After a fire at a Bangladesh factory that supplied clothing to Walmart and other stores killed 112 workers in November, Walmart has announced that it is taking its suppliers around the globe to task when it comes to subcontracting their work. In other words, if Walmart doesn’t approve of the factories suppliers use, it’ll drop those companies lickety-split. [More]
Retail Services
Best Buy Posts 50% Off Coupon On Internet, Forgets How Internet Works
By 1.22.13 — Updated: 7.15.15
It’s happened over and over again, and retailers never learn their lesson. A big-box store e-mails a coupon to their customers, then freaks out and backpedals when customers actually show up at the cash register and try to use it, withdrawing the coupon and accusing customers of trying to scam the store. This time, the retailer was Best Buy, which offered a coupon for $50 off a purchase of $100 or more as long as the customer used a Mastercard. The coupon excluded most of the items you’d expect it to exclude: prepaid cell phones, iPods, certain brands of TVs and cameras. One very key thing that it didn’t exclude: gift cards. [More]
Free Movie Download Deal At Target Is Perfect For Anyone With A Working Time Machine
By 1.21.13
There’s nothing like a good deal to get our Consumerist readers excited while shopping. The only problem with one recent offering at Target? Going back in time isn’t a viable option, even if you really want a free movie downlad with purchase of DVD-Rs. [More]
Michael Jackson Fans Attempt To Crush Book With Negative Amazon Reviews
By 1.21.13
Is it an exercise of free speech — or an attempt to quiet someone else’s speech — to express your opinion on a book based solely on its subject matter and what you’ve heard is contained therein? This question certainly predates the Internet, but it’s the issue surrounding the response by some to a recent Michael Jackson biography. [More]
How Online Price-Matching Would Work In The Best Of All Possible Worlds
By 1.18.13 — Updated: 9.18.14
When readers write to us to complain about their experiences with in-store pickup, they’re measuring what actually happened against a sort of retail Platonic ideal. “This item has a different price on your website, retailer!” they expect to say at the register. “You are correct, good sir; let me give you that better price,” the cashier should say, pressing a magical “savvy Internet reader” button on the cash register that unlocks those prices. Alas, this doesn’t happen. Or does it? [More]
Kmart, Where A $75 Pair Of Socks Now Only Costs 37 Cents
By 1.18.13
You know those pricey $75 socks you’ve been saving up to buy from Kmart? Consumerist reader Jon found them on sale for a huge discount at his local store. [More]
Amazon Launches iPhone MP3 Store While Managing To Cut Apple Out Of The Deal
By 1.18.13
Well, would you look at that? Amazon has found a way to simultaneously appeal to iPhone users and sell them stuff all the while neatly cutting Apple out of the conversation, which means, it’s not giving Apple any money while it takes it from its customers. To wit: Amazon has launched a mobile version of its MP3 store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but since it’s accessible from Safari and isn’t a regular App, it doesn’t have to give Apple a dime. [More]
I’m Just So Relieved My Chalk Pen Arrived Safely Encased In This Huge Bed Of Air
By 1.18.13
Sometimes we think Amazon’s band of size-blind, extra packing material enthusiasts are sleeping on the job, neglecting to amuse us with their funny ideas about shipping things in ginormous boxes with too much packing material. But then they pop up and surprise us and we remember why we started paying attention to them in the first place. [More]
Why Finish Line Can’t Sell Me The Shoes That Are 2 Miles Away, Ships Them From Opposite Coast
By 1.18.13
“How hard could it be?” Tom asked himself when he set out to use an online-only Finish Line coupon to buy some sneakers. He could stop by his local store and pick the shoes up on his way home from work. Simple! Only not all that simple. It seems like the online and in-store inventory systems of national chain retailers should be integrated, but things are, as they always seem to be in the real world, not that simple. [More]
Apparently No Bank Of America Safe Deposit Box Customers Have Ever Died Before
