Yup Best Buy is probably lughing in their shit filled yellow and blue buildings over the news that Circuit City failed to find a buyer and now they will be closing all remaining stores. Now with that news of course comes the birth of this post and Im sure a million other blog posts on the same topic, some will agree and others won’t. I hate Best Buy… HATE! I know it’s such a strong word and I brought it up out of no where but why should I hold back? Eff Best Buy, they suck. Plain and simple.
The one thing I liked about Circuit City even though I knew their demise was imminent was the fact that when I went into the camera section there was the same guy “Paul” there that helped me the last time. Always a super nice guy and he had a ton of knowledge, not to mention if he didn’t know the answer to something he would jump online and research it for ya. The guy that helped me over by the iPod’s and iPod accessories all though not the nicest guy on the planet, he was efficient and got me out of there quick. All of the little things I liked about Circuit City made it a pleasure to shop there, right down to the Verizon booth they had in there. I always recieved quick service at the Verizon counter and found that most of the people at that Verizon location actually knew what they were doing, nothing like some of the other Verizon locations out there. Matter of fact getting in and out of that Circuit City location was always a pleasure, every time I have been to Best Buy I wait on what seems to be an endless line.
Circuit City going out of business sucks much more than you know, now with that news our choices in my area are… Best Buy and oh, a Comp USA that put up “Going out of Business” signs a few weeks before Christmas last year than decided after Christmas not to go out of Business. Those are my choices and I have to be honest people, they suck. Im not saying that Circuit City was the cats meow but in all honesty on my worst day in Circuit City it was 50x better than my Best Day at Best Buy in Clearwater Florida. As for Comp USA it really doesn’t count to me because Im not really sure what their main goal is, sell computers… Nope wait it’s Home Theater… Nope thats not it either it’s Video game consoles and games.. Just way too confusing, I dont go there unless I have no choice. And by “No choice” I mean Circuit City didn’t have what I needed.
As for right now Best Buy will laugh and feel as if they won a war, but the sad reality is that if they don’t get their shit together they might just be right behind Circuit City. Let me be very clear when I say, till this day I have NEVER, and I mean NEVER have had a good experience at any Best Buy… Ever. Sounds crazy I know, and trust me I have been to Best Buy more than enough times over the last 6-8 years to know if I would have had one good memorable experience. As for their “In Stock” condition thats a complete train wreck I will never understand, I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I have gone into Best Buy for something and left empty handed because the item was.. “Out of Stock”. Out of Stock sucks people, and NO being Out of Stock does not mean I want to fucking order it online. I walked in there to buy it and take it with me, I didn’t walk in there to have someone tell me you don’t have it than offer for me to order it online. Bottom line is that Best Buy just won’t cut it for me and it’s really sad because it’s the type of place I would generally like, IF the service didn’t suck and IF they weren’t constantly OUT OF STOCK I could probably live with the lines and be happy.
The days of shooting down the street for a quick in and out experience at the local Circuit City are coming to an end, instead I will be forced to pull up to Best Buy more often than not only to scratch my head and wonder why the best parking spot in the place says “Employee of the Month”, like I really give a shit about that. Now if the “Employee of the Month” was the guy or girl that actually would have them be in stock when I went there for something than maybe it would be worth having a dedicated parking spot. The Mall reserves a couple of spots up front for pregnant woman, and thats a “few” spots NOT the key spot in front of the store or mall. Best Buy can truly be a great place to shop if they would lose some of their silly ass return policies and practices, get in stock, resolve the customer service issues (probably not doable) and most importantly Change their hours to something a little bit more customer service friendly than the 10-9 BS that they have now or whatever it is, even broke ass Office Depot opens much earlier than that. Circuit City you will be missed, it would have been much more fun to watch someone scoop you guys up and push the comeback of a lifetime and force Best Buy to actually take care of customers. And as for Best Buy, I won’t give in that easy now Comp USA will become my first choice, the internet will become my second choice and Best Buy will be my very last resort.
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: ShotOfCoffee
Dude….you still go out to stores? Shop online….all of the cool kids are doing it. You can order something from amazon and for 3.99 (if you have Amazon prime) no matter how big it is have it until tomorrow. Way better than driving somewhere and deal with florida traffic. I don’t remember the last time I went to best buy because I’ll just order it online and get actual reviews and help there. LOL
Mike’s last blog post..Hot Stove: Definitions
Twitter: lacerocks
Online is definitely where I shop now, but I did go to Best Buy to grab something the other night and get a few DVD’s. I walked up to the counter and the cashier was eating sunflower seeds and spitting them into a soda bottle….How professional is that? Not to mention I can never find someone when I need help and If I do, they have no clue what I’m talking about.
Best Buy is a joke, plain and simple.
Twitter: ShotOfCoffee
I also hate how best buy asks if you want the warranty, magazine subscriptions etc…..No!
Mike’s last blog post..Hot Stove: Definitions
Twitter: extremejohn
Yeah that is pretty effin annoying too, I forgot to mention that point. I should have made a clean list of 10 things I hate about Best Buy.
Seriously you guys? Circuit City was some of the worst shopping experiences ever….
The store had a horrible layout, it was always pointlessly dim, and when you could actually get some help, the employees would sometimes lie about things since they were making commissions.
Best Buy is far from perfect and I agree the Warranty pushing and Magazine shit is ridiculously annoying when you’re shopping there, but their service model from top down is incredibly efficient.
