TV & Home Theater

[nickogle13]

I have been trying to purchase a tv over the last several weeks.  Everytime i find a tv that i like, none of your stores nor the warehouse have it instock.  This is very frustrating.   what is the point in having items on sale if you never have them???  When i called my local store and asked about the raincheck policy they said they could give me one, but it wouldn't do any good anyway, because there are none on order at the store or the warehouse.  What kind of crap it that.  I'm pretty sure i am officially done with bestbuy.

[Jimmienomam]

This is because the new line of 2012 TVs are coming out.

Every retailer won't be getting more 2011 stock in. Meaning that there will be very limited stock and some great prices as they force out old inventory.

Trust me as I worke in retail for home theaters. After the Super Bowl rush, this is the worst time for selling/buying TVs because there are people like you that want to buy, but there is no stock.

[nickogle13]

That makes sense, but i have always had this problem with best buy, regardless of the time

[APR28]

Did you ever think about going to another store?

[NickJ_86]

Even if it weren't this season, on-sale TVs at any retailer are first-come, first-serve, first the on-hand stock sells out, then hordes of eager TV buyers snatch up every available reservation for a TV from the local and regional warehouses.  If you think this is a Best Buy thing, I challenge you to shop at any busy retail electronics store and see if you have any easier time with this issue.

[Swigg]

The fact that the TV is out of stock is not my gripe.  My gripe is that even when the TV is out of stock or discontinued Best Buy refuses to remove the display models. 

I was in the store in Ocala, Fl today and on 5 different occasions i asked the sales associate to check on a TV for me.  Everytime he said they were discontinued and they cannot order or sell any. 

All the TV's were on and being displayed with a price tag on them.  I asked him then why dont you turn the tv off and/or pull the price tag off it.  He told me he couldn't.  He stated that the Manufacturers pay them to display their TV's and they cannot remove them from the floor just because they didnt sell them. 

I politely asked him to then please palce an out of stock tag or sticker over or under the price tag and he stated he couldn't do that either.  So I told him they can make their money from displaying the tv's for the manufacturing and not from me b/c my time is valuable and he eventaully wasted an hour of it by making me look at a bunch of TV's they didnt have in stock.

Will never shop at Best Buy again b/c they have now put the manufacturers above the costumers.

[Dval]

Did you happen to inquire if they were selling the shelf displays instead?  Probably half the TVs on my Home Theater wall are Open Box due to them being discontinued and the last model.  Also, while they may not be able to order any in, might you have asked if they could get one sent in from a nearby store?  It takes a little bit longer, but the stores can sometimes obtain product from one another. 

Unfortunately, at times you may have to put the manufacturer above a customer.  As we experienced last year, if a manufacturer representative finds stuff in the stores that is not supposed to be there, they can (and have) hit the company with product shortages/bans.  If we were to have sold an iPad 3 before 10 a.m. this morning, Apple could pull all of their merchandise from our stores.  Sadly, stores have to be careful of what they do to make sure we at least have some product to display/sell.  We always want to do whatever we can to satisfy the customers if it's within our authority. 

[lboughton]

We encountered the same issue this past weekend and my husband said the same thing.  big waste of time!  but it's not just best buy.  we also went to sears, boscov's, target,  and hhgregg and they all did the same thing.  all the displays were on and prices were tagged on the tv's but when we decided on one (after 20  minutes of looking at all the features and comparing with different brands, types and sizes) the salesman would look it up on the computer and tell us that it's out of stock.  we went through this with numerous tv's at different stores.  we just thought it was bad luck and bad timing.  finally we went to hhgregg and the sales guy told us that he doesn't have any tv's (none!) in stock or in their warehouse.  We would have to order one and he has no idea when it would come in.  maybe tomorrow or within the next two months!  NO TV's at all!    Crazy!