Best Buy stores to match Amazon's prices through the holidays

Rick

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As online shopping becomes increasingly popular, it would seem traditional brick and mortar operations anchored down by their expensive store fronts can't truly compete -- or can they? In what seems to be a daring game of commerce chicken, Best Buy says it will match Amazon's prices during the holidays. The company even plans to offer free home shipping for out of stock items.

Retailers -- the "real" kind with walls, parking lots and checkout stands -- have long chided Amazon for being an insufferable operation hell-bent on undercutting local shops. Amongst Amazon's advantages are certainly its absence of retail locations (low overhead), lack of physical constraints (they have everything) and sometimes skillful evasion of local sales tax (self-explanatory). Combined, these advantages definitely give the mega e-tailer a unique edge over local competition. 

Best Buy hasn't been doing so hot, a fact which company execs attribute to a practice called showrooming. This phenomenon is the culmination of strong consumer interest to see products in person, but equally strong desire to pay a better price online. Companies like Amazon have made it incredibly easy, giving consumers the ability to scan barcodes with their smartphones, scour the net for better prices and leave stores empty handed.

It is not clear if matching Amazon's prices will hurt Best Buy's bottom line. There also seems to be an absence of finer details, like whether or not Best Buy will just price match Amazon's warehouse items or if it will also match Amazon's third-party Marketplace vendors. No doubt there will need to be additional training to spot these kinds of differences.

Would you shop at your local Best Buy if they match Amazon's prices? Personally, I can imagine the lines moving a little more slowly with all the manual overrides necessary to price match a sea of frugle customers. However, getting an item immediately, purchasing it at a competitive price and knowing you may return it without much fuss does sound pretty attractive.

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Interesting concept - you have to admire they'd take a chance like that. But I think they're ultimately doomed.

With extremely rare exception, I don't need to see first hand what I'm buying. If I don't like it, or it doesn't turn out to be/do what I want, I just send it back. Amazon, Buy.com, NewEgg, TigerDirect, etc. make returning items quite easy. Most of my friends do the same.

And during the holidays I avoid stores like the plague. I really don't want to deal with the traffic and rude shoppers. Why do that when I can sit quietly at my PC, sipping an eggnog and rum and shop away then have it delivered to my doorstop? :)
 
I have never been crazy about Best Buy for a variety of reasons, so no this will not help, too little, too late. Now if some other local stores would do this, I would shop at those.
 
Just yesterday I told a Best Buy employee that I would buy an Asus Transformer Infinity with the dock if he matched the Amazon price. The associate smiled and said he could do that, which I thought was odd yesterday because I tried to get them to match Amazon a month ago and they wouldn't. Now I know why it worked...and I thought I was good at bargaining :p
 
Interesting concept - you have to admire they'd take a chance like that. But I think they're ultimately doomed.

With extremely rare exception, I don't need to see first hand what I'm buying. If I don't like it, or it doesn't turn out to be/do what I want, I just send it back. Amazon, Buy.com, NewEgg, TigerDirect, etc. make returning items quite easy. Most of my friends do the same.

And during the holidays I avoid stores like the plague. I really don't want to deal with the traffic and rude shoppers. Why do that when I can sit quietly at my PC, sipping an eggnog and rum and shop away then have it delivered to my doorstop? :)

Why go in person? My laptop broke and I needed something to present my powerpoints to my class on Monday. I couldn't wait the 3-5 days for the item to ship here.
 
"My laptop broke and I needed something to present my powerpoints to my class on Monday."

Now you're talking repair/emergency work and not basic shopping.
 
The reasons I don't like Best Buy don't have much to do with prices. It's more about poor product selection and completely clueless employees.

They seem to think that everybody only wants to buy the cheapest pieces of crap products out there, when in reality there are those of us that would be happy to pay a little more for a high quality product. Which, usually, they don't stock.

Yes, their prices are high, but ultimately that isn't what keeps me out of the stores. It's more a matter of them not carrying the products I want.
 
Remember when best buy charged for ps3 firmware upgrades? Oh hey, we're going to open up your **** and get our ****ty fingerprints all over your **** so we can autoupdate your firmware in 5 mins. All for the completely low reasonable price of $29.99. Best Buy can, always and forevermore, kiss my ***.
 
Daring game indeed! Amazon could really do some damage to Best Buy's profit margin if they wanted to...which is a critical portion of Best Buy's annual revenues and profit stream. What's to stop Amazon from pricing any of Best Buy's top earning items to "below profit" values (because Amazon knows this data too), and then encouraging others to head to Best Buy to find their prices? What's to prevent them from going so far as to say "we'll accept returns from Best Buy during the Holiday season?"

Think about that one...
 
Their selection is trash, unless is something popular. Bit hey if they match a micro ad card I'm looking for I rather go to the store. I prefer the trip. I mean here in los Angeles you get to see attractive women while your at it. And is good to get out of the house, I get sick of being in doors.
 
