
How Best Buy saved itself (2019) - prostoalex
https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/amazon-almost-killed-best-buy-then-best-buy-did-something-completely-brilliant.html
======
causality0
_So, he used that practice to his advantage--by instituting a price matching
system._

More like he used a price-matching program to swindle people.

Suppose you want a 512GB microsd card. You've heard through their ads Best Buy
will match Amazon's prices, so you depart your house with cash in hand, happy
you won't have to wait for shipping. You walk into Best Buy, pick a Sandisk
drive off the shelf, and show the cashier that despite Best Buy listing it at
$150, Amazon only charges $100, so please match their price.

Sorry says the cashier, this Sandisk 512GB U-3 V30 A2 Class 10 microsd card is
model SDSQXBZ-512G-ANCMA, while the Sandisk 512GB U-3 V30 A2 Class 10 card on
Amazon is model number SDSQXA1-512G-GN6MA so we can't price match.

Price matching means absolutely nothing when every single one of Best Buy's
overpriced products has its own special model number that prevents them from
ever having to price match anything.

~~~
Someone1234
My pet peeve is when you have to have places price match themselves (in store
Vs. online).

I was recently at Lowes, I had found a Saw Horse online at their website for
$80 off, and tried to price match it to themselves but when the cashier looked
it up it came back the store's price (even though I still had the page open on
my phone, and at my home computer at home).

Then got treated like _I_ was the one trying to pull a scam, rather than them
discontinuing a sale mid-way through a work day, and me being caught by it.

~~~
totalZero
Nowadays Home Depot (and I believe Lowe's also) has in-store pickup, so you
can often buy the item online and pick it up shortly thereafter.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
I made the mistake of ordering from HD online and received a different product
than what I ordered. It turns out that they reuse SKUs for different models so
the drones will pull the usually outdated old stock on the store's shelves.

~~~
ethbro
That's definitely a mistake on the store's part and should have been a quick
return / swap for you.

What generally happens is: (1) associate is dispatched to pick an online
order, listed by SKU and bring it up front, (2) they arrive at the bay and
start looking around for a match, (3) while they are supposed to verify down
to the SKU level, sometimes they say "DeWalt 20V circular saw" = "DeWalt 20V
circular saw", grab it, and move on, (4) repeat for the next order.

That's assuming there's stock in the store. In the event it's Ship-to-Store,
you add the additional touch of warehouse getting it right. Although in my
experience that rarely goes wrong (because automatic verification, etc as
things go out).

I always do a SKU / item check if there's anything that might be a problem. In
my personal experience, it happens ~1:50 orders (usually with easily
confusable substitutions).

------
sickcodebruh
I worked at Best Buy #583 in Mt Laurel, NJ from 2001 or 2002 or until 2003 Or
2004, from age 17 until 20, I think. I started working in their PC repair area
when it was still “Best Buy services,” black shirts instead of blue, a few
years before the Geek Squad thing happened, and left a couple years after that
transition. I went in to interview for the PC sales department, the manager
thought I’d be better fixing computers, and it was the start of my whole
career in technology.

Even back then, I remember a lot of their corporate-produced video content
played at quarterly meetings would talk about the value in reinvention. They
were very aware that companies that didn’t adapt to the market were doomed,
they’d reference old department stores for comparisons. It’s not surprising
that even though they stumbled for a few years, they still managed to turn it
around.

I remember being very aware of the high production value of those same
quarterly videos. They looked so expensive and were occasionally funnier than
they had any right being. It stood out because we all felt under paid and
under valued, we’d talk about how much those videos must have cost and how
much we all could have used some help.

A few times a year, I still have anxiety nightmares where I’m late for a shift
or I show up and there’s a line out the door and nobody to help me. Or there
will be miles of racks of computers that need virus scans run and I have to do
all of them before I go home. It was the most stressful job I’ve ever had,
possibly the most stressful job I’ll ever have. It taught me more about
troubleshoot software and dealing with angry people than I ever could have
predicted. Simultaneously one of the worst experiences and a crucial one.
Funny how that works.

~~~
CalRobert
I worked at Best Buy in San Luis Obispo around 2003 and it was clear that if
you didn't sell enough warranties, $29 USB cables (wholesale cost about 80
cents), and (bafflingly) subscriptions to Entertainment Weekly you would get
your hours cut to effectively 0. I got chewed out and nearly fired by my boss
because a customer came in with a broken lens for their camera they'd just
bought, and I told them a replacement was about $99 when _instead_ I should
have apparently told them a warranty could be bought retroactively for $199
and that would replace the lens (this was a bald-faced lie, it had clearly
been dropped).

