Weekly Roundup 8/19 (1 Viewer)

[streeter]

Went to Best Buy this morning and picked up Vacation (plenty in stock), Memoirs and Day of the Dead, among others. I was there at 10:30 am, and I picked up the very last copy of Day of the Dead.

I was unable to find Laurel & Hardy. Guess I'll have to order it online.

I went to price-match at Best Buy, but I don't know if I'll ever do it again. 1, it was humiliating, B it took a long time and 3 they still did it wrong (anyone get the Vacation reference there?). After paying and leaving the store, I looked at my receipt and they didn't take an extra ten percent off the pricematches ($12.99 and $15.99). Second, I purchased Targets (the movie, not the store) which had a price of $5.99, and they charged me $9.99. Next week when I pick up Simpsons season 3 and Animal House, I'll tell them that they overcharged me six bucks (or more). After that, I don't know if I'll go through the time consuming humiliation of pricematching again, though.

 

[Mike Frezon]

So, I'm off to my local Wal-Mart...which just told me over the phone that their price for Chicago is $14.84!!!

Sorry guys. False alarm.

Got to the Wal-Mart I called (East Greenbush, Scott) and found a huge display listing the price as $15.84. I promptly asked the two guys standing around in the game section doing nothing and they quickly agreed it was probably "Bill the new guy" who told me that. (I don't think these two guys had the capacity to make up that story on the spot.) I expressed my anger at making the trip because I could have gotten Chicago for $15.99 almost anywhere--especially Circuit City which included the bonus CD. AT LEAST one of the guys had the courtesy to say "I'm sorry." That actually went a long way you hear it so infrequently in retail these days. They had no "All That Jazz". Went next door to Target.

So....Scott J, don't bother.

Scott in Chicago, I find it ironic your Wal-Mart in Chicago had it for the price I was told.

Oh well. Just another disappointing shopping trip.

 

[DonRoeber]

Picked up Chicago at Best Buy, couldn't find Simon & Garfunkel either. Strange.

Like others, I'm going to hold out and get the Vacation boxed set. I still need to sell my P&S versions!

 

[Jeff Meyers]

Picked-up Chicago for $13.88 at local Wal-Mart (Corona, CA).

No luck on The Final Countdown or NL's Vacation.

I still haven't been able to find Gotcha from last week. Has anyone picked this one up, or even seen it in stores?

Thanks as always Dave for the Weekly Roundup.

Michael, hilarious reference / tribute to NL's Vacation - 1, B, 3.

 

[Scott Pierson]

Deep Discount DVD is selling L&H for $10.63 with free shipping. I haven't seen it anywhere in stores today, and I doubt any B&Ms will have it that cheap, if they get it in.

 

[Marty M]

Circuit City has stopped putting their ads in Sunday papers in most markets, as a money-saving thing.

No CC ad in my local newspaper, either. It seems odd that CC would choose this as a money saving device. How can you get customers if they don't know what you have on sale.

 

[Mike_Richardson]

Non-OAR discs are left off the Roundup, whenever they've been identified in advance. Examples: Killing Mr. Griffin, Repossessed, The Spring.

Great job as always, Dave, but I have to call you on this one since I'm a Kyle MacLachlan fan: THE SPRING was an NBC TV "Movie of the Week" so the 4:3 aspect ratio is indeed its OAR.

 

[David Lambert]

Eh, sometimes I'm wrong. :shrug:

 

[Doug Schiller]

I picked up Mr Show from Best Buy today.
More than I wanted to spend but I don't see it being any cheaper on the horizon.

Doug

 

[Derek P]

I too had trouble this week. I just wanted Vaction but Ciruit City with the cheapest price is too far away, so I went to Best Buy. They refused to price match without an ad. The clerk was quite rude and even after I told her I've pm without the ad she still refused so I tried Suncoast where they had an empty slot for it but they didn't know if it was out yet or they hadn't gotten it yet. So finally I went to Target where they had at least 10 copies. One the worst DVD shopping experiences I've had in a while.

 

[Andrew Grall]

They refused to price match without an ad.

Typical Best Buy...

 

[Carlo_M]

Just out of curiousity, how do you expect to PM without an ad? Are they supposed to take your word for it?

 

[Howard Glenn]

For what it's worth, I do a lot of price matching, practically every week. I usually print out a copy of whomever's ad I am using, directly from the competitor's website. I have never had a problem doing this.

H

 

[Andrew Grall]

Just out of curiousity, how do you expect to PM without an ad? Are they supposed to take your word for it?

They could actually take time and CALL. That's what stores used to do to pricematch. OR they could keep copies of their competitors ads in a store office. Not too difficult... Best Buy just doesn't care if they have a happy customer or not...

 

[Chris Brunner]

My Best Buy in Sterling, VA only had 3 copies of Vacation out on Tuesday afternoon. I also picked up one of a handfull of the new Paul McCartney Live disk (A great show for only $11.99).

Thanks!

C

 

[streeter]

At Best Buy, are they supposed to automatically take off the 10% of pricematches or do you have to ask them to do that specifically?

 

[David Tolsky]

I would think it varies from store to store. I PM'd the Fry's price at BB at 14.99 for Chicago, not even thinking to inquire about the extra 10%. They sure didn't volunteerily take it off themselves.

 

[Carlo_M]

They could actually take time and CALL.

See that's the problem: does their policy state that they'll do that? Or does it say "bring in any advertised price from a local competitor and we'll match it!"? I thought it was the latter, and if they put it in writing like that, the onus is on the customer to bring in proof of advertised price.

Also, you may not want them calling the other store. Why? Because some pricematch policies (I don't know if it's Best Buy's says this, but Good Guys and Circuit City's say this) that they'll pricematch an "IN-STOCK" item only. So if CC calls Fry's and Fry's says "we don't have any more of that title in stock" then they'll turn around and tell the customer they won't match it. CC did this to me several years ago on a CompUSA loss leader (some $9.99 new release) and wouldn't match it because CompUSA had no copies in stock.

I personally think that BB's policy is pretty fair, as I understand it. Bring in the lower advertised price and they'll match it. In my dozens of times doing this, I've never had a bad experience with it.

 

[Carlo_M]

re: the extra 10% - I've actually had a BB employee do the extra 10% off, but that's a rarity. I never really fight for it because usually the difference is $1-$2 so the extra 10% off is $0.10-$0.20; not worth it for me to potentially get a cashier confused and have to call out the manager. I know I've probably lost about $2-$3 total for this over the last year or so, though.

 

[TonyD]

at my best buy i have to buy it then walk over to the servicecounter to get the price match + extra %10.

one time they even told my i have to come back in during another visit to get the price match and %10.
i asked her toshow me were it says that in their policy, and she couldnt find it. still made me come back another visit.