"My laptop broke and I needed something to present my powerpoints to my class on Monday."

Now you're talking repair/emergency work and not basic shopping.
My laptop backlight went out a few months ago and I managed to half-*** fix it. Now, I'm fairly sure the connectors on the back of the LCD are going out because my picture would get extremely distorted at inconvenient times and then it would randomly go out completely. I'm not very good at soldering and I think I made things worse. I just ended up getting the Asus Transformer Infinity. I love this thing. I love how fast it is and I'm a virgin to the Android OS and I have to say, Jellybean is a vast upgrade compared to my iPhone 4s.
 
I did buy a microwave oven at Best Buy a few years ago (still works), but I have come out with empty hands many times since then. I keep forgetting Best Buy doesn't have much for PC parts and what they do have is overpriced or junky.
I prefer CompUSA for brick and mortar electronics store. Not as good price wise on most items compared to online retailers, but no waiting.

I'll have to pop into my local Best Buy this holiday season to see if the prices really match Amazon's. That would be a sight to see in person.
 
Let's see now--

Rude, clueless employees, stressed out rude holiday shoppers, past history of price gouging, 7% sales tax.

Why would I shop there?

BTW- the local paper report they will match some online prices some of the time. I hope Best Buy corrects them if that's not true.
 
I don't ever shop at best buy and won't but I like this! Why? Because hopefully Amazon will be more aggressive with their pricing. I have seen Amazon increasing things lately especially I noticed the subscribe and save has been changed from 15% to 5% which makes it about worthless anymore.
 
I always go into Best Buy. I look it up on the internet first and then go see it in person. If it's cheaper online WITH SHIPPING, then I can wait a few days for the mail service. However a lot of times you can really find a deal in the store, sometimes you can find a way to get like 15% off just by asking them about discounts and stuff. Really, it's no hurt to see the actual items in person, better than any picture or review.
 
Kudos to Best Buy for trying this hard. People like myself who love to shop online tend to forget about brick-and-mortar's excellent return and exchange policy. Returning merchandize to Amazon and NewEgg costs shipping and 15% restocking fee. If BestBuy can get close to online competitors' prices, I am willing to pay local sales tax for the ability to get my hands on the display items, to get the item the same day, and to return item with full refund, most of the time.

My question is - why just through the holidays? Take it a permanent pricing policy, and you have got me back.
 
I use to work at Staples, about 8 months ago, and we would not match Amazon, newegg, tigerdirect, etc. It did not make sense to me for us to not match those prices. From my experience working there, almost every customer said fine I'll just go online and get it. People would rather save money and wait a few extra days to get whatever they wanted. Amazon might have had an item for $20 less, but is it really worth $20 to not sell it to that customer, let them walk out the store with nothing in hand and less money in our til, and let the item continue to sit on the shelves? I don't know what Staples' policy is now since I left, but with news that they are closing stores and reducing the square-footage of other stores, I reckon they need to follow suit with Best Buy or else customers will flock to Best Buy or online retailers, rather than Staples, to buy their laptop knowing BB will match prices with Amazon.
 
I work for best buy in upstate NY, we have been price matching Amazon for almost a year now and will continue to do so after the holidays. Vendors such as Samsung and a few others have made it so that certain models of their products have to be sold for the same price no matter what company sells it.
 
The exec blaming "showrooming" for the failure of Best Buy is way off the mark. I was in there yesterday, looking for a SATA cable. I know they cost $1.65 online (and in small, local computer shops) for 6" versions, and about $4.95 for 2' ones. I was willing to pay more at Best Buy, because I needed one *now* , on a Sunday, and I didn't want to pay shipping and handling. Best Buy only had *one* SATA cable length in stock, and it was 2', for $22!

Best Buy is failing because they have crappy selection and nearly-criminal prices. You can capitalize on the ignorant for a while, but not forever. Eventually the public figures out that paying $30 for a windows update (no joke, they charge for that!) just isn't a good deal. Half the store is taken up by music CD's, which means there's no room for an enlarged selection for the items people actually buy. And do we really want to buy computers and parts from a store that wants to sell refrigerators too? How much time is wasted training staff about the rinse-cycles of Kenmores when they need to be learning about Thunderbolt and Raid 0 configuration?

You add in the fact that the store allows pushy-high-pressure sales persons from local Internet service provider companies (cough, Clear) to bother me while I'm shopping, and I'm done. A lot of other people are too.
 
"My laptop broke and I needed something to present my powerpoints to my class on Monday."

Now you're talking repair/emergency work and not basic shopping.
Which is a factor when you are talking basic shopping. Risk that you may need emergency repair work. I'll always take a physical store if they price match or are ballpark with goods like that.
 
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