Of course, consumers should expect that because Best Buy is blatantly evil,
but the scummiest thing was that customers would walk in with a printout FROM
BESTBUY.COM showing an item was $129, demand we match their own website
instead of charging $149, and they'd be walked over to a kiosk showing that
the product at bestbuy.com was $149. (They had a mock bestbuy.com running on
the kiosk that looked like the web version but with in-store prices). Remember
smartphones weren't a thing at that point.

[https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-
lazarus23dec23-column...](https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-
lazarus23dec23-column.html)

It was valuable as a reminder of just how bad most jobs are, and that most
people in America are treated like absolute shit by psychopath bosses who
themselves live in fear of their boss, and so on. It certainly was a motivator
to learn to code.

Quitting the Wednesday before Black Friday was a thrill. It's supremely
depressing Best Buy still exists.

------
gkoberger
This feels like a bit of a puff piece to me. Nothing in here felt "brilliant"
to me. In fact, I'd argue Frys or Radio Shack did everything on this list
better.

That being said, I do often prefer Best Buy to Amazon for tech things, for the
same reason I prefer clothing stores to online shopping. For something that
expensive and personal, I want to see it in person. I want to see if it'll fit
(whatever that means... from sizing to the types of plugs, etc), see
compatible products, etc.

I do love is how accurate their website is. It's usually right, and I'd love
if more stores had an online way to see if something was in stock before I
went all the way there. In my experience, Best Buy is the one that gets it
right the most.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
On top of that, it costs nothing to hold that item that's in stock for pickup,
and during the worst of COVID you could not only curbside pickup stuff you put
on hold, but arbitrary things not ordered in advance too.

~~~
copperx
What do you mean by the "worst of COVID"? According to all stats, it has been
getting worse, not better. Unless you're talking about NYC.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Fair. Worst of COVID _so far, in my area_. When everything was shut down. Most
business is open again here, with precautions. But with the school year
coming, I certainly think another shutdown is possible.

------
finaliteration
I've commented here a few times that Best Buy really has turned itself around
and now offers a great shopping experience. I have a location nearby and every
time I go in to buy something the employees are super helpful and
knowledgeable. They also have a decent selection and can usually have a pickup
item ready in less than an hour. Additionally, they will price match with
Amazon on most things.

I'll choose them over Amazon any time if they have the item that I need (which
they typically do).

~~~
scarface74
I can’t imagine anything that I would want from Best Buy where I would need to
ask an employee anything besides “do you have it in stock.”

~~~
finaliteration
A couple of examples:

\- I bought an Apple Watch through them that was the cellular version. There
was some activation error with the carrier when we tried to set it up, and
rather than the employee I was working with shrugging it off and saying,
“Sorry, you have to call the carrier”, they handled it all for me and got it
fixed before I left the store.

\- I bought a Logitech mouse. It was having issues with the cursor stuttering.
I went to return it, they went though the process in store of updating the
firmware to make sure it was a hardware issue, and then they gave me a full
refund and recommended another mouse (which I still have and love).

------
superwayne
Maybe change title to "Best Buy used a combination of corporate strategy and
emotional intelligence to save itself from ruin" (from the subtitle).

~~~
warent
Good suggestion. Current title is really bad clickbait that does it no justice

------
tchock23
Best Buy has the best curbside pickup program that I've experienced from any
big box retailer. They became my "go to" place for buying anything electronic
during the lockdown.

I just hope that experience continues to be solid now that their retail
locations are open again...

~~~
FactCore
I bought a laptop from Best Buy recently, and the limited amount of contact
was great. Just pressed a button on my phone when I arrived, confirmed with
the employee that the order was in-fact mine, and he put in my trunk without
even getting close to me!

~~~
scarface74
And then you end up with Best Buy crapware on your computer and usually they
have worse specs. I have never seen as many 14 and 15 inch laptop screens with
less than 1080p in my life.

~~~
FactCore
I actually just used Best Buy as a vendor. I found the laptop elsewhere and it
was the only place it was available (coronavirus shortages). It doesn't have
any bloatware other than from OEM itself.

------
p1mrx
Best Buy was probably saved by states enforcing sales tax on Amazon and
similar online retailers. Even price matching doesn't work when your
competitor has a 5-10% advantage.

~~~
specialist
Yup.

Why doesn't Walmart complain every day that Amazon's a better tax cheat?

Mutually assured destruction?

The Land of the Giants podcast series also touches on Amazon's financing,
capitalization.

Amazon's core innovations are, in order, 1) tax avoidance, 2) profits
avoidance, and 3) treating knowledge workers as an inexhaustible resource to
burn thru.

