Michael is buying his mother a new computer for Mother’s Day, because he’s a good son and she’s moving away soon. As long as he was buying a computer, he wanted to get some reward points from Best Buy on his credit card. Only he couldn’t. While the product page bragged of “free shipping,” Best Buy was not willing to ship the item. At all.

He explains:

I’m currently in the process of buying a laptop for my mother as a Mother’s Day gift as well as a going away present (she is moving). I decided on a particular computer based off of reviews, and was happy to find that Best Buy carried it online; I’m not really partial to Best Buy, but I have a credit card with them that gets me points/money back, and a $1000 purchase would net me some nice rewards.

Everything was going great, until I got to the checkout, as shown:

Okay, for some reason, it’s not available for shipping… hold on:

Excuse my horrible computer-handwriting.

So, I think, okay, maybe it means “free shipping to store,” but I put in every zip code I could think of in Ohio, and Florida (where I reside currently), and I can’t find a single store that I can ship it to.

I call Best Buy’s number, and the person who assists me basically could not comprehend what the problem was for 15 minutes, (telling me to ship it to a store, and advising that such shipping was free, and then finally looking the product up and realizing that, no, there wasn’t a way to order this laptop. At least, not if I want to get it.

So, after hanging up, I purchased it from Amazon. Free two-day shipping with Prime. To an address, no less.

Is it just me, or has Best Buy been suffering due to issues like this (no way to actually order the thing that’s online)?

Having the best price and the best rewards for customers aren’t enough: stores have to offer a correctly-working e-commerce site and clear, consistent policies, too!

Granted, if we Consumerist editors had the real secrets to retail success, we would have much fancier jobs that would hardly ever requires us to look for cat pictures on the Internet. (Would that be good or bad?) What we can tell you for sure is that if you want to increase your sales, you have to sell people things.

This is an area where Sears frequently fails, and is why we believe they are secretly an anti-capitalist prank. Don’t become Sears, Best Buy. Figure out how to sell customers things. Soon. Before you become nothing more than a nationwide network of cavernous, dusty Newegg showrooms.

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