Reader John tells us that he witnessed some Best Buy employees announcing “the very last Wii” over and over again. Oh those crafty kids at Best Buy!
Saturday morning (11/10) I witnessed some amazing sleaziness over at the Princeton,NJ Best Buy. I was standing near the back of the store when one of their salespeople came strolling from a back door holding a Nintendo Wii over his head, and started walking the aisles announcing that it was their last unit. I followed, wondering both how quickly would it get snatched up and how quickly could I decide if I wanted to buy it. It took a few minutes for a couple to come rushing up to claim it, exclaiming how happy their kids were going to be. I went back to looking around the store. About 30 minutes later, I heard this announcement on the store’s PA: “Attention Best Buy customers! Julie is now walking through the store with our last Nintendo Wii! If you’re looking for a Nintendo Wii, please look for Julie!” And there was another salesperson doing the same thing as the first – walking the aisles of the store holding the Wii above her head.
I was now in the store solely to witness more of this sales technique. The second Wii took just over 15 minutes to sell – I overheard two manager-types (one in a suit, the other a yellow shirt) discussing it, the suit asking “Did Julie sell that Wii, yet? How long?” And then “Wait 40 minutes and send out the next one.” Too long for me to wait around, so I left (after stopping in at the store’s new Apple niche to set the a Macbook’s home page to the Best Buy tagged stories on Consumerist).
I suppose there’s nothing illegal or unexpected about this, but as some one tentatively in the market for a hard-to-find Wii I’m annoyed enough to swear off Best Buy this holiday season.
Anyone else witnessed this clever bit of chicanery?
(Photo:silver marquis)
More From Consumerist
-
Best Buy To Cut 400 Jobs, But No Store Closures Right Now
-
Have Best Buy Staff Changes Led To Increase In Shoplifting?
-
I Don’t Want To See A Zagg Ad Every Time I Look At My iPhone
-
New Best Buy CEO's Bold Vision Is Retail Equivalent Of "I'm Just Here To Help The Team"
-
Best Buy CEO-For-Now Promises Change, End To Showrooming
I remember this happening about a decade ago at a store where I worked. It was when the first Tickle Me Elmo came out. The manager’s office was literally STUFFED with those buggers while none were on the shelves. Once every couple of hours, in the evenings during the Xmas rush, he’d come down and act the hero by offering it for sale. People would go nuts for it! Somehow no one ever witnessed him doing this more than once. I guess he had more sense than the Best Buy folks and didn’t do it within 1/2 an hour of the last one.
Sleazy sales tactics in New Jersey? Fuggitaboutit.
I have seen employees and customers hide things in other departments before…if the count gets corrected in the system when they cannot locate the item, the system will say they have 0 on hand, but obviously when they find it they think it is the last…same thing could happen if a shipment was received improperly. Or it could be that they want the purchaser to feel “special” I have seen socially awkward individuals that “needed” something to say to the customer. kinda strange but “meh” as a wise man once said (ok he was a bit of a druggy) “people are strange when your a stranger.”
That’s a classic tactic.
Does ANYBODY have proof of the activity?
The OP “heard” a statement. Where is the proof?
That makes NO sense! Wiis in this part of NJ sell out, technically, before most stores even open! I had to wait in line last month to get mine — the C.C. store announced all week they had a shipment coming in on Sunday, and Sunday morning I got there at 7 AM and was 6th in line. By 9 AM (an hour before opening) an associate started turning people away, as they had more people in line than they had Wiis.
Doesn’t seem like you’d need to use B.B.’s classic “create scarcity” tactic, really.
I guess what surprises me is that anyone finds this tactic at all surprising… sales, advertising, it’s all geared toward manipulating the emotions and judgment of the consumer. This is just a pretty blatant and obvious example, that’s all.
Perhaps John is mostly just upset it nearly worked on him.
The consumerist seriously posted this lame ass story. Amazing! OMG! Best Buy is using the principal of scarcity to sale Wii’s? HOLY COW! Oh the humanity!
Wait. Marketers and advertisers have been using the same principal FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS! Idiots.
What’s the point of doing this?
Consumer A and consumer B are both shopping the same store. Retailer says “Last one!” (knowing full well there are dozens in the back) and consumer A “feels lucky” to get it. Consumer B believes the retailer and shops elsewhere.
Repeat this a few times – instead of selling them all quickly, the retailer has made more work for themselves and driven customers to other stores. If I found out that a retailer was doing this, I’d shop elsewhere regardless of price.
Well, it’s New Jersey. It’s not a state of glitz and glamor.
