Rumble In The Strip Mall: Best Buy Calls Out Walmart
Sure, Best Buy emerged victorious over Circuit City in the Battle of the Big-Box Electronics Stores, but they still have to compete with general discounters like Walmart. Which is why in a new ad campaign, Best Buy calls out Walmart specifically, attacking their employees' presumed lack of product knowledge compared to Best Buy employees.
In the TV spot titled "True Stories," a Best Buy associate relays a story about a customer who calls with some very specific questions about a TV. Turns out he's calling from a Walmart. Her response: "You're obviously calling us because we're knowledgeable. We've got the price match guarantee, so why don't you come on in?"
That, says Barry Judge, chief marketing officer, is a perfect illustration of Best Buy's point of differentiation. As the electronics retailer joins the ranks of those trying to convince consumers its prices are in line with Walmart's, highlighting the price match guarantee was deemed essential. Target has been fighting a similar battle for months, though it has yet to mention Walmart by name in any advertising.
This raises the inevitable question: what kind of person has the Best Buy TV department on speed dial?
Best Buy Challenges Walmart on Employee Smarts [Advertising Age]
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Comments:
Anyone who has to rely on the sales associates of either Best Buy or Walmart is screwed
@Nighthawke: Point of correction: "Upsell, upsell, upsell." It's not making the sale, but making the bigger sale, and the ammount of crap you can tack on to the purchase.
In my experience, the BB employees know about the same as the Walmart. "Oh yeah, this tv has it all man, top of the line, I tell ya, it is the best!" "Ummm this is a 720p tv, that is 2 years old, and you are selling it for 45% more than I could get it for on Amazon". "Yeah, but once you jack up the price another 20% with one of our warranties, this baby will be gtg for 3 years!" "3 years? It is already 2 years outdated already!"
Just because BB employees have a tiny bit of training about their department doesn't mean they are "knowledgeable" about it.
I will say this for Best Buy, they do TRY to educate their people on what they are selling. They may not be experts on a particular product, but when I worked there they did a good job of trying to train the employees well enough to sell the product. At least that was MY experience on the computer side.
(I did the PC repair for Best Buy before they became Geek Squad and altogether offered worse service for higher prices.)
This should be interesting. Sure, some best buy employees don't know HDMI from DVI but some do. I would trust a best buy employee over a walmart worker any day. The lesser of two evils.
Wow, two WCIA contenders duking it out. It's like a corporate Jerry Springer show!
"Best Buy calls out Walmart specifically, attacking their employees' presumed lack of product knowledge compared to Best Buy employees."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA, but seriously, that made me laugh.
@Darascon: i have NEVER found an employee in walmart willing to acknowledge that i exist... usually too busy talking to their best friend Yolanda on the other side of the aisle (across the giant wall of stuff.)
I think we all agree we don't shop Walmart for their employee knowledge.
@RecordStoreToughGuy: I represent Legal Services for Monster Cable, INC. I insist that you Cease and Desist from using the Monster Cable name on the consumerist.com website, as it may lead confused consumers to believe that Consumerist.com is selling Monster Cables.
This is rich indeed. Pot... kettle...
I think BBY is a little afraid of WalMart and their revamping of their electronic departments. I think we will actually see some positive changes from BBY in the following weeks (months?) which will be more pro-consumer. Now you all might dog on BBY because of the occasional poorly trained/informed employee but I still say they know more than the people at Walmart.
Maybe not BB on speed dial, but rather used GOOG411 or the new Bing one and get put straight through. S'what I do!
every time i see that commercial, i invision a guy in walmart who has been standing around in electronics for like 30 minutes without getting any help at all.
so to be an ass he calls best buy to get help, probably talking loud enough for all the walmart employees in his viscinity who are ignoring him to hear, and winds up going over there.
based on my personal experience, i don't see the commercial as an attack on walmart's lack of employee knowledge so much as it's an attack on walmart's lack of employees. Congratulations Walmart, you won the department store war. So now that the entire world shops there, how about hiring enough people to provide customer service to them all?
Whats even funnier is when you walk into bestbuy and the employee tells you dont bother just go to newegg.
I am serious this happened 2 weekends ago. I was just looking around the pc section of bestbuy and an actual best buy employee told me that.
I didn't know "this TV has a higher number than another" counts as a measurement of knowledge.
How many Best Buy home theater employees even know what the NTSC color spectrum is? Oh, it's only the most important aspect of picture quality that almost no one mentions, that's all.
I never rely on the associates. I research online, find the best item, and go to the store with my purchase already selected.
@Saboth: Agreed. Every time I overhear their conversations with customers I cringe. Half the information is misleading... the other half is just plain wrong. Mainly it consists of doing whatever they can do to move the customer to a more expensive product than they need (or were looking at).
@Nighthawke: It's a good ad that should drive people into Best Buy, where they will realize all the Best Buy people want to do is sell additional cables, DVD/Blu-ray players, extended warranties, and $150 HDMI cables. I personally would rather just do my own research and buy online. I've been lied to multiple times by Best Buy associates and when I call them out they admit they were wrong.
This is like me saying I know more about space shuttles than a small dog - and being proud of that.
I work at Walmart and know for a fact that I have more knowledge about electronics than every employee at the Best Buy across the street from the store I work at. I even proved that to my managers.
