DVD movies are always $20? Really? Ever thought about buying DVD-R's there??? They are twice as expensive as anywhere else! I just don't get it. Tv's are always over priced, laptops.... People just need to learn how to price check ever heard of ebay? JESUS!

As a consumer, I don't think I should have to be "good" with you. There aren't a lot of options around here for electronics, so I find myself in BB more than I would like.

Time and time again I hear BB employees offering the "complete solution" to uneducated buyers. MONSTER cables, protection plans and Geek Squad installations pitched to people who don't need the extra junk.

If you read consumerist, you know what happens to your cutting edge computer with the extended BB warranty in two years when something fails. By then the technology is out of date, and you get handed a junky low end replacement. Or there is so much hassle that it is not even worth pursuing.

Last week I saw an elderly couple trying to figure out the $40 coupon digital tv box options. The lowest price on those available at best buy was $54. A sales guy tried to give them the "complete solution." First he tried to talk them into a new tv. They said they were on a tight fixed income, so he basically told them they had to pay the extra $15, or their tv would be worthless next month.

I interrupted the discussion and asked the couple about their tv. The gentleman told me they loved to watch Iron chef and the cooking shows. AHA- did the sales guy realize that they had cable or satellite? No, he glared at me and went back to trying to sell the dtv box. So I jumped in again, asking if you needed one of the boxes with cable. Again a glare, but finally he admitted that they did not need to spend any money because of their cable box.

IS this the typical BB employee? It seems so. I know a lot about what I am there to purchase, and recognize the bs. But it should not be necessary to know every detail because the employees are lazy, don't care, or are trying to upsell unneeded product.

An interesting side note-
When I ask a question and get a "no" answer, I now know to ask, "do you know that, or are you guessing?" More times than not it turns out the person is guessing. thanks BB employees!

All of the employees aren't like the people in the stories you read. if you dont want the extended guarantee then that's fine. I'm not gonna get fired for not getting it. But i will try and give you a complete solution because i dont want you to come back and buy something that you need for you're tv. I am a consumer myself and i treat like i wanna be treated.

If you're good with me i'll be good with you.

The only drawback to price matching is that they don't price match online retailers like Amazon, which would help them a lot if they did, I think.

I got the Endwar bundle with 360 first-party wireless headset for $45 right before Christmas (just for the headset, selling the game on EBay.) I got The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray the week it came out, and a bunch of Blu-Rays the week of Christmas that were on sale.

A Best Buy sale you means you get the item for the same price you can get it anywhere else. They just remove their markup from "msrp".

with such horrible economic situation is 6% really THAT bad for bestbuy?

you know if the CEO's and all other CxO's of these companies were getting less bonuses and more real life paychecks then their companies wouldnt be in such distraught.

i bet that -6 came after they paid the CxO's xmas bonuses....right before that they were probably split even!

I got the same camera for my mother inlaw. $160 shipped from Amazon, plus a free 16G Class 6 SD card.

It wasn't just lack of genuine bargains that kept me away from Best Buy.

It was also the continuing sleazy sales tactics we keep hearing about, like extended warranties and the TV "calibration".

Just checking out of the place requires me to say "no" more times than I have at any point in my life since I was a two-year-old.

Then our local BB re-organized their merch for the umpteenth time -- and forgot to put up genre signs in the DVD/BR department. So you can't find anything! Brilliant!

@Islandkiwi:I'm in the suburban Chicago area, which is sick with concentrated retail centers (i.e. a BB/Wal-Mart/TRU/Kohls/Target intersection every 4-5 miles), and I was frankly surprised at the lack of any really attractive sales at the national chains, both pre- and post Christmas.

You'd think they'd be trying harder, but the obvious Catch-22 in all of this is if they cut too deep they're as un-profitable as they are if they don't discount at all. Kind of a lose-lose.

Are they accounting for lower prices on TVs, computers, and some other electronics? Because that'll get ya. Sorry we won't pay as much, but we're still buying, guys.

on most of best buy's holiday sales either the price wasn't that great, or the item was junk/useless to me. however, i did buy one of the $400 Acer notebooks for my girlfriend and she really likes it.

It amazes me that a store like Best Buy reports a 6.5% drop and it has nothing to do with customer service.

It appears not matter how bad the service is, sheep still flock to the place...

I bought the complete series of The Wire for $89.99, which I thought was a great bargain. But it's not like BB was the only place selling it for that price, they were just far and away the closest.

By the way, if you've never watched The Wire, give it a try. It's amazing!

Other items, however, have been decently priced, I just haven't been in the market for them.

So yeah, I guess their discounts are a little disappointing on that basis, as I would only brave the add-on hyping Best Buy salespeople if they had the best pricing.

I would rather shop with Amazon or Newegg and wait for my stuff and know that I will not find any weird credit card charges on the bill, and to get lower prices as well. They are making their store a place that I don't even consider shopping at.

@mmcnary: I got the Mitsubishi 60" dlp also. Was on sale for $999, plus I was able to use a 10% reward coupon and $40 in reward redemptions. Can't beat that price.

Overall though, the prices sucked in general this season.

I'll give you a great example of a recent transaction I did. I recently bought off Amazon a box set of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers DVD. The set was actually a combination of two other sets that the company had put out earlier (this was the "Ultimate" collection or some sort).

Fast forward four weeks after the holidays, and I decided I wanted to watch Top Hat. I opened the case- but no DVD. I opened a few other cases- turns out that all of the discs that belonged to one of the two collections were missing (probably a packaging problem when they put the set together).

I call Amazon- or rather, have Amazon call me. I'm given two options- I can send the whole thing back for a refund, or they will send me the set of the discs I'm missing for free. I take the latter option, and I'm all set. Perfect service.

If I had went into Best Buy, I would have been accused of stealing the discs I was missing. Or, because I didn't notice it for 28 days, I would have been sent packing. With Amazon, I was trusted and treated like a valued customer. So why would I shop anywhere else?

Hell, the shelf where the $99 dollar Rogers HD boxes were-that was literally bent and mangled.. the deals must have been awesome!!!

I saw some great deals. I was able to get my mother in law a nice Canon digi camera (SD1100) with a case, 2 gig SD card, and an extra battery for $200 dollars.

Best Buy has discounts... what?

BB was charging $400 more for the tv that I eventually bought for $2200 elsewhere.

They were also charging $900 more than the other highest price on my mother-in-law's laptop.

BB should just die. Horrible store.

I was really disappointed in the after-Christmas sales across the board. I was hunting for Wii games, and I know that's a hot market right now, but nothing I wanted was discounted more than a couple bucks. I probably could have been tempted by a great deal on a digital camera or something in that range, but nothing I saw was anything special.

I guess they figured that they might as well not take a bath on the few things that were actually going to sell, since traffic was down anyway.

@Patricia McDermott Comeau: That's impressive. I couldn't even get Walmart to PM Walmart.com on some movies. So I just bought them anyway, then bought them off Walmart.com for site-to store. On my next visit to Walmart picked them up at the back of the store and returned them up front with my more expensive receipt.

Good store, if you know how to haggle right, you can do well there.

I ended up in Thunder Bay for xmas, which meant being limited to Future Shop (a wholly-owned subsidiary of BB). I guess they must count FS sales in the -6.5% too?

Ha, in this day, a 6.5% drop is considered a positive thing, it might even encourage investors ;-)

