Posted on 12/27/2011 10:24:34 AM PST by Hunton Peck
“I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.”
There’s a bit of inherent risk when shopping online. You’re handing over your credit card to a retailer that promises to ship you something in return. Most of the time transactions are completed without issue and orders are fulfilled as promised. Sometimes things go awry, though. And sometimes Best Buy ruins Christmas.
Best Buy started reaching out to customers earlier this week — you know, mere days before Christmas — that the retailer was unable to fulfill orders placed as far back as November. Big Blue was sorry but they were canceling the affected orders. Happy holidays! Signed, your merry friends at Best Buy!
Consumers traded the safety of buying an object from a brick and mortar store for the convenience and often lower prices found online. As Best Buy proves here, buying items online is still a bit risky even in 2011. Consumers just do not know for a 100% fact that they will get their product. Sure, receipts are issued and shipping estimates are given, but there are just too many variables involved for complete trust. Shipping companies can also break the chain, too. You just never know if the FedEx man is going to chuck your LCD monitor over a gate.
Generally though, the bigger the retailer, the more safe the transaction feels. Amazon, Walmart, Newegg and, to a lesser extent now, Best Buy should be considered trusted retailers. These massive companies should be able to fulfill online orders with minimum exceptions. But issues do arise. Customers are sometimes left without their order, feeling used and abused.
Don’t worry about Best Buy, though. The retailer isn’t hurting its bottom line by canceling orders en mass. The Wall Street Journal quotes an analyst stating “It’s a hiccup for the company” and “It probably won’t make a big difference for Best Buy’s holiday sales.” Oh good. Because Best Buy’s earnings were the first things I thought of when this story broke. Screw the customers. They don’t matter anyway.
Apparently if those with canceled orders whine enough, Best Buy will issue them a gift card for the inconvenience. Of course those that suck it up and move on get nothing.
There’s no way of knowing how many of these canceled orders were to be holiday presents. Reportedly many of the canceled items were sold on Black Friday. But even without Christmas looming, Best Buy held these orders hostage for nearly a month. They violated the trust of their customers. The retailer essentially cast a wide net, collecting just as many orders as they could, likely knowing it would be unable to fulfill them all. It’s greedy, unacceptable and just plain wrong. Merry Christmas.
Oh, and just in case you need help, the CEO of Best Buy posted a tip to his Facebook page.
Ok, I’m not a BB fanboy, but come on. I do think people whine too much. Yes, BB ought to issue gift cards for the screw up, but move along and stop taking everything as a personal assault. Sometimes thi gs get screwed up.
the author does not know finance or history.
“big blue” is always IBM.
Best buy is not big blue, big yellow perhaps since the phone book is dead.
I just like the fact that christmas has the last laugh at “worst buy”
Well a lot of attorney generals will have fun in the next year going after Best Buy.
I really never cared for the store and very much miss Circuit City.
They pulled the same crap with med last year when I was buying my teenager a laptop. Left me scrambling at the last minute. Found a better one at Staples.
Christmas is stressful enough.
I think someone at BB was OK’ing orders in excess of inventory, thinking they could get enough to cover.
Sounds like somebody guessed wrong, Heads should roll.
I don’t know. I still had Christmas. Guess Best Buy wasn’t as all-powerful as this blogger thinks.
Dell did the same to me. Promised delivery by Christmas but their shipper won’t cooperate. The shipper said I was lucky they even took my call.
Oh... Wait. It did.
Someone needs to do their homework.
/johnny
Exactly.
In life, there are disappointments. How you deal with those disappointments is a testament to your character.
My mother in law was distraught that a gift meant for me hadn't arrived. Did it matter? Not in the least. I already had everything I could ever want with me that morning: Family, a warm house, food, The Greatest Country in the World, and of course Salvation from my Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen. Dinosaur pens. "Swaptronics". Market domination.
That's been Big Blue since 1911. Industrial tabulating for everyone.
The author is a punk idiot.
/johnny
Geez what a whiney little butt-hole this guy is. Maybe he is just trying to advance the notion of how evil capitalism
is.
Under communism these gifts would have been plentiful, I am sure.
Let’s ask the people of the former USSR, they can tell us.
“I really never cared for the store and very much miss Circuit City.”
Me too! There’s something about competition that many times prevents consumer abuses like these mentioned in the article.
Nailed it.
During my family get-together, the topic came up and they were all complaining about Best Buy’s ugly “anti-Santa” commercials. Really seemed to PO everybody. I hadn’t seen them, since I so rarely watch network tv.
My sisters bf got a great deal on gigantic hd tv. He was 4th in line (started on Wednesday). He made many “friends”, met family that have been doing this for quite sometime.
He paid $210 for a $1200 tv. He also went home, took a 5 hour nap (the others in line held his spot). He told my sister he couldn’t go back, it was too much, but she encouraged him to do so.
She came over, we had our Thanksgiving meal, then she made him his holiday plate and took it to him.
He told the story at our Christmas gathering. He said he met so many nice people. I asked him how BB did such great crowd control.
They came out to the people in line and asked “who is here for _____? They then handed out 20, or however many of those items they had in stock, bracelets.
“Who is here for tv’s?” Same thing. After those who had bracelets were allowed in and all done, they then allowed the rest of the public in, 20 at a time.
He said there were people yelling at him and the others in the front saying “no way you’ve been here for 2 days”, etc.
Well, they were and they got what they wanted at a “give away” price.
It WAS NOT the mad rush as we have all witnessed on many a video. BB had great crowd control.
Serves them right fir dissing Santa. I hated those ads.b
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