------
Fauntleroy
These days one of the biggest value adds of buying from Best Buy (over Amazon)
is that you know you won't be getting counterfeit products. My confidence
buying consumer electronics from BB is far higher than from Amazon.

~~~
brianwawok
So I hear this line over and over in Hacker News. Do people really have that
many authenticity issues?

I average well into 5 figures a year on Amazon stuff. Have been for years.
Have never had an authenticity issue.

I buy sold by Amazon and 3rd party. Name brand and white label. Electronics
and home goods.

I’m just not getting it?

~~~
jentist_retol
I've been nailed more than a few times, mostly on lower cost items without
prime (i dont mind saving a few bucks and waiting). Items I've gotten that are
counterfeit:

\- Brand name lock

\- Serial Adapter (knockoff chipset)

\- Apple Watch charger (these are endemic)

\- Dell brand charger

You likely don't realize it but you probably have counterfeit items in your
home right now, that were either very carefully copied or part of a "third
shift". You also likely have refurbished items sold as new, and if you've ever
gotten brand name things in plain packaging, cross-market items (such as intel
CPUs that are sold at much lower prices in other regions, and then sold for a
profit to the US).

~~~
psalminen
CPUs might be a different story, but I have the same experience as others: if
I've gotten counterfeit goods I haven't been able to tell. At that point I
don't really care.

~~~
ceejayoz
> if I've gotten counterfeit goods I haven't been able to tell. At that point
> I don't really care.

On an individual level, sure. If the real product fails 1/1000 of the time,
and the counterfeit fails 1/100 of the time, you've got 99%+ happy customers
of both. The damage is only really evident in the aggregate.

------
rietta
Another massive halo for Best Buy in my opinion is their eWaste recycling
program. Who else lets you take old gear, even big things like printers, and
drop off to be responsibly recycled. It is crazy convenient and gives me a
reason to shop there. Our store has shut down this due to COVID but I am
looking forward to being able to recycle some more outdated IT gear when they
resume. My dad has more eWaste staged in his basement to recycle as well.

~~~
alexpotato
I would argue this is another genius move on BB's part.

Who better to buy new electronics than someone who has:

\- clearly bought electronics in the past

\- is knowledgeable about e-waste recycling (guessing there is a strong
correlation between this and disposable income)

\- is now inside your store because you have an e-waste recycling program

This by itself would be a brilliant move.

------
llsf
Beside the click-bait title, it reflects an interesting feat. The turnaround
of an electronic store in US where Amazon and Walmart are grabbing more and
more market shares. I am glad that Best Buy found a more profitable path. I
also bought my TV and replaced my microwave at Best Buy. The price was
matching Amazon and I could see the products, and get them home. Employees
were friendly and helpful. It was a nice experience.

------
josefresco
"fixed broken systems, like an internal search engine that gave bad data about
which products were in stock;"

My Dad bought a TV at Best Buy several days ago. He looked for the model he
wanted, couldn't find it. Went to the front desk and asked, they looked it up
and sure enough it wasn't in stock. My Dad walks to the back of the store,
finds the exact TV model he wanted with no assistance from any 'blue shirt'.

Sounds like they still have some work to do lol

------
aka1234
I wonder how much of Best Buy's success can be attributed to using 'emotional
intelligence' to 'build relationships' with gullible people and sell $1,000+
HDMI cables to them. Does it happen a lot? Probably not. But selling one of
those a week will likely pay for at least one salesperson's wage for that
week.

I haven't shopped for myself at a Best Buy and years (and the last time I did,
it was for CD/DVDs). And the salespeople trying to 'build relationships' with
me are just awful. But that's likely because I'm a misanthrope.

I know what I'm getting into when I go to Best Buy. I'm going to go help a
friend buy an overpriced laptop because they want my help since I'm an 'IT
guy' and they want to shop at Best Buy for some reason.

~~~
Gamon
Best Buy employees don't get commission. When I worked there 5 years ago,
management encouraged us to add services to bulk up numbers, but employees
never really cared because it never comes back to hurt them if they don't.

For those cables, I doubt you could find an employee that would recommend them
to a customer. For accessories, the focus was more on the count attached to an
order. Cheap HDMI cables were usually the recommendation because it would add
something to the order and customers were more likely to get them over the
$100 cables. Those overpriced cables are sold because there is always some
customer that only wants to buy the best of the best and Best Buy is glad to
help them with that.

So you are likely to get some salesman pressure, but it's not what people
think it is. The pushing usually comes when you are checking out and they
offer the protection plans. But again, if you tell them no, that's usually the
last you will hear of it because it doesn't really mean much to an employee if
they don't attach it.

