Posted on 08/30/2017 11:22:12 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
One of the Best Buy stores in Houston offered Hurricane Harvey victims bottled water ... for a price, a very high one and now the company's apologizing.
The store was caught selling 12-packs of Smartwater for $29.98 and 24-packs of Dasani for a whopping $42.96. A photo of the display went viral this week, amid allegations of price gouging in the wake of the Harvey.
Best Buy now admits, "This was a big mistake on the part of a few employees at one store on Friday. As a company we are focused on helping, not hurting affected people. We’re sorry and it won’t happen again."
A rep for the retail tech giant added ... Best Buy doesn't normally sell water, and that the employees at this specific store were pricing the packs based on single bottle prices.
(Excerpt) Read more at tmz.com ...
bingo
Also sorry they got caught.
Selling each person a limited number of bottles for a fair price would increase the likelihood of a fair distribution.
There will be a beautiful, 3-block line for water like in Venezuela.
Now that was funny.
In an educated society businesses would not be subjected to public shaming for such harmless acts. All the employees had to do is take the bottles out of the cases and continue selling them by the bottle, but of course the perpetually offended make it so it is easier for a company to offer an apology for something that requires none.
Read people. They normally sell only singles. Those designer waters go for 2 to 4 dollars a bottle even at Walmart. When the employee made the sign, that is how it was priced. Not for the purpose of gouging, they just normally don’t sell by the case.
Best Buy?
Spit!
Economic sense for whom?
Except, I take it, you can only buy it by the pack?
Here in FLorida there are laws against ‘price gouging’ in the aftermath of a hurricane.......................
Don’t ask! Libertarians are all over these stories repeating the mantra that if you sell water at a reasonable price during a hurricane, someone will come along with a forklift, buy them all, and jack the price up even higher. I still question how people enduring a hurricane 4 come equipped with forklift, truck and ability to take credit cards but perhaps the libertarians will inform us.
So a couple of people get cheap water and the rest get none. They should have just broken up the cases and sold singles.
Best Buy needs national shame for this.
Drudge, Foxnews and others.
That's $1.79 per bottle which I'm betting is exactly what they sell for in the refrigerator at the checkout line.
So where's the price gouging?
Best Buy needs national shame for this.
Drudge, Foxnews and others.
They need praise. The higher price ensures that for the people who come later, there is still water available for them.
Good economic sense.
Even though these screw worms are only an hour or two drive where it can be bought off the shelves for cheap, they decided to sell a case of water for $30.00 effing dollars to people that lost it all. Looking sharp Best Buy.
Supply and demand my azz.
I’d have to say that in the aftermath of a natural disaster, Best Buy might be the last place I’d ever think about looking for bottled water.
Now is not the time for fairer distribution?
Because thee days it's all about "optics" and not being "tone-deaf" and other emotions.
Nobody wants to bother explaining basic economics. Easier to just apologize and fire people.
I guess Best Buy is obligated to give it all away for the same price you could buy it at Walmart in a part of the country that's not a natural disaster.
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