Best Buy in-store pickup fails again
Back in March I wrote about my miserable in-store pickup experiences at the Circuit City and Best Buy stores in Emeryville. Those stores eventually became a major part of an article in the Wall Street Journal on the subject.
Today, I decided to give Best Buy another chance. Foolishly.
4:09pm: Order for Bioshock (video game) placed at BestBuy.com
4:22pm: Receive second confirmation e-mail saying that product is ready to pick up at the store
5:05pm: Stroll into Best Buy store. Woman at pickup desk says that the product isn't there. She stands around for a while, yawns, tells me that she needs coffee (she said this three times in our interaction). After making several phone calls, tells me to go to the register, get the game there, and bring it back to her.
5:15pm: Girl at the register has no idea about what I'm trying to do. A manager walks over, I explain what I was just told to do. She shakes her head and brings me back to the pickup desk. She tells the coffee-less woman to start processing my order while she gets the game for me.
5:20pm: Got my game, signed the receipt, and left the store.
It took fifteen minutes for something that should've taken maybe three minutes. Hint to Best Buy management: if you're going to offer a product such as indoor pickup, do a decent job of it.
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Something similar happened to me with Best Buy pickup. It was definitely faster to go to the shelf, get it, and pay for it than to wait for the people in the store.
As the old saying goes, "If you want something done right..."
The only time I tried it at Best Buy, they had to call someone to go the backroom to get the item: I have a feeling they just when to the shelf in the store and brought it to me.
I have used the same service at Circuit City probably 10 times. Each time the item was on the shelf at the pickup counter. Most of the time I was out of there in less than 10 minutes. One time I had to wait for some guy, who didn't speak English, trying to return a car stereo. You can guess what happened that time.....
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I gave up using BB some 2 or 3 years ago.
I've never been able to get out of Best Buy in >20 minutes when I buy something on-line. It's quicker just to grab it off the shelf in wait in line.
Amazon Prime is really, really your friend. For $80 a year, you get most small items Amazon carries delivered 2nd day for free and you can upgrade to overnight shipping for $3.99. Amazon doesn't charge sales tax in California, so you could have had the game delivered to your door the next day for about the same money you paid BestBuy to mess around for 20 minutes. Plus you'd save yourself the drive. Amazon is SO much better than dealing with crappy electronics stores, especially when you're talking about gadgets, games, music and books.