You will find a crazy employee every so often that thinks acting like a car
salesman will make them management's favorite person, but I think you could
find those people at most jobs.

~~~
aka1234
I didn't mean to imply Best Buy employees get commission. I only called them
salespeople to distinguish the people who roam the tech aisles rather than
work the register, Geek Squad, etc.

Anecdotally, I've definitely more than one employee try to steer me to the
overpriced cables when I was just looking for a quick HDMI cable. I typically
just ask them if the decently-priced cable fits into the HDMI spec. By that
time they usually figure out it's not worth the time to try and upsell and
move on.

------
bsanr2
>and workers seem happier than ever.

My entire cohort from when I arrived in late 2017 is gone from my home store,
including people who were there before me. For sales and ops, at least, the
wave that brought BB its renewed reputation ended around early 2019. A lot of
the incentives disappeared, and pay just didn't keep in step with workload or
need.

I invite anyone confused about how workers really feel to head over to the
Best Buy subreddit. They got rocked, hard, by the shutdown policies, and I'm
personally glad I was separated when I was.

Edit: Also, I didn't realize that this article was more than a year old. Joly
is gone. Corie Barry, the former CFO, replaced him last winter.

------
WalterBright
An effective counterpoint to the charge that Amazon is an unstoppable
monopoly.

~~~
hinkley
Best Buy has hardly any competitors. The next closest thing we have to an
electronics store is a Microsoft/Apple/Sony store. Best Buy has partnerships
with two of those, and I don't think I've seen more than 1 of the other.

Most other places you can buy electronics also sell milk, sweaters, or both.

~~~
organsnyder
Target has a decent electronics section (nothing like a dedicated big-box
store, of course).

~~~
hinkley
Yeah Target is perhaps the least bad among the 'milk and sweaters' crowd. It
seems like it's mostly there for impulse buys and/or video games.

------
dimator
I wish Barnes and Nobles would find a strategy to combat Amazon competition.
When I walk into a BN, it feels just like how Best Buy felt when it really
seemed doomed (about a decade ago). BN is the only bookstore in many American
cities, especially more rural ones, and I fear for a future in which the
physical book buying experience is lost.

------
rootusrootus
This article is very believable. These are basically the things I noticed
about our local Best Buy. First, the associates got less pushy and more
personable. And second, they'll price match Amazon. It's not really fair that
they must compete with Amazon, they should cost a little more for the
showrooming privilege, but I can totally see how that was the only real
answer. Now I buy things from them that I would otherwise wait two days to get
from Amazon.

Also, Amazon is making it more appealing since their own product quality is in
the tank. I've said it before, I'll say it again, if Amazon doesn't figure out
how to have a "Ships from and Sold By Amazon" option that guarantees no
counterfeits, and no intermixing with 3rd party products, they're going to
steadily lose customers. And once you lose the trust of those customers, good
luck earning it back easily.

------
exabrial
Click bait headline that was actually quite enjoyable to read.

~~~
AceJohnny2
clickbait is the logical endpoint of ad-based business models.

Ad-based business models are the logical endpoint of an ad-dominated
landscape. See: people complaining about paywalls.

~~~
mindvirus
Way off topic at this point, but mobile game ads are an amazing study of this.
They're ads for totally made up gameplay - not just CG, but like a totally
different game made just for the ad. And it makes sense that the things that
would drive installs and clicks doesn't have anything to do with the game
itself - I'm sure that was discovered just through random A/B testing (as I'm
sure this headline was).

------
danso
I use Amazon to check for a variety of reviews and comparison data. Then I see
if my local Best Buy has it in stock and at a comparable price. I haven’t
really had many nightmare Amazon scenarios, but Best Buy’s
logistics/distribution feels “safer”, or at least equally safe.

I also haven’t had issues with Amazon’s returns, but have also had no issue
with big ticket returns like TVs with Best Buy (I don’t think I’d buy a TV on
Amazon). Mostly, the few recent times I’ve been at Best Buy have been a
pleasure (not quite Apple Store, but good enough) and the in-person experience
a real value-add, that the positive vibe carries to my online shopping habits

------
donor20
I just got tired of the FAKE apple product on Amazon - no matter how many
times it said genuine it never seemed to be actually genuine. So I started
buying more from apple directly, and other tech products from best buy etc.

Best buy is in a space that has so much fake garbage on Amazon it is
astounding. USB 3.x (lie), xxWh (lie) and on and on.