By 1.18.13
Last fall, Jay’s mother died after a heart procedure. We’re very sorry for his loss, but also very sorry that her death meant that he has to deal with Bank of America. Before the procedure, she added him to her accounts as a signatory, not realizing that doing so didn’t give him access to her safe-deposit box. Going through probate in order to get the documents he needs to access the box will cost more than $1,000. What’s inside? No one knows. Certainly not Jay, even though he’s the executor of his mom’s estate and her only heir. It could be a copy of her will, or it could be stacks of gold bullion. [More]
Why In-Store Pickup Is Kind Of Weird
By 1.17.13 — Updated: 9.18.14
Jeremy blames the strangeness of his recent electrical cord reel puchase on Sears, but nothing about it was peculiar to that retailer. There was a $20 discrepancy in price for the same item online rather than in the store. Now, few stores price-match online retailers or price-match themselves. What they do offer is in-store pickup for your online order. Jeremy took this to its ridiculous but logical conclusion and purchased his item online, then carried it to the pickup area and out the door. [More]
Why Some Best Buy Stores Need Two Forms Of ID To Give You $5 For A Junk Cell Phone
By 1.17.13
You may remember the adventures of S., who wanted to turn a drawer full of junky cell phones into Best Buy gift cards, but ran up against a baffling store policy that requires two forms of photo ID to do so. He complained, then flounced to another store that didn’t have this inexplicable policy. Turns out that this policy is pretty explicable: it involves local laws regulating pawn transactions. [More]
If All You’ve Got Is $17 In Your Account New ATMs Will Oblige With $1 And $5 Bills
By 1.17.13
For anyone who’s ever had to take out $40 at an ATMwhen all you really needed was $25 and maybe your account balance is low enough that the higher amount causes a sticky situation, get excited. There are reportedly hundreds of new ATMs dotting the country that now dispense $1 and $5 bills so you can grab exact change when you need it. [More]
Don’t Miss These Great Sales At Target And Meijer
By 1.17.13
We don’t hate the foot soldiers of retail here at Consumerist. What we hate are the processes that make lead to pointless non-sale signs posted on shelves that waste everyone’s time and either confuse customers or make them giggle. Here are two. [More]
Home Depot (Sort Of) Explains How An In-Store Purchase Can Result In E-mails From Its Website
By 1.16.13
Yesterday, we told you about a Home Depot customer who was put off by an e-mail from the retailer asking him to review a product he’d purchased in-store. He assumed the store must have linked the credit he used at the store with a purchase he’d made on HomeDepot.com a year earlier. And he’s just about right. [More]
Amazon Takes Page Out Of Kafka, Puts Seller Account ‘Under Review’ And Won’t Explain Why
By 1.16.13
Having the ability to sell items in the Amazon Marketplace is a great opportunity for individuals with just a few items to get rid of. That’s the case for Allan: he’s sold a total of three items, ever. Amazon arbitrarily put a hold on his account before he sold the third one, meaning that he can’t get money from his sales for as long as a month and a half. How can he fix this? What did he do wrong? To find out, he’d have to penetrate Amazon’s bureaucracy. [More]
Best Buy Gave Me A Free iPhone. What Should I Do?
By 1.15.13
After he had already picked up his iPhone 5, Edmund got received an e-mail from Best Buy reminding him to come get the phone that he had ordered. He didn’t think much of it until he received another e-mail telling him that his preorder was canceled…and then he got a refund of the purchase price of the phone that he allegedly didn’t pick up. He’s not about to take the phone back, but he wonders: is he obligated to even let Best Buy know? [More]
Walmart Pledges To Spend $50 Billion More On U.S.-Made Goods Over Next Decade
By 1.15.13
Responding to critics who say it sells too many cheap products made by overseas manufacturers, Walmart announced today that, over the course of the next decade, it promises to spend an additional $50 billion on goods made in the U.S. [More]
