Whatever happened to Best Buy?

[J N Winkler]

My gripes with Walmart (purely as a customer--it would take too long to list the ways they screw over the poor):

*  They don't have real inventory search on their non-mobile website (i.e., the ability to choose product X and then exclude all the Walmarts in a given area that don't have that product on their shelves, as opposed to including all the Walmarts where that product can be picked up if it is ordered online).

*  The mobile and non-mobile websites often have conflicting information on product availability.  For product X, the non-mobile website will block you adding it to the cart by saying "We sold out of this item," while the mobile website will advertise "limited quantities" of product X at a nearby Walmart.  (I last encountered this runaround with Pennzoil Ultra Platinum full-synthetic 5W-30 motor oil in five-quart bottles.  Walmart.com lists it, but I have never actually seen it on the shelf in any Walmart.)

*  Walmart frequently stocks an item with a price on the shelves that is far higher than the online price.  For example, last Christmas shopping season they were selling the Equus Innova 3320 (a pretty decent auto-ranging digital multimeter, useful for home and auto electrical/electronic diagnosis) at about $26 on the shelf, but $18 (ISTR) online, the latter just to price-match Amazon.  This makes me paranoid, and feel like I should pull out my smartphone in Walmart and check prices online before I actually pick up something and take it to the register.

*  This is a mistake one makes only once, but it is really easy to confuse "Walmart.com" (the part of an actual bricks-and-mortar Walmart store where you go to pick up goods you have purchased online through Walmart.com) with the customer service desk, where you take goods to be returned for a refund.

*  If anything goes wrong with the self-service checkout, you are SOL.  I often abandon transactions that have gone pear-shaped and ring up the same goods at another machine just so I can escape the store with my paid-for goods.

[SteveG1988]

For car stuff i buy consumables at Walmart, friend of mine hates that i do (he works at Pep Boys) but it is due to the oil being a lot cheaper there, or wiper blades, or even stuff like injector cleaner. I buy regular parts at brick and mortar stores, or rock auto though.

With best buy my biggest gripe is how the stores rarely have a decent layout, and they seem to push you towards the cell phone section too much compared to other stores. There is a P.C. Richardson in a former circuit city near me, and it feels like a circuit city still, just less pushy than it or best buy.

[algorerhythms]

I was at the Best Buy in Norman recently to drop off a couple old broken computers for recycling, and while I was there I realized I've never actually bought anything there.

[Duke87]

I can't walk into a Walmart without feeling dirty, like I am engaging in some sort of skeevy immoral behavior. To this day I have never spent a cent of my money in one and I say that proudly.

As for Best Buy, I've bought various things there over the years, although I have tended not to enjoy the experience simply because I find the typical Best Buy layout overwhelming. The shelves are all low enough to see over all of them, so there is very little visually enforced sense of organization. I can see all four walls of the store from anywhere within it and, by extension, can hear noise from anywhere in the store anywhere within it. That makes it very difficult to focus since it's too distracting and overstimulating.

[J N Winkler]

For car stuff I buy consumables at Walmart, friend of mine hates that I do (he works at Pep Boys) but it is due to the oil being a lot cheaper there, or wiper blades, or even stuff like injector cleaner. I buy regular parts at brick and mortar stores, or rock auto though.

I buy consumables like oil, ATF, antifreeze, windshield washer fluid, and filters at Walmart if they stock what I want.  Frequently they don't--for example, I had to visit four or five truck parts vendors in Wichita before I found one that could order Castrol TranSynd (none of them actually had it on the shelf and several tried to fob me off with other TES-295 ATFs).  Walmart often comes up short on even the less obscure stuff; for example, no Walmart near me stocks an OAT antifreeze that is suitable for use in recent Toyotas (DexCool and its DexClones won't work because the antifreeze or coolant has to be silicate-free), oil filter selection is basically Fram all grades plus bottom-of-the-line Purolator (no Wix or K&N on the shelves), etc.

The auto parts stores will occasionally undercut Walmart on consumables.  Motor oil is a classic example.  There are some folks on the car forums I frequent who play the motor oil rebate game.  Usually oil is at least $10 per five-quart jug more at the auto parts stores than at Walmart, but sometimes they put coupons online or run special rebate offers that cut the price down to $1 per quart even for synthetics, and people in the know use that to stock up.  (I don't, because I have learned that stockpile management leads to headaches that are usually hidden at the time of purchase.  I still have a quart left from a decade-old stockpile of Mobil 1 10W-30 oil that was originally purchased for a car that left family ownership in 2007.  It has taken eight years to whittle it down from a six-quart case to just one quart by using it as make-up oil in the one car in the family that is still old enough to accept oil of that particular API quality grade.)

Advance Auto Parts has a TRT30 coupon code for online orders.  This means that cash and carry is a tax on the uninformed.  Compared to this, Walmart quoting different prices online and in-store no longer seems like an isolated attack on price transparency.

I can't walk into a Walmart without feeling dirty, like I am engaging in some sort of skeevy immoral behavior. To this day I have never spent a cent of my money in one and I say that proudly.

To that, I say "different strokes."  The trouble with boycotting large conglomerates that engage in morally objectionable behavior (like Walmart or Chick-fil-A) is that there is no shortage of free-riders, so it becomes rational to avoid pointless inconvenience.  I am happy to boycott Chick-fil-A because I have no great passion for fast-food fried chicken (and no accompanying urge to buy it from a chain that makes a selling point of its restricted opening hours), but in this area there are not many good alternatives to Walmart.  Kmart is dying, Target no longer sells motor oil, Costco has not yet arrived and in any case is a members-only store, etc.

