As some of you may know, I used to have a personal website (remember those?) featuring a section called “Best Buy Sucks.” This was back before complaining about retail chains and, well, everything was the heart of the web. I eventually took that part of the site down as I was starting to get too much hate mail from Best Buy supporters. Yes, truly.
Times are different. This past weekend the dog ate something he shouldn’t have (which is a whole other Ping, perhaps) and I needed a replacement electronics item. My options were surprisingly slim, and Best Buy turned out to be the most convenient place that sold this item. And so I made an executive decision: the Best Buy ban was over.
The last time I bought anything at a Best Buy prior to yesterday was in January, 1999. This is difficult math, but that puts me at 10 years and 4 months without buying anything at Best Buy. That’s a pretty good run, I’d say, although it goes against something I wrote in my letter to Best Buy saying I’d “never” shop at their stores again. I don’t expect to be going to Best Buy regularly, but I also won’t be just un-considering them as I have in the past.
An interesting thing, though: my Best Buy experience was actually pretty good for retail. I got greeted when I walked in (with a real “Hello,” not a grunt or head nod), I found the item I needed in about 2 minutes, and customer service even took care of a price discrepancy between the store and the website. No pushback. No yelling. No anger. Just… easy.
Posted in Consumer Commentary