BestBuy.Com

[Its-Showtime]

Ok let me ask a question.

Situation. You go to a store and see an item.

You want the item.

You have gift cards for the store that shows the item.

You try to buy the item.

You get told you cannot buy the item with your gift cards.

Now putting this into the specific situation. Best Buy sells an item thru BESTBUY.COM but you cannot use BEST BUY gift cards because it's a 3rd party vendor.

What kind of sense is there in that??

If BESTBUY is representing their product and undoubtably making money off of advertising. Why not arrange to accept gift cards?????

Best Buy repeatedly gets poor custome service remarks and comments???  Now i'm seeing why. 

[Jimmienomam]

I assume you are trying to purchase a marketplace item, correct?

[Its-Showtime]

Unfortunately yes.

[Jimmienomam]

Yeh. The marketplace is a new concept to BBY. They have said that they want to create an AMZ-esque like atmosphere. Where if it partners with BBY then they can accept BBY GCs, but they are still in the initial stages.

They have made agreements that you can use RZ certs with marketplace items though.

[Its-Showtime]

I have no idea what an RZ cert is....

[Jimmienomam]

Reward Zone certificate. Its the money off certs from earning points through their reward program called Reward Zone.

[Its-Showtime]

Ok duh that makes sense.....

[gmt512]

I don't care for this market place type atmosphere Best Buy is creating. So who is responsible for customer service? Returns? What about reviews and ratings?

 You can't control that when there are too many all different companies just selling. It's more like eBay.

 Best Buy used to be great. I wanted to know well a USB hub worked, I looked around at them here and read what users thought. Good system. Look around now.

  If you think there will be reviews like AZ has well know this well: those reviews are bogus. If AZ is pushign a partricular seller and you get bad product, bad service, and give bad review, your bad review goes under the name of a seller you never heard of. So it's not going to create an honest good system, just a bad marketplace confusion with no one taking ownership for problems that customers will run into from time to time with a defective item.

 The thing with gift cards. That is terrible. If Best Buy sells those, I think they have an obligation to honor them on anything they sell on their site or in their store.

   I used a rewards certificate on an item I bought (and returned) and now I want to know how to get my rewards cert back. The thing is, when you create a system like this, it  takes away responsibility and creates this system where everyone and his brother sells here, and you don't know what return policies are etc. It will all be different from one to the next. This is sad if this is what Best Buy must do to stay in business. How about if they lowered their prices?

[BeauGregg]

GMT512 you make some very good points and have some very intriguing questions,  First, I want you to understand that as a result of the consumer's purchasing habbits many companies are selling greater amounts of product through e-commerce or online.  As companies emerged that only operated online such as Amazon.com there  became a shift in market penetration.  "Bricj and mortar" buildings that are much hire in cost than a webpage to deliver products have become more of a drag and less of an asset. 

As more people shift their purchasing to e-commerce, big box or brick and mortar retailers must adjust/change their delivery model to continue to receive profits after operating costs.   In other words, if the business does not provide the most popular channles for purchase they will go out of business.  Even driving today you can see the future of retail in megastores such as Super Target, WalMart, and Meijer.  these places offer banking, optician, grocery, household goods, and most other items you need on a regular basis. 

Specialty stores must adapt to increase their channels of delivery and increase their product offerrings to remain competative.  Best Buy's online prescence and push is a move to address the number of e-commerce customers shifting from big box purchasing to on line purchasing.

In regards to 3rd party vendors, there are a number of reasons they are used;

1.  Best Buy wants to sell the product but the manufacturer will only allow 3rd party sales to keep control of pricing

2.  The 3rd party's product is service intensive (such as a cell phone, pda, etc.) item that Best Buy does not service or

     maintenance and as such Best Buy allows the 3rd party to sell their product at Best Buy.

3.  If Best Buy is unable to provide a service or product that customers are in need of or want, they could pursue a 3rd

     party relationship to accomodate demand.

4.  3rd parties can be used if a monetary savings could reflect in the price of the service or product to the customer at

     delivery of sale.

And quite frankly, any other reason that would make financial, reputational, or regulational sense would be good reason to offer 3rd party vendors.  As you noted, your experience is that of the third party vendor but you get to enjoy the Best Buy environment.

I hope I explained these items in a collaborative way.  As Best buy now has a stronger e-commerce forum, I can assure you the same teams throughout the lines of businesses support the e-commerce segment of the business.  Returns will still have a process if there is an issue with the product at delivery.  That is the trade off with e-commerce.  If all goes well it will cost less for businesses and for the customer to obtain the same product shipped to your door.  However, when there is an issue it will require a different process than simply going to a store to return/exchange the item.  That is a challenge that will be worked, worked, and reworked over and over in the coming years by a plethora of companies.  And the fact is, there is no one right way to handle all situations as all situations are not the same.  Hopefully Best Buy credit card individuals can deliver an Excellent product and Do the Right Thing in situations that arise out of the norm.

[gmt512]

 Something is happening here where this box keeps disappearing and I am writing this a second time.  So Best Buy doesn't want discussion?

  I have not bought much of anything from a brick and mortar store in a long time, most of my purchases are online for convenience.

 And I well know that merchants sell online and why, this is not anything that need be explained.

  But I hope Best Buy and everyuone else also will take into account this is an economic difficult time, and won't always be that way (it may just seem like it) People tend to be short-sited. Becasue it is this way now, consumers consume less, won't be the case ten years from now.

 So altering radically may not make that much sense for the long haul.

 That said, I do hope  Best Buy doesn't go the way of Circuit C becuase on big purchases, it is good to be able to go into the store and speak with a salesperson who, I hope, would know a little bit on the product and help me make a better informed decision (i research online myself also).

 Another issue is the rewards. I have two rewards I must use by August. I hate to lose then, but  because Best B isn't sellig what I want. I also loved the buy and pick up in the store.  

 Earlier this year I went online to Best B to see the reviews of an item specifically. I was blown away that there were none. I would rather here be none, though, than bogus ones which are the case in many AZ items. But it used to be, you could get a lot of help from a number of tech-savvy buyers who made their purchase and did a good job reviewing. Not all, but many did a good review which factored into what I bought.

  I hope that Best B will also offer items sold by it, not go to an entirely market place model.