I worked there part time years ago when I was 17 and other than getting paid crappy part-time retail employee’s wages, I can’t say it was a bad place to work, either. They offer an intelligent bonus plan based on retention and theft loss budgets, encouraging employees to be aware of idiots cracking open battery packs in the back aisles since it effects the fat bonus after New Years, which is equally split among every member.
Not to mention the warranties I have purchased on my laptops at Best Buy have always come through with no questions asked…By far from any Insurance I’ve ever bought anywhere else and it’s the only insurance I ever care to by since they’ve proven to me it’s reliable.
I can’t complain…Best Buy has survived for good reasons and IMO it’s one of the best, consistently run retail operations in the U.S….
That said, I still shop Buy.com unless I am being impatient enough to run to the store (since it has the better deals.)
Twitter: extremejohn
Adam,
Thank you for commenting, I appreciate it. I am sure there are excellent Best Buys spread all over the US, and I don’t doubt that their overall business model isn’t pretty good overall. I can also say that maybe your lucky enough to have one of those near you, in my experience the Clearwater Best Buy and the Tyron Square Best Buy are equally terrible, and I will add in that I went into one in Riverhead Long Island once and that experience blew too.
It’s like anything else, there will be happy customers like yourself that never have an issue with Best Buy, than there will be people like me that no matter how hard I try I end up with the same crappy feeling at the end. Perfect example, I shopped Best Buy.com once before and they effed up and double charged me for two $300 TV brackets. A couple of years had gone by since than and I figured around Christmas I would buy our Niece a new Computer Monitor and have it shipped overnight so it would be there two days before Christmas. Needless to say the monitor came 2 days after Christmas which defeated the entire purpose of ordering it online and having it over nighted, I called them to track the order and ask about it and they very simply said, “We are sorry sir we will refund your delivery charge.” Pretty much the last thing in the world I wanted to hear and not anything that will get me to order from them online any time soon.
A perfect example of places being different in each town they are in, our Circuit City was remodeled about 2 years ago, it was very bright, had an excellent Home Theater Area, and everything was very clean and easy to find. I never had an issue with the staff at Circuit City and never had any of them sell me something that wasn’t right for my project or use. If I had a Circuit City like the one you describe and a Best Buy like the one you describe I probably would feel the same way you do. In all honesty I just want a place thats in stock, has decent hours, is clean and has a few employee’s with brains… Thats it and I would be happy.
I never had a problem with Best Buy until I moved down here to Florida. The Best Buy back home in NY was awesome, and it also helped that many of my friends worked there so I was always well taken care of. Once I moved down here I continued my loyalty to Best Buy until some screwball in their computer department tried to screw me over and sold me a basically refurbished computer (which he neglected to mention, he just told me that he was going to give me a great deal) that he assured me would work well…..well it ended up sucking and I had to bring it back. Of course their refund policy sucks and I had to wait like 2 weeks to get a check in the mail from them, that then took like 2 weeks to clear in my account. Since then I try to stay out of there as much as possible.
Twitter: thestarceleb
I have had NUMEROUS problems with Best Buy. We boycotted them a long time ago. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but something about them saying if something didnt work to bring it back and we could get out money back. The item was an item THEY said WOULD work. It didn’t work and not only would they not give us our money back, but they wouldn’t let us exchange either. Oh I remember what it was a computer game. We couldnt use it on our computer so we were stuck with a $60 game we couldnt even play. Circuit City sucked too in that no one was ever around to ask anything and then once you found someone even though it was their dept they had no f’ing clue about anything. I must say out of all the places Fry’s is the absolute worst in my opinion. TERRIBLE customer service. One time we stood around for literally a half an hour waiting for someone to help us. I hope they all die. Small businesses are the only ones I will spend money with now.
Twitter: extremejohn
We don’t have any Fry’s out here or at least we dont have any out here by me that I know about, but I didn’t think it was possible for anything to suck worse than Best Buy. CompUsa also pisses me off out here, they pretended they were going out of Business at the nearest location a little over a year ago, had the Liquidation signs up and everything, than Circuit City started to have more problems and layoffs, Im not sure thats what caused CompUSA to pull out of closing that specific location (they were across the street from each other) but regardless a few weeks after the holidays were over CompUSA was announcing their Grand Re-Opening and had all kinds of “We are not closing signs” up, something I had never seen any business do before.
I can rant about all of the above companies many times over thanks to the numerous crap situations I have dealt with at each of them, it amazes me that the help isn’t better trained you would think in todays day and age if you get a job at a place that sells any form of technology/electronics you would want to learn about anything and everything. I dont even work at a place like that and still read about the products coming out and new things constantly.
Twitter: thestarceleb
I know. We don’t even want to get started with Sprint or Time Warner
I am loving this site!! Will be back soon. Thanks.
Sometimes is risky to buy somthing from online. They take ur money but they don’t send you the thing you want.
Ya I agreed Sometimes is risky to buy somthing from online cause They take ur money but they don’t send you the thing you want.
John, I know how you feel, except worse. All we have here is Wal-Mart! Talk about limited selection. That’s why I mostly order online from merchants I have dealt with in the past.
When you operate a storefront, the answer to my question is not “Order it online” What is the purpose of having a brick-and-mortar store if you do not stock the items you sell?
I have never set foot in a BestBuy and I appreciate the warning. No reason for me to darken their door now.
.-= Keith@Norman Rockwell Art´s last blog ..Nov 10, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is home to Norman Rockwell painting =-.
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