Cami ordered some car seats online for in-store pickup at a local Toys ‘R’ Us store. When the order came, the seats were the wrong model. No problem: she just refused the order, which would put the seats back in store inventory and trigger a refund to the card used for the purchase. Right? Er, no. Ordering from the online presence of your favorite local retailer and picking up in the store isn’t as seamless as it might appear. You’re really dealing with two separate stores, and two separate retail operations. In Cami’s case, this meant that two different departments of the same company were effectively arguing over who owed her a refund. [More]
in store pickup
At Least I Tried To Buy A Vacuum From Best Buy
By 5.7.12
Gregg ordered a new Dyson vacuum this past weekend, and used a Best Buy gift card toward the purchase. When he arrived at the store, his order wasn’t ready, even though the exact item he had ordered wasn’t on the sales floor. They couldn’t rush the online order process, couldn’t give him back the $30 from the gift card for his in-store purchase, and couldn’t do much of anything useful. So he waited for a refund and bought the same item from Lowe’s. The notification e-mail never did come through. [More]
Sears In-Store Pickup: Not Fast, Not In Stock, Not Helpful
By 12.22.11
Sears is trying to coax actual customers into its stores with great sales, but don’t be fooled. They’re still Sears. Donald ordered some tools for in-store pickup in order to save on shipping, but the store didn’t actually have the items they promised. Not “didn’t have them waiting for him,” but “didn’t have them at all.” While he waited for forty-five minutes, he couldn’t help but feel insulted when he saw a sign touting in-store pickup as “fast, in stock, and helpful.” Zero for three, really. [More]
Sears Actually Has No Idea When Your Item Showed Up At The Store
By 12.15.11
This holiday season, Sears continues its mission as an elaborate anti-capitalist prank, mocking the feeble attempts that shoppers make to obtain useful information from customer service representatives, and preventing consumers from exchanging money for merchandise. LouAnn, a longtime Sears customer, was left so frustrated after a recent encounter with the retailer that the vented to Consumerist, “I am tired of giving MY money to companies who CLEARLY don’t understand that I have a choice of where and how to spend my money.” That could be a mission statement for this site. [More]
How 'Convenient' In-Store Pickup Became Four Inconvenient Trips To Best Buy
By 10.27.11
Oliver thought that ordering online from Best Buy and then picking his purchase up from his local store would be the fastest and most convenient way to get his purchase from the retailer. Normally it would be, except for one key detail: he had Best Buy gift cards to use up, but had forgotten to use them when he placed the order online. Best Buy’s computers couldn’t cop with this mistake, and he was punished by having to make four 80-mile round trips to the nearest Best Buy store to get his purchase. [More]
Check Your Best Buy Receipt Carefully Before Signing For In-Store Pickup Purchases
By 9.30.11
Best Buy’s in-store pickup for online purchases is a handy option, but beware. You could be the victim of a sudden price increase. After Kevin’s wallet fell victim to a price adjustment after the fact, he wrote in to warn other consumers. [More]
It's Cheaper To Order Online While Standing In Sears Than To Shop At Sears
By 7.21.11
In a perfect consumer world, perhaps brick-and-mortar stores would price-match their own websites. Perhaps front-line employees would be permitted to use their own judgment once in a while. In this perfect world, it definitely would not be cheaper and easier to purchase an item for in-store pickup on your smartphone while standing in the store. [More]
Even Sears Doesn't Know What It Sells Anymore
By 6.9.11
Sears might be doing an okay job with adjusting to doing business in the 21st century if they weren’t stuck with a pesky brick-and-mortar store network. Maybe. When John returned a malfunctioning dehumidifier to his local store, he wanted to exchange it for a working one. He couldn’t, though, because the item was out of stock. Logical enough: dehumidifiers are popular in the summer. Yet he was able to go home, order the item online, and pick it up at the very store he had just been told was out of the item. [More]
