight in this arena. I've worked at a video store, two movie theaters, Border's (bookstore), the Nature Company/Discovery Channel Store, Ritz Camera (photo lab/camera shop), Beverages & More (alcohol retailer), Target, and now at a small upscale grocery store. Actually I've found most of the jobs tolerable or even enjoyable, and the reasons I've had so many despite my relative youth (late 20's) are that none of them were ever intended to be a career, and I alternate between going to school and working...
Can you guess which of these jobs was the basis for my initial description? Target was by far the worst and I've spent a long time considering why that is. Without going on forever, I will say there is something innately problematic with huge stores and huge corporations like Target (and to a lesser but nevertheless significant extent,) Best Buy. While it may seem obvious from the outside that these stores eschew every consideration that doesn't relate directly to their profit margins, what this means from the inside is that they pay their employees shit, provide the minimum amount of training and resources necessary for them to do their jobs, enact sweeping general policies and regulations for purely financial or legal reasons which often run counter to common sense and require the staff to enforce and abide by them, eliminate all personal discretion of the workers to make independent decisions without deferring to management who themselves are hamstrung by their duty to enforce the aforementioned policies, and more or less promote an atmosphere of submissive, robotic behavior.
Furthermore, your value as an individual (on both sides of the counter) is totally meaningless to stores like Best Buy that rely on volume. When you work under the premise that you are completely expendable, or shop at a store that likes your money but doesn't need your business; well, in the words of a Chinese lady I used to work with: "YOU PAY AND GO."

 

[Brian^K]

Recognize that much of it is self-imposed. Consumers want low prices. We're willing to accept crap-a-mundo as long as the price is low.

 

[Brian^K]

Adding cost; reflected in the price (so they can fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities) results in consumers going into the B&M store, sucking as much insight as they can out of the staff there, then going home and buying online. There is no way a B&M store can make the same profit as a national online retailer, selling the same product at the same price. There is absolutely no way. If the B&M store cannot figure out some way to make more money than the online retailer, then they'd be better of closing, forcing consumer, even more, to rely solely on online retailers. So one way they try to bridge the gap is reduce their costs as much as they possibly can.

 

[Viper]

BETTER!?!? HAHAHAAHAHAH!! You can't be serious. Are you on crack or something?

 

[Brian^K]

Hmmm.... what can I say in response to that incredibly insightful tidbit of wisdom?

 

[Michael Reuben]

This thread has run its course.

M.