Have you ever found a deal at Best Buy’s website only to travel to the store and find that the “sale” is over? Did the Best Buy employee show you “proof” on their “website”? It now seems that there are really TWO websites, and they’re identical except for the prices. Here’s the deal:
• You walk into a Best Buy to purchase a sale item you saw on their site.
• The employee tells you that the item is no longer on sale, and shows you what looks to be Best Buy’s website, but it’s really a secret intranet that Best Buy’s corporate office denies exists. The price on the website shows that the sale is over.
• You cry and leave, then at home you see that the sale isn’t over at all. What happened?
The Hartford Courant investigated this phenomenon throughly and are convinced the secret “intranet” exists. Their columnist actually saw it:
Many employees I talked with said they had no idea there is an internal site. But two employees at two different stores confirmed to me that there is an intranet site available only to employees.One long-time employee showed me the intranet site Hammer and I had been led to believe was the bestbuy.com site.
The salesman told me it was a site that only employees could access because it contained confidential information as well as item prices.
Moral of the story? Bring a printout of BestBuy.com and also ask for the secret intranet price to be quoted to you. Sometimes it’s more, but sometimes it’s less.—MEGHANN MARCO
Computer Purchase Reveals Website Confusion [Hartford Courant]
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I also work at Best Buy. There are two sites, Best Buy National and Best Buy In Store. The In Store website shows the best price available at any store in the corporation. So if you pull that up, it’ll not only show the sales that we have going on, but all the sales from across America. However, it will not show http://www.bestbuy.com‘s pricing. Best Buy national, or the best buy kiosk website (available to anyone who walks up to a kiosk) is the exact same thing as on the web.
Best Buy in-store shouldn’t be used simply because it reflects promotions not offered by the store, but it will always have lower or equal prices to what we offer in the store. The only reason we’re supposed to use it for customers is to order something for them that we don’t currently have in stock, as that’s the only way we can do web orders and still get credit toward our daily sales goals.
Best Buy stinks. Any store that knowingly and purposely misrepresents its prices and does a bait and switch deserves to be tarred and feathered. I’ve spent thousands of dollars there in the past year….laptop…flatscreen…etc. That has just ended.
if you have proof best buy will match prices, but you have to acctually make them aware of it
I too work for Best Buy, and we match pretty much everything under the sun (except for Amazon and a few other super-cheapo online sites due to their low overhead). If an employee didn’t match your online price, then they should have been written up or fired. We as employees have been ordered to match every price on the Best Buy website (as well as Target, Costco, Wal-Mart, Sears, or any other retailer) regardless of the situation or whether we’re taking a loss on the product. We are not allowed NOT to match it.
There is in fact an In-Store site, but it is the same as the national site… only differing in that we use it to order products that are out of stock for customers. If there is any price discrepancy (whether higher or lower) we’re always supposed to give the lower price.
If you had a bad experience, tell the store manager. It’s most likely he’ll ream the aforementioned employee on the spot, whether you care to watch or not.
It should never happen.
I work for Best Buy, and this article may border on flat out slander. We don’t have a secret website, and if you saw something on our website that’s on sale, we’ll match it, as long as it’s in stock. If you see something in our flyer that’s on sale and we don’t have it, we’ll get it, at the same price, shipped straight to your door via UPS, usually in under 10 days, shipping paid for by US.
We don’t play that bait and switch crap, and never have. We don’t draw you in to buy a laptop for 349, then try to sell you the 699 laptop because we don’t have the 349 unit on our shelves.
Whoever edits this site seems to have a hardon for Best Buy, and I don’t know why. Maybe you had a bad experience, and we apologize.
As for another article I read on the same site, about the former employee who says Tech Reps at BB don’t know their stuff; come on down to Elmira, and we’ll prove you wrong.
I’m not shocked that a few people came to this site to whine about a few bucks, people whine over the stupidest of sh1t. . Best buy isn’t for everyone. Prices are different everywhere you go because the cost of living changes so drastically from area to area.
There is no hidden intranet like some of these fools are stating, its called our employee toolkit which can show discounted prices on products for employees ONLY.
Everyday we see people that come into the store making up stuff, posting shitty reviews because they didn’t get their way, like this intranet, sale prices that they have no proof of, or the biggest, Someone at best buy told me, but they never have a name of who they talked to, its all hear say.
Just remember you act shitty @ any consumer chain, expect the same in return. We are smiles as long as you are, we are only human. Negative energy travels, so if you want something, be nice you will get A LOT more then if your gonna be a di(k.
If your worried about saving 10-15$ on something, best buy probably isn’t for you. I’m sure wal-mart or target might have what your looking for, yea that’s right i went there, WAL-MART go there to save you pocket change.
Most that come to best buy come in for the experience, and enjoy it, while some get all worked up because they gotta wait their turn in line, like they have never stood in a line before.
As for these price differences, you have to pay attention to the date and time that’s listed on there. Sometimes items are on sale and are in a package deal equaling two different prices, to put it simple, if you feel the price is different, and in fact is cheaper its very easy to say something to the cashier or to a blue shirt, and they will assist you.
LOL!!!!! This is so not true. I wish it was though. That would be amazing!!!!!! (I’m a Best Buy employee by the way)
the kiosks are on an intranet but its only so it can link up with the stores inventory counts. notice if you click on an item it will say at the top if this store has that item in stock or which location does have it in stock…the prices on the intranet site update faster than bby’s website because of the link to RSS (Retek Store Systems) thats the inventory system we use that will have the normal price of an item and the sale price if there is one going on..
This happened to me. I went to buy a camera that was 10% off according to the website. The sales person gave me 10% anyway. I didn’t lose anything but they would’ve lost a sale if they had not given it to me.