I actually don't understand how amazon's systems can be SO bad at weeding out
the scammers. Even more annoying, when you go to return something they do
things like say - keep it (the junk) and here is your money back. Can't
complain about the customer service but feels so wasteful.

~~~
beamatronic
There’s a lot of good reasons to buy genuine Apple things only from Apple. If
you have the Apple card you get 3% off. If you buy a pricey item you can get
24 months financing with no interest.

------
zzapplezz
Interesting perspective of a retailer that invested in its employees and found
success. It's sad to see employee benefits and loyalty and an all-time low
across society when just a generation ago it was so strong.

------
scarface74
I just went to Best Buy last week. Shelves were empty, customer service was
atrocious and they basically just sold phones, phone accessories, high end
TVs, and computers.

I went looking for four things - a wireless microphone set like public
speakers use, a mixer, a 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch adapter and a 1/8 inch to
Bluetooth adapter.

Three of those four we sold at Radio Shack when I worked there in the early
90s. The fourth is something we would have sold. All of course at a crazy
markup.

I walked out and ordered everything from Amazon.

~~~
MattSayar
Kinda funny, now that you mention it, that they don't sell all the streaming
equipment aspiring YouTubers would want to buy. Or the equipment necessary for
our newly-WFH workers.

------
fermienrico
Am I the only one who absolutely _hates_ advisors? I don't need advice for
electronics. I can do my own research. May be this is not a common thing for
avg Joe? I always found the people at Bestbuy or any big stores are actually
less knowledgeable than what I already know.

I think this goes along with anything I want to purchase. If I am in the
Hermes store to buy a $700 scarf, I don't want their "advisors" to influence
my decision. Not that I would go to the Hermes store, but just making a point
:)

~~~
asperous
For some people, advisors are critical and under appreciated. Lots of people
wouldn't know the difference between a hdmi cord and an ethernet cord.

The article mentions that they have toned it down "Be comfortable not to make
a sale." No one has ever liked sales tactics but they do work, however Best
Buy is willing to give up some sales for the overall brand I think.

------
opwieurposiu
I like best buy. They are not the cheapest but I get pretty good customer
service and so a few bucks extra is fair. Whenever I need a new laptop this is
the only place I can go to test the keyboards.

------
anirudhgarg
I wish Barnes and Nobles also did price match with Amazon

~~~
lsllc
As a former B&N junkie (used to go there several times a week), for me at
least the issue was stock. As Amazon encroached on B&N's business they made
the unfortunate and classic mistake of trying to reduce costs, which generally
meant keeping less stuff in stock. So now you want say "The Rust Programming
Language" book and you want it now? The local B&N doesn't have it, nor do any
nearby stores. They can ship to you or ship to store within a few days, or you
can just get it on Amazon Prime.

Of course this is a hard problem to solve, they clearly can't have every book
you'd want in your local store. But they could have regional warehouses with
more stock and either same/next-day to store or even DoorDash type same/next
day local delivery.

Ultimately, I think B&N were out matched by the Amazon juggernaut. Shame
really, as going to B&N on the way home from dinner at a restaurant was a nice
thing to do (wow, remember when you could go out to dinner?).

------
bitwize
We know that law enforcement agencies have been deputizing the Geek Squad to
search people's hard disks. Are Best Buy In-Home Advisors going to be
deputized to search people's homes?

I don't want to "build a relationship" with a national retail chain. Just take
my money and give me the widget.

------
factchecker01
This is a 1 year plus old article

------
lifeisstillgood
tl;dr - a new CEO actually listened to employees and eve gave them back a
discount program, embraced "show rooming" by price matching Amazon and (the
vaguer part) builde relationships with customers.

But we on HN think the biggest problem Amazon has is fake goods, not Best Buy

------
jedimastert
The current title is "Amazon Almost Killed Best Buy. Then, Best Buy Did
Something Completely Brilliant". There's a subreddit called "saved you a
click" where they basically answer click-bait-y titles with the answer in the
title. For instance, the title could be

> Amazon Almost Killed Best Buy. Then, Best Buy Did Something Completely
> Brilliant | They treated employees better, started price matching, and made
> home visits

Of course, if the article is written well enough, you should read it anyways,
but it always feels cheap to just pose a question in the title that could be
answered in one sentence.

~~~
btown
Clickbait headlines and articles-that-should-be-a-sentence often go hand in
hand... but you can have the former without the latter. IMO this is an article
worth reading. There actually isn't much filler here - every paragraph has a
relevant statistic or describes a part of the business model changes, and it
appears that Best Buy's success was due to "life by a thousand wins" rather
than "death by a thousand cuts" \- each of which is enumerated and described
concisely in the article. But YMMV.

------
Havoc
That title is cringe-worthy. Might as well have called it "Amazon hates this
one simple trick"