I stock shelves in the grocery area...
@majortom1029: Best Buy doesn't seem very interested in actually selling much RAM and such, seeing as I've seen them selling $40 modules (if you got them online) for like $180. At least he gave you good advice.
@Nighthawke: True story:
Years ago, my mom and I were on a rush to pick up some things for a cookout, and needed a grill cover. Stopped by Walmart, went to the Home and Garden section, asked an employee who worked there "Where can we find grill covers?" The employee didn't know, no big deal, so he took us over to the Home and Garden supervisor. The supervisor responded that Walmart did not sell grill covers, and that we should check out Home Depot.
He asked us if there is anything else he can do to help us and walks off. Once he's gone, we notice right behind where the supervisor had been standing? Grill covers. Right there. Yep.
So yeah.
It's my firm belief that the average Walmart employee just doesn't care/know enough about their sections and what they're selling. Not that Walmart pays them enough to in the first place.
@Saboth: lol, so true. One minor quibble: there's nothing really wrong with 720p for smaller screens. Just understand what you're getting.
HAH!! Walmart employees around here are too understaffed and being called to man registers, clean the bathrooms, straighten stock, smoking outside to have time to answer questions. They are usually teenagers who don't NEED the job, just some extra cash for clothes, beer, etc and don't really care if they get fired or not. They don't care about the consumers.
@johnva:
Not to mention they sell 2 year old videocards for around $200 that you can get online for $99 all day long.
"Which is why in a new ad campaign, Best Buy calls out Walmart specifically, attacking their employees' presumed lack of product knowledge compared to Best Buy employees."
BWAA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
That made me laugh really hard.
I haven't found either to be particularly knowledgeable, but the Walmart employees bug you less. That's a double-edged sword though - it can be harder to find someone to help you if you actually need their help.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but the salespeople in the electronics section of my local WalMart are actually friendly and know about the products. And Bi-lingual to boot!
Best Buy making fun of Wal-Mart is like the kid who eats his boogers making fun of the kid who eats paste.
@Saboth: Yeah, there are plenty of examples. The RAM thing was just the most egregious display that I could think of of Best Buy's "sell inferior/obsolete product, jack the price up beyond all reason" strategy. Their entire business strategy for that sort of item must rely on there being a few idiots who don't know the Internet exists yet or something (like I said, I can't imagine they sell much at that price). How did that work out for Circuit City again?
This is like a retard fight. No one wins and everyone just laughs.
I don't expect the Best Buy employees to be any more knowledgeable about electronics than I expect the McDonald's employees to be expert on French haute cuisine. From experience, they don't really know much about what they're selling, although they do know just enough to try to sell accessories.
a note of caution on any item purchased at Walmart (or Sam's Club):
You can't rely on model numbers when pricing items at Walmart or Sam's.
Wanting digital cameras for my family, I priced the model I wanted at several local stores. Walmart was $10 cheaper. I eventually bought 3 identical cameras from the camera factory refurb site. Two arrived with exact model specifications. One, however, was missing several key features. A call to the factory yielded this answer; "you got a walmart version of that model" I was told that to meet walmarts price point, the cameras made for them are made with cheaper specifications and fewer features" even though they had the exact same model number. The walmart $10 savings was for a camera that was worth considerable less.
This incident was followed by another similar one. My office bought a fax / printer / copier. When set up, the office manager could not get some of the features to work. A call to the printer support desk elicited the following question; "Did you buy the printer at Sam's club?" When told that this was not the case, the printer rep helped us determine that the features were simply not turned on in an obscure menu. In reply to the question "why was the purchace at Sam's club relevent" the responce again was that to meet the walmart price points the manufacturer had removed those features for units sold at Sam's Club. Yet the model numbers were the same.
When i tell these examples to others, I get many people who respond with similar stories regarding computers, tv's, clothing and even food stuffs.
@johnva: Most things are not even in 1080p so why buy a TV that displays it?
Also you need to sit extremely close to a 1080p which most people do not thus waste even more money.
@savdavid: although in their crappy defense, i have found that the front line staff's attitude is only a representation of the attitude that's been passed down from store management which has been passed down from regional, etc etc. fix it from the top, and it will get better. I mean you like your job more and have a better attitude when you're noticed for your performance than when you're not.
@waltcoleman: Agreed. And good luck getting that price match guarantee, since basically everything at Wal-Mart is considered "on sale".
Also, in the commercial she asks where the person is. Does that strike anyone else as weird for a sales associate to do? What made her think the customer was at Wal-Mart? She must have been able to hear screaming babies and NASCAR blaring from the electronics department.
I found some attitudes pretty insulting when I worked in the Wal-Mart electronics department. Then again, I wasn't a normal employee. Most don't read Giz every day and know who manufactures the hard drives in an iPod or the screens of an LCD. Even knowing that, like in 2007 suggesting customers buy Blu-ray instead of HD-DVD because "the latter will lose, I guarantee you." Most people just didn't believe me because I worked at WM. Must be some stereotype even though I was just an 18 year old guy saving up some money.
Oh, this ought to be funny. You have Walmart on one side, their sales associates know little of anything about their stuff.
On the other hand, you have BB and their "Well trained' associates that are under the gun to sell, sell, sell.
Now go figure.