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Originally Posted by cyanide
Just had to respond to this post.
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Okay... me too :-)
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When Best Buy first came to Canada, I was not amused and had decided to not purchase from there. Well, for different reasons, mostly because I prefer to support Canadian business.
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I've been doing a little intermittent research into Best Buy ever since I tried to buy something from Future Shop last summer - they were out of the product and suggested I try their "sister store" down the road.
Best Buy has an interesting marketing strategy: They bought out Future Shop several months ago but instead of converting the FS stores they built new ones in close proximity and kept both going. Now, from what I've been told, FS sales people get commissions while their BB brethren and sistren are on salary - that may be one reason you see a different kind of customer service at BB - you get the same service for an ink cartridge as you do for a new home theatre system. A second thing I've noticed is that both inventory and physical structure or atmosphere at FS is going downhill bit by bit - and again, as that happens, there is BB just down the street, bright and cheerful and fully stocked. Even the hours are better at BB.
I thought at first this was just weird. Now I see it as a brilliant marketing strategy. What better way to convince people that BB is the best thing since... well FS.. than by letting FS look and feel more and more like a ghetto with empty shelves and sales people who look like they forgot to refill that last prescription of prozac while "your" store is busy and happy. It's sort of like setting up your own competition, making sure it fails, and then saying, "see? I told you we were better!".