[SteveG1988]

For car stuff I buy consumables at Walmart, friend of mine hates that I do (he works at Pep Boys) but it is due to the oil being a lot cheaper there, or wiper blades, or even stuff like injector cleaner. I buy regular parts at brick and mortar stores, or rock auto though.

I buy consumables like oil, ATF, antifreeze, windshield washer fluid, and filters at Walmart if they stock what I want.  Frequently they don't--for example, I had to visit four or five truck parts vendors in Wichita before I found one that could order Castrol TranSynd (none of them actually had it on the shelf and several tried to fob me off with other TES-295 ATFs).  Walmart often comes up short on even the less obscure stuff; for example, no Walmart near me stocks an OAT antifreeze that is suitable for use in recent Toyotas (DexCool and its DexClones won't work because the antifreeze or coolant has to be silicate-free), oil filter selection is basically Fram all grades plus bottom-of-the-line Purolator (no Wix or K&N on the shelves), etc.

The auto parts stores will occasionally undercut Walmart on consumables.  Motor oil is a classic example.  There are some folks on the car forums I frequent who play the motor oil rebate game.  Usually oil is at least $10 per five-quart jug more at the auto parts stores than at Walmart, but sometimes they put coupons online or run special rebate offers that cut the price down to $1 per quart even for synthetics, and people in the know use that to stock up.  (I don't, because I have learned that stockpile management leads to headaches that are usually hidden at the time of purchase.  I still have a quart left from a decade-old stockpile of Mobil 1 10W-30 oil that was originally purchased for a car that left family ownership in 2007.  It has taken eight years to whittle it down from a six-quart case to just one quart by using it as make-up oil in the one car in the family that is still old enough to accept oil of that particular API quality grade.)

Advance Auto Parts has a TRT30 coupon code for online orders.  This means that cash and carry is a tax on the uninformed.  Compared to this, Walmart quoting different prices online and in-store no longer seems like an isolated attack on price transparency.

I can't walk into a Walmart without feeling dirty, like I am engaging in some sort of skeevy immoral behavior. To this day I have never spent a cent of my money in one and I say that proudly.

To that, I say "different strokes."  The trouble with boycotting large conglomerates that engage in morally objectionable behavior (like Walmart or Chick-fil-A) is that there is no shortage of free-riders, so it becomes rational to avoid pointless inconvenience.  I am happy to boycott Chick-fil-A because I have no great passion for fast-food fried chicken (and no accompanying urge to buy it from a chain that makes a selling point of its restricted opening hours), but in this area there are not many good alternatives to Walmart.  Kmart is dying, Target no longer sells motor oil, Costco has not yet arrived and in any case is a members-only store, etc.

I buy 5W30 mobil super 5000 (12.97/5Q) and a Motorcraft filter (3.97) constant price.

[J N Winkler]

I buy 5W30 mobil super 5000 (12.97/5Q) and a Motorcraft filter (3.97) constant price.

For the 2005 Toyota Camry, I buy Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30 full synthetic and a Fram XG3600 filter for about $35 total.  (This car stays pretty clean on dino juice, but owning an oil-burner makes me very sludge-conscious, and we budget DIY oil changes to the same out-of-pocket cost envelope as visits to the quick-lube place, which currently run around $40.)  The Camry does fine with current-generation low-viscosity ATFs though it was originally specified for (high-viscosity) T-IV, so the last transmission fluid change was done with Valvoline MaxLife full-synthetic ATF, also bought at Walmart ($17 per gallon jug).  It is due for its first coolant change but Walmart doesn't stock Zerex Asian Vehicle coolant.

My 1994 Saturn has a crankcase full of Mobil 1 High Mileage 5W-30 and a Fram XG3614 filter, both purchased at Walmart.  Next oil change (due about now) will be with Red Line 5W-30 and a Wix 51516XP filter; Walmart stocks neither.  (I want to see if the Red Line ester base will clean out the engine, and the Wix extra-long is said to have less backpressure than the top-of-the-line Fram extra-long.)

[vdeane]

I generally don't shop at WalMart due to their workplace exploitation policies, but it won't be never because they're somehow the best place for me to buy shoes (everywhere else is expensive enough to cause sticker shock and/or doesn't have a reliable selection in size 9).

[Scott5114]

Wal-Mart Master Race

HELL no. Out of all those stores, I'll take Target over Wally's World every day.

The Best Buy in Bridgewater seems to be doing good; when we went there to purchase a new TV about 4-7 months ago, the place was packed. Plus I see Geek Squad cars at a decent rate still, so if they were in trouble I'd be oblivious to it.

Why does everyone dislike Wal-Mart it's not a bad place imo

I dislike it because most employees I've dealt with at Wal-Mart have seemed... short on interest in their job, even by big retail standards.  "At least they're more motivated than the folks at Kmart" is too low a bar.

This. Shopping at Walmart is also a rather unpleasant endeavor; it's difficult to get around the other shoppers to get to what you want. Our local grocery store, Crest, has better prices, better service, and is easier to navigate.

[Pete from Boston]

Best Buy is, of course, a prime example of a showroom where people browse and test and play with items they then purchase online.  But I will bet that their prices reflect a carefully calculated premium over online that X number of purchasers will willingly pay in order to just have the damn thing already, allowing Best Buy to still cover its desired margin.  This has to be at the core of their business model. 

Radio Shack failed in part because their prices were so grossly over online (over competitors, too) that no remotely internet-savvy person would pay them.  This is being borne out by the number of days of price reductions necessary in Radio Shack clearance sales before purchases become worthwhile.

In any case, there is surely a fine line between success and failure in this approach, and in such a risky position even store openings are surely done only very cautiously.