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Best Buy Fail (again)

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Well Fed Games:

--- Quote from: yotsuya on January 31, 2012, 10:33:40 pm ---Saint-

I'm curious why you feel that way. No judgement on my part, but why does it bother you?

--- End quote ---

Can't speak for Saint, but it feels like an accusation to me. If all stores did it, maybe I would get used to it, and at least at Costco I have a cart full of unbagged stuff and those stores are always crazy, but I am not sure why Best Buy feels the need to do so. I also find it kind of funny that most BBs I have been in basically funnel shoppers directly from the checkout lanes to the exit doors- it bugs me to have someone (door person) in plain sight of the transaction I just made want to see the receipt of said transaction, as if something shady happened in those ten steps. It really bugs me, and seems unnecessary, since everything in the store has anti theft tags in them anyway. I don't think (much like gutted copies of games at Game$top) that the "security" measure is worth the ill will from folks like me.

MonMotha:
At most big-box retail stores, the purpose of the egress door "security" is not to prevent customers from stealing things off the shelf, it's to prevent a form of fraud where the "purchaser" and the cashier are in cahoots.

Basically:
*Your buddy gets a job at the store as a cashier
*You go in an pick up some moderately priced, bulky items (like some mouse pads) and one relatively expensive, small item (like a large SD card)
*You to the cashier and make sure you get your buddy.  If for some reason you don't, you just come back and return everything later and try again some other day.
*Your buddy rings up the bulky, moderately priced stuff, placing it in your bag, and "forgets" to ring up the expensive, small item, yet it somehow also makes its way into the bag.
*You walk out and optionally come back to return the bulky, moderately priced items.  You pocket the expensive, small item or sell it for cash on e.g. eBay.

This can be thwarted by having an independent party (the door checker) verify that everything in your bags are also on your receipt.  You could still attempt to place things in pockets or whatever, but that can get a bit more suspicious looking, and most retail packaging in the USA intentionally makes that difficult.  Now, at least at my local Fry's, they don't really seem to actually check this very well.  The door person pretty much just looks at your receipt way too quickly to actually read it, looks in your bag, marks it, and sends you on your merry way.  They may be looking in the bag for items commonly susceptible to this particular fraud, though.

Obviously, you can get around this protection by having the shopper, cashier, AND door person in cahoots, but that's a lot harder.  A good manager will watch out for such conflicts (having a cashier that also knows a door person personally scheduled at the same time).

FWIW, no, they generally have no authority to detain you, and you can generally decline to be searched.  If they honestly believe that you did steal something, they can elect to detain you until police arrive, but if they turn out to be wrong, you can sue them for that detainment, so most loss prevention people tend to be VERY unwilling to do that.  Note that some membership stores (like Costco) have you enter into a contract as part of your membership whereby you agree to such searches.  Some stores also post a notice upon entry that you could be searched, and IIRC the validity of such statements varies by state (and country, of course).  IANAL, yada yada.

Howard_Casto:

--- Quote from: Richard_Nixon on January 31, 2012, 06:12:12 pm ---
--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on January 31, 2012, 01:24:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: Vigo on January 31, 2012, 11:14:20 am ---Yeah, the article never went into the deliberate price gouging. Last time I looked, the cheapest HDMI cable is a 3 footer in the $40-$50 range, and I remember the thread about their $1000-$2000 HDMI cables. Any company that does that should have no right to complain that Amazon is "stealing their business".  ::)


--- End quote ---

But you know, really EVERY brick and mortar store over-prices their hdmi cables.  The average price for a "cheap one" and your local S-MART  is 30 to 40 bucks. 

The way I figure it if I'm getting that exact same cable shipped directly from China (free shipping I might add) for only 1-2 bucks then they should only charge a MAXIMUM of 5-7 bucks for one.  That's giving them a 100% markup and extra few bucks for "overhead" which I'm fairly convinced doesn't really exist.

--- End quote ---

Are you saying overhead doesn't exist or finding an HDMI cable at that price doesn't exist.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dynex+Direct+-+6'+HDMI+Cable/9343061.p?id=1218088202342&skuId=9343061&st=hdmi cable&cp=1&lp=5

--- End quote ---

I'm saying that "overhead" is a generic term invented to warrant unnecessary markup.  It's the equivelent to "processing and handling".  Mind you I realize that true overhead does exist, but how much overhead could you possibly have on a single item amoung thousands in your big-box store?  A dollar?  Two?  If you sell cars or appliances, sure, there is some overhead because those things are huge and have special shipping and storage costs, but your average widget... you have the overhead of getting it shipped to you (which per-unit should be virtually nothing) and having it stocked on the shelf (which again, per-unit should be zilch). 

Vigo:
I think its also worth noting that the link to the HDMI cable isn't available in stores, you have to special order it to the store and pick up up 5-7 days later. I checked all the cables by price, and couldn't find one that is stocked in store until I got to the $20-30 range. (which I admit is an improvement from a year ago)

It kinda makes me mad that there is proof they have much cheaper cables to sell, but intentionally will not stock it in-store to screw customers who go to their store. Do they really not get what they are doing wrong?

 :angry:

shmokes:
I have to wonder, though, if they really are doing something wrong. Lots of stores, including Wal-mart and Radio Shack, sell HDMI cables. But not a single one opts to lower the price of cables to anything less than at least a 2000% markup. It's silly to think that there's actual price fixing going on, and all these stores have very sophisticated mechanisms and intelligent professionals determining optimal pricing. You'd think that at least one of them would get it "right". I have to kind of assume that they've determined with some degree of certainty that overall they make more money with the price gouging than they lose in driving savvy consumers to mono price (or even Amazon).

Now, whether their models take into account the less quantifiable bad will created and how this might affect overall shopping patterns, I don't know. But, at the very least I have to assume that these ridiculously priced cables do a pretty good business for them.

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