You can’t even get “The Last Wii” on DVD anymore. I’m waiting for it to come out on Blu-Ray. Oh, wait, my PS3 is broken because of dust contamination…
This doesn’t surprise me. Best Buy has some some of the sleaziest business practices. For example, I pre-ordered a game from Best Buy 6 months before it was released. On the release day I checked my order status and was informed my copy (as well as everyone else who ordered the pre-order from Best Buy) was on back order. But somehow all stores in my area had shelves stocked full of the game. When I called to cancel my order so I could buy the game from the store I was informed that it is Best Buys policy to send copies of software to the stores first and then fulfill any on-line orders. Which makes sense cause they’ve already got your money, why should they be in a hurry to actually ship you the product.
Mac’s at Best Buy are frozen with DeepFreeze, any changes you make get reverted to their original settings on reboot, unless you have the password to unfreeze them, don’t bother changing the home page or putting dumb ass pictures of your eyeballs looking like womens genitalia with the iSight. It just makes you look like an idiot.
If BBY wants to sell their Wii’s this way, is there really anything wrong with that? It’s deceptive, and kindda mean, but there are alternatives.
@worsethannormal: Usually BBY doesn’t hold copies of games, it really depends on the store, but they base how many games each store gets on the pre-orders. I think if you read the pre-order box it says something like, “This does not guarantee you a copy of the game on release day”. It’s a bit misleading, ain’t it? Fortunatly I’ve never gone into a BBY on the night of a game release and not gotten the game I wanted. I went in at 8pm and got Halo 3 Legendary on release day.
You may not like them for it, but they usually keep a decent stock of current titles.
Best Buy may be lying about there stock…but you can find a lot of Wii at La Curacao stores in Califonia. They had always had them in stock. http://www.lacuracao.com
store locater: [www.lacuracao.net]
How ever they have them as bundle…but you could request them to sell it to you without all the accessories…I did…
This obviously has other elements to it. When you push a sale like this, then you get a chance to finish it one on one with someone. With the stakes already high, “BUY NOW OR NO WII FOR YOUR KIDS THIS CHRISTMAS” mentality, and likely a couple onlookers, the consumer will probably get pressured into buying more games or accessories than they intended to.
Wow, I ususally dont comment in general (the quiet troll). =)
The question here, really is a trust issue.
Yes the lines are very blurry with the marketing tactics BBY is using to market the Wii in this one particular store (and potentially others).
Ultimately it will hard and costly to define this as illegal. But I think we all can agree, as regular people (not consumers or retailers), is that we do not like being lied to.
For any business reputation is extremely hard to build, but so easily lost. And something as simple as the act of making the “quick” sale, though is a positive thing for the store in the short term, may have an impact for future sales and customer retention.
Personally I avoid BBY as much as I can, but they were the only ones with Guitar Heroes 3 in stock here in Elmhurst NY, when everyone else was sold out. So the only way they get my business is cause no one else has it =P.
Just don’t ever buy the extended warranty. They won’t ever honor it. I know. They won’t honor a warranty I bought.
Creepy… Not illegal, but morally reprehensible…
Well, this is Best Buy.
Since Best Buy bought ”Future Shop” here in Canada, their service and extended warranties are going downhill.
Seems to me that this is just a dumb thing to do overall. I’d like to believe its so dumb that nobody would do it, but we all know that isn’t very likely.
OK so suppose instead of it taking 15 mins to sell, there was a stampede. A baby carriage gets knocked over and the baby bumps its head. An older lady trips over a display and breaks her ankle. Two fathers get a little competitive and knock over a TV in the process…
If this is true, my bet is that the employees just wanted some entertainment. If the above had happened, they’d have gotten more than they bargained for.
haha that pretty funny but dumb.
I was in that store that day, and on my way to the bathroom I saw at least 1 person returning a Wii. Do we just rule that out automatically. Story sounds a bit fishy anyway. And changing the Macs homepage to consumerist, they apple rep Bruce usually has those laptops on lock down.
I work for a certain department store that has had the Wii for about 2 months but is refusing to sell them to customers. We were told by our corporate office to hold them for a sale on them on Thanksgiving Day. I field about 30 calls a day for it and our sales ad PROMISES a certain number in stores. We have a grand total of 8.
That’s gonna be a lot of pissed off customers.
If I hear ” do you have any Wiis” one more time I am going to slit my wrists. I have had desperate parents swear at me, promise to bribe me, scream at me, promise to pay me, scream some more, beg, cajole, plead, scream, ad nauseum over this ridiculous, POS toy! For the love of God, parents, go hug your children and thank your lucky stars they don’t have leukemia or some other horrible, wasting disease because if they did, the last thing on your mind would be a freakin’ toy!
I am so sick of these parents screaming at me “what am I supposed to tell me kid?”
Here’s what you should tell your kid: “Timmy, this toy costs $250 and next year, you probably won’t even play with it anymore. Timmy, mom and dad love you so much that they refuse to spend this kind of money on a toy so that one day, you’ll grow up to be a well-adjusted,hard-working man instead of a greedy little shithead who won’t leave me in peace until I get him a toy.”