Best Buy Store Won't Price-Match Website, Still Does In-Store Pickup
By 5.26.11
Reader B. is a Best Buy employee, and has a moral problem with a new policy. This policy may just be at B.’s store or in that district, but it’s still annoying. Employees have been told that they can no longer price-match BestBuy.com. They can, however, help the customer place an order online for in-store pickup from inside the store, then wait around for up to half an hour. This seems inefficient at best to B, but sounds familiar to us. [More]
Sears Helpfully Pre-Assembles Your Grill So It Won’t Fit In Your Car
By 4.20.11 — Updated: 5.2.16
The bad news: Sears has started channeling the Geek Squad, pre-optimizing all merchandise in stock before customers have a choice in the matter. The worse news: they’re failing at it terribly. Ron tried to purchase a gas grill on sale at Sears. He placed his order online for instore pickup, only to discover that all of the grills in stock were already assembled. Fine, except an already-assembled grill won’t fit in his car. The only bright spot for consumers: unlike Geek Squad, Sears doesn’t even have the foresight to charge for the optimization service. [More]
Trapped In An Infinite In-Store Pickup Loop At Best Buy
By 1.10.11
Michael normally likes Best Buy–which may reflect on the management of his local store, rather than making him an uninformed consumer. Yet he placed an in-store pickup order a few weeks ago at another nearby Best Buy, and the situation has become a case study in bad customer service. Or perhaps nonexistent customer service. See, nobody at this store will pick up the phone. At all. Michael even called the store from inside the store and watched employees work very, very hard at not picking up the phone. [More]
Best Buy's Ordering And Inventory Systems Still Defy Common Sense
By 11.11.10
Dorian had a really great online shopping deal: $50 worth of reward points if he spent $100 or more at BestBuy.com. Amazing! He writes that he placed an order, but his mistake was requesting in-store pickup. His local Best Buy store couldn’t get him the items through in-store pickup: even when he physically went to the shelf and found the items he had ordered. It just doesn’t work that way. [More]
Best Buy Overcharges For Out-Of-Stock GPS, Won't Cancel Order
By 12.26.09
Daniel is the latest Consumerist reader to experience problems with ordering an item from Best Buy’s website. He writes that a retail sales associate who was either misinformed or dishonest led him to order GPS units as Christmas presents. Daniel’s debit card was charged before the items were delivered, which isn’t supposed to happen. Then Best Buy charged him the wrong price and lost his order, which really isn’t supposed to happen. [More]
Best Buy's Buy Online, Pick-Up In Store Delays Made Me Regret Purchase
By 12.23.09
Rick thought he’d streamline his computer part purchase by snagging it at bestbuy.com and opting for in-store pick-up, skipping the hassle of digging around store shelves and cruising out of the store in a flash. [More]
Best Buy Sells 9-Year-Old Discontinued Hard Drive As Brand New Western Digital, Refuses Refund
By 4.11.09
Jon spent $250 on a Western Digital VelociRaptor but what he received from Best Buy was a Quantum Fireball, a discontinued hard drive that hasn’t been sold for nine years. Best Buy, of course, took no responsibility for the odd swap, and said that Western Digital must have accidentally sold a competitor’s discontinued drive. Western Digital, of course, said that a Best Buy employee stole Jon’s hard drive. We’ve seen this happen before with Best Buy, and Jon has made it clear that he knows how to bite back…
Fine Print Mars In-Store Pickup Guarantees
By 12.8.07
Best Buy, Sears, and Circuit City all promise fast and easy in-store pickup for online orders and are willing to pay if they fail to deliver. Mouseprint scoured the fine print of each guarantee in search of loopholes.
Beware: CompUSA's 'In-Store Pick-Up' Is A Scam
By 3.11.07
Kevin purchased two DVD and CDR spindles using CompUSA’s “In-Store Pick-Up” option; when he got to the store, the price doubled. Kevin had already handed over his credit card information and had a printed receipt. Why did the price double?
