Best Buy Confirms 'Secret' Version of its Website 356
Iberian writes "The Courant site confirms an oft-rumoured possibility: Best Buy does indeed maintain a second website for what one could assume is for the purpose of defrauding its customers. State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after columnist George Gombossy disclosed the website and showed how employees at two Connecticut stores used it to deny customers a $150 discount on a computer advertised on BestBuy.com. Says Gombossy, 'What is more troubling to me, and to some Best Buy customers, is that even when one informs a salesperson of the Internet price, customers have been shown the intranet site, which looks identical to the Internet site, but does not always show the lowest price. [State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal] said that because of the fuzzy responses from Best Buy, he has yet to figure out the real motivation behind the intranet site and whether sales people are encouraged to use it to cheat customers.'"
Re:I've seen it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me there are too good solutions for the customer:
Re:i remember that... (Score:4, Insightful)
There has to be a better, faster interface for finding in-store prices than an exact mock-up of the bestbuy.com website. Not to mention that an intranet site could have more useful info like items in stock, when more are expected in that store, what section/aisle of the store it's located in (or whatever).
Salespeople wouldn't be involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Many tricks to price discriminate (Score:5, Insightful)
It pissed you off enough that you purchased from bestbuy.com?
Man, that's sticking it to 'em.
Re:Many tricks to price discriminate (Score:3, Insightful)
In that case they should not be using the second website to verify online prices!
Re:I've seen it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Enron 2.0? (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet this is nothing more than just your standard run of the mill incompetence.
I imagine they have an intranet site which has some information which is for internal use mixed with information that is meant to be the same as the online content. Due to the incompetence of those implementing these systems their intranet and extra-net sites are getting out of sync with each other.
Guess what the result is?
Every time the price difference is to the advantage of the customer there's not a peep to be heard.
As soon as the price difference is to the customer's disadvantage! All hell breaks loose, they go into the store go "WHAT ITS NOT THAT MUCH". Pissed off, they refuse to buy it, go home, check the price again... boom major shit and fan action.
Re:Salespeople wouldn't be involved (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yet another reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, I can probably get recordable media at the grocery store in this day and age.
Why on earth would anyone go to Best Buy for any of this stuff anyways? Oh, cause it's cheap? You're right, it is. I can't even begin to count all the Best Buy/Future Shop bought computers and peripherals I've had to try to fix for people. Usually the best fix is "buy a new one". Is that really cheaper than buying a quality product from a reputable retailer in the first place?
The old addage... (Score:3, Insightful)
I imagine, as far as most of the sales people goes, this is probably the case here. I doubt most of them even knew that the prices were different.
Motive doesn't matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of that movie, Miracle on 24th street (I think), where Santa -- the real Santa -- is employed as a Mall Santa. He sits in the mall, and kids come up and tell him what they want, and the management has given him a list of all the Macey's products that he's supposed to be pushing on the parents -- which he then ignores, and tells the parents where to find exactly what the kid wants, at the best price in town.
At first, the managers are enraged, but then they realize that they've just built up a shitload of customer loyalty. Moms are walking out with bags and bags of stuff, just because they love Macey's so much for having such a great Santa.
Now, of course, the Managers have the ulterior motive here, and Santa is pure. But does it really matter whether Santa is pure or not?
In fact, I honestly don't give a damn what's going through the salesman's head. If it actually does mean I'm getting a better deal, and if they consistently try to build brand loyalty in a way which actually benefits me, I win, whether it's out of the goodness of their hearts or because they're planning to rip me off sometime down the road.
Re:Many tricks to price discriminate (Score:1, Insightful)
Remember:
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -Robert J. Hanlon
I think that if Best Buy employees were actually aware of this deception, one of the 125,000 full time and innumerable part time employees would have come forward before now.
Captcha: Spinach (mmm!)
Re:On-the fly unique email addresses (Score:1, Insightful)
The best choice will still be exclusive addresses for every company out there. Domains are cheap these days.
Re:I've seen it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Enron 2.0? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now if I am shopping online for item X and I see Best Buy is selling it for $50 on their site and I show up at the store and its $45, when we check again I would probably make the assumption the price was lowered, knowing lots of web pricing really can change moment to moment based automatic vendor feeds and cost plus rules etc etc.. I am going to pay for item X and go gome. My transaction completed I will never likely look into the matter again.
Suppose however I get to Best Buy and item X is $55. I might say to them hey I saw it on your site for $50 and that is what brought me over here, could you let me have it for that? There is nothing wrong or imoral about that, they are after all free to say no. Its a free market in any given transaction both parties should feel the exchange is to their gain. If either does not then the transaction does not happen. Now lets suppose I leave the store with out X. I go back online and start searching for X at a cost of the $50 I was willing to pay or less. Well gee-wiz Best Buy pops up again, odd. I now think I do have a little right to be miffed. To me it now appears they lied about their offerings to get me in the store where they hoped I would roll over and pay their higher price. This is now essencially false advertising and its illegal.
Re:Enron 2.0? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My Best Buy service polemic (Score:3, Insightful)
Dissatisfied? Can't get satisfaction? Chargeback the bill. If you've used all the usual means at getting a refund for crappy or completely non existent service, just reverse the charges.
Wait, punish who? (Score:1, Insightful)
Okay, I think I have it here, there are basically two ideas:
A. Don't do business with BB at all if they aren't going to make it reasonably easy to get the advertised price. Punish the company for deceptive practices.
B. Do business with them but refuse to take the easy, more expensive way out. Go to the store that you would have purchased from otherwise to pick up the product that you had to order online. Punish the company by forcing them to honor the price they had online as well as having to invest the time/money/tracking into the online to instore pickup process.
The way I see it is that you have two completely different objectives here.
With A you are trying to harm a corporate entity by refusing to do business with it. Effectively you are taking yourself out of its target niche and hoping that it will either go out of business or change its practices (without clear numbers indicating where and how) to conform with your ethics. This is sort of like the "I don't like the candidates so I don't vote" approach.
With B you are trying to get the best possible price for a product, even if it means more effort on your part with the advantage of making it clear to the company that you are doing business with that their practice is reducing their profits. Essentially you are punishing the store (with their increased cost) for their procedures/policies/incompetence/evil and at the same time rewarding them for the part you appreciate (the attractive price.)
I think that it is clear which is more likely to influence BB. Non-customers have very little influence on the bottom line. If you really want to make a difference, it is probably a good idea to figure out how much money BB lost by not offering the service the way you think they should have and trying to get that information to senior management. It means a lot to a manager to hear "Your store policies cost you $10 in profits every time somebody like me comes in." Assuming their employees cost them $8/hr, the lease and electricity, computer hardware and equipment to manage the in store sale cost $15/hr then you consume that easily by going through the steps described by this honest consumer.