O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Chat > Futureshop/Bestbuy abruptly shut down a dozen stores

reply to elwoodblues

Re: Futureshop/Bestbuy abruptly shut down a dozen stores

reply to urbanriot
> > But shopping at a Best Buy, or one of the company's Future Shop locations,
> > is most often an exercise in annoyance rather than respect. Customers complain
> > that sales staff were difficult to find and unknowledgeable or pushy when they did
> > materialize. Sears suffered similar problems; in some locations, you are more likely
> > to spot a Yeti than a sales associate. Both Best Buy and Sears trailed far
> > behind competitors like Costco and Sam's Club in pleasing their patrons,
> > according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), an annual survey of
> > 70,000 shoppers.

Again, this aspect of customer service is exactly what you get when you staff a big-box electronics store with 75 - 100 part-time, high turnover employees, instead of say 20 full-time employees.

I don't buy the fact that the fear of unionization is why the retailers go with part-time staff. By now, everyone in Ontario is aware that if you go on strike in a private-sector business, that business isin't going to mess around with you - they will close and kick your ass out on the road. Ask the people that used to work at the Caterpillar plant (formerly GM Diesel) in London if their union experience worked out for them.

Places like Costco make it a point of selling stuff that doesn't require customer assistance. A TV is a TV these days, and you don't need customer assistance to answer questions about 5-gallon pails of salad dressing.

reply to LazMan

You are taking things out of context.

When you sell a commodity good like a TV, PC etc, there is almost no margin in it. If they sell you a $30 USB or HDMI cable , that's where the profit is.

That said, 30 bucks for a USB cable is outrageous, I've bought a ton of things from Monoprice, simply because it's so much cheaper.
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reply to sm5w2

reply to elwoodblues

reply to Guspaz
The crappy customer service and accessories upsell at these stores is nothing new. I remember back in the late 90's when I was shopping for a printer at the Futureshop in St. Catharines, back when it was on Ontario Street, across from the old K-Mart plaza.

Anyhow, I picked up an HP Deskjet printer that was on sale and the the sales guy says to me "Sir, you'll need a good USB printer cable to go with that?" and proceeds to grab a $60 "Belkin Deluxe-Premium, 24 Karat Gold-Plated, Oxygen-deprived, made from Unobtainum encrusted Saskatchewan Seal-Skin bindings" cable off the shelf.

Since the printer had both USB and Parallel connections, I quickly declined it with a "Heh Heh...uhm...no. I'll just use the parallel cable I already have, thank you". He proceeded to tell me that in order to get the best colour print quality that I needed to use the USB connection. Using a parallel cable would reduce the printing quality because it was only designed for black and white printing.

I laughed in his face, put the printer down and said, "On second thought, perhaps I will shop around a bit more then." And walked out the door.

I still bought a printer that day. I can't recall where....but I think I took my business to a small computer shop in town where they sold me the same printer, matched the Futureshop price, and even threw in a free USB cable. Of course, of the two stores, guess which one is still in business....

The only downside of regularly going to a small shop is that they quickly learn how to "poke" your geek factor, making you buy even more stuff! But at least it's the kind of stuff you can actually use -- most of the time.

"A water cooled system?"

"You don't really need it. Cooling fans will work just as well. But watch what happens when I add some fluorescent dye to the water and turn on the black light."

"Ooooooooo!!!"


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reply to Guspaz
What's even worse, is at least for me, Best Buy has turned into a "showroom" where I go look at the merchandise, play with it, get my hands on it, decide if it's the one I want - model, type, etc - and then I go home and buy it online from wherever I get the best price and deal. If the BestBuy price was the best, I just end up buying it online from their site anyway - same price and home delivery so I don't have to go back and stand in line or answer questions about extended warranty.

The ONLY things I've bought in store at Best Buy the last 2-3 years are 4 flat panel TV's - shipping and delivery isn't reasonable on 36-55 inch tv's.

> What's even worse, is at least for me, Best Buy has turned into a "showroom" where I go look
> at the merchandise, play with it, get my hands on it, decide if it's the one I want - model, type,
> etc - and then I go home and buy it online from wherever I get the best price and deal.

You do realize that they've coined a term for exactly that behavior - don't you?

It's called "show-rooming".

So the next time you're at a big-box store, and (by some miracle) a salesperson walks up to you and asks if he can help you, I dare you to say "No - I'm just show-rooming..."

See if slaps you upside the head.

reply to Guspaz
Futureshop/Bestbuy have nobody to blame for "showrooming" but themselves. The entire phenomenon only exists because Futureshop/Bestbuy prices are too high.
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reply to sm5w2
well to have all part time workers is a smart business move. that way if one leaves it has no effect on your business as the person is not doing a key job you don't need a skilled person to replace them.

I do know best buys do have a shit-ton of mangers the one I was at in Barrie had at least 7 of them. Sucked as one would tell me one thing and the other would say something else. Sucked working there I even got in shit cause I was doing to much work. Forking teens were pretty damn lazy.

reply to urbanriot

said by urbanriot:

said by elwoodblues:

You are taking things out of context.

... You should probably re-read my post because I responded to him with direct context.

said by elwoodblues:

When you sell a commodity good like a TV, PC etc, there is almost no margin in it. If they sell you a $30 USB or HDMI cable , that's where the profit is.

Yet despite that, our area has two stores that focus on selling home theatre electronics, both of which have been around in some capacity or another since I moved to Niagara Falls and shopped for my first VCR back in the 80's.

reply to Guspaz

When one considers all the additional back-end infrastructure and freight/courier costs involved to run an operation like Amazon, and that the actual stores are capital costs that are eventually paid off, I would expect that the costs wouldn't be as different as everyone automatically assumes.

Costs would be higher for a B&M and a slight increase in price can be justified by someone who wants something right away, but those costs are certainly not so high as to justify some of the obscene price differences between the two. It is for this reason why people showroom. If they were smart, they'd turn that into an opportunity rather than something to rant about.

reply to TLS2000

reply to zacron
working on that now.

reply to Guspaz