Best Buy employees will bring your purchase out to your car

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: Best Buy confirmed over the weekend that it would shift to curbside pick-up service only, allowing employees to continue to serve shoppers through what they deem is a safer method. Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said they are “seeing a surge in demand across the country for products that people need to work or learn from home, as well as those products that allow people to refrigerate or freeze foods.”

Best Buy's shift to curbside service on an interim basis starts today (March 22). This works for orders purchased through BestBuy.com or through the Best Buy app and requested to pick up locally. What’s more, if a customer couldn’t place an order online and the product is in stock at the store, an employee can go in, claim the item and sell it to them curbside.

Optionally, customers can still order online or through the app and have their products shipped directly to their house. Large items like appliances will be delivered where permitted and under strict safety guidelines (meaning everything must be left by the customer’s door). Best Buy’s in-home installation and repair services have been temporarily suspended, as you’d expect. All in-home consultations are being conducted virtually, we’re told.

As for employees, sick time and pay, the company had the following to say:

All Best Buy employees have been told they do not have to work if they do not feel comfortable. They have also been told to stay home if they are feeling sick, knowing they will be paid. All field employees whose hours have been eliminated will be paid for two weeks at their normal wage rate based on their average hours worked over the last 10 weeks.

Best Buy also withdrew all fiscal 2021 financial guidance previously issued on February 27, 2020, for both the first quarter and full year.

GameStop on Sunday also shifted to a curbside pick-up strategy.

Image credit: Barry Blackburn

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https://www.techspot.com/news/84497-best-buy-also-shifting-curbside-pick-up.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Hmmmmm .... now might be a good time to buy that walk in freezer I always wanted .....

 

[ZedRM]

This is pathetic, useless and a waste of time and effort. Doltish nonsense. Curbside service will do no good. People will still get exposed...

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I can't imagine that Best Buy sells much worth going to them over Walmart or Amazon.

I can't think of anything they sell cheaper than their competition.

 

[Yynxs]

I can't imagine that Best Buy sells much worth going to them over Walmart or Amazon.

I can't think of anything they sell cheaper than their competition.

They don't sell cheaper than Walmart. They sell different, usually better quality than Walmart and you pay more for the quality because you can see it in front of you. I buy from Best Buy because the difference in prices for bigger ticket items is, to me, about 10% and that's worth it to keep a brick and mortar place open. I remember looking for places that sold what Radio Shack sold after it went under. I used to go in there to get components and remember many times spending a hundred more than the component because browsing found items I'd forgotten I needed for projects I'd forgotten I started. Radio Shack destroyed itself in those last 20 years but I remember it's heydays.

 

[Evernessince]

They don't sell cheaper than Walmart. They sell different, usually better quality than Walmart and you pay more for the quality because you can see it in front of you. I buy from Best Buy because the difference in prices for bigger ticket items is, to me, about 10% and that's worth it to keep a brick and mortar place open. I remember looking for places that sold what Radio Shack sold after it went under. I used to go in there to get components and remember many times spending a hundred more than the component because browsing found items I'd forgotten I needed for projects I'd forgotten I started. Radio Shack destroyed itself in those last 20 years but I remember it's heydays.

The problem with that is there are online stores that have much more variety than best buy with lower prices.

Best buy is a big chain, they don't need your help to keep them afloat. They don't really deserve your charity either.

 

[treetops]

They need to give the people giving out the items sanitation instead of having people hoarde it. I have like 200+ plastic grocery bags I've been saving. For my small trash cans, dog poop pickup etc. I want to put them at a gas station with a note. Take one per pump. So people don't all touch the same handle. But some jack *** might steal em all.

Then again I could add "Please donate what your bags you have." Who knows. Maybe I will.

 

[Yynxs]

This is pathetic, useless and a waste of time and effort. Doltish nonsense. Curbside service will do no good. People will still get exposed...

"exposure", especially disease exposure is not radiation, as in once you get within deadly range you're totally exposed and total avoidance is the only choice. Minimal surface exposure and control of that interface is what curbside service means. I just went to Sam's today and spent 450 for staples I've run out of while staying inside away from anyone the past month. Total full body exposure time to: a) other customers criss crossing our path and glancing at wife's and my face mask and gloves, at least an hour. b) shelves and floors and merchandise they are cleaning as often as they can but having had 5 hours of possibly infectied people stirring dust and handling before I arrived at midday, one hour. c) standing in line and being funneled through an area every uninfected and possibly infected customer checks out through, 10 minutes.

Total exposure time, had I been able to go online, specify everything I wanted THAT THEY STILL HAD IN STOCK, and have it brought to me boxed and loadable into my vehicle even on my own, about 3 minutes, and that outdoors.

Shopping electronics, generally all plastic surfaced, that people pick up and handle or pull out a box on the bottom shelf to check, then put back can be the same if not worse exposure and is not a required exposure because of unknown stock levels.

When I left Sam's I washed the gloves I was using, the door handle I pulled to open the vehicle to pick up the alcohol bottle, with 90% rubbing alcohol. Everything we bought was wiped down with rubbing alcohol after removal from the car and before being stored save the 'fresh' goods and those with peroxide. This is low level operating room procedures and can easily be applied to electronics and the boxes they come in. Even with all of that care I and my wife took, I will still be "sweating-in-place" in the house for the next 10 days wondering if she or I made an error.

I doubt normal people are as anal retentive or have been taught basic field hospital procedures as myself. But they are making the effort to reduce infection exposure. THEY CAN'T DO THAT if Best Buy doesn't offer the curbside delivery. That same curbside delivery also reduces the staff exposure to infected people to close to nil and as it has been revealed in the media the past few days, stock people, delivery persons, cashiers, truckers, and all service people are much more valuable and integral to the US economy than movie stars, politicians, and billionaires.

It's not doltish. It's what real people try to do and if I was operating room swab testing, I could show you how much it really works.

 

[ZedRM]

I can't imagine that Best Buy sells much worth going to them over Walmart or Amazon.

Visit one instead of trying to imagine. Seriously, Walmart? Sure there's Amazon, but then there's shipping times... No thanks..

 

[HofyPC]

Now all we need is Best Buys again. They have all closed around here. probably because they didnt carry anything besides appliances, big screen TVs and cell phones.

 

[gusticles41]

I can't imagine that Best Buy sells much worth going to them over Walmart or Amazon.

I can't think of anything they sell cheaper than their competition.

Best Buy will price match Walmart, Amazon, or any established company, really.

 

[p51d007]

This is pathetic, useless and a waste of time and effort. Doltish nonsense. Curbside service will do no good. People will still get exposed...

But, it makes them "look good". Heck, most of the time I go into a Best Buy, there aren't that many people.

 

[p51d007]

I can't imagine that Best Buy sells much worth going to them over Walmart or Amazon.

I can't think of anything they sell cheaper than their competition.

I can't imagine that Best Buy sells much worth going to them over Walmart or Amazon.

I can't think of anything they sell cheaper than their competition.

I use BB like a "showroom". I go in, look at something, see if I want it, then see if they have it
at Walmart or Amazon at a MUCH less price. If the price is close, I just go ahead and buy it.

 

[ZedRM]

I can't imagine that Best Buy sells much worth going to them over Walmart or Amazon.

And you would be wrong. You also are discounting the convenience factor of having your item the same day(as opposed to Amazon). Wally world doesn't even compare.

 

[ZedRM]

Best Buy will price match Walmart, Amazon, or any established company, really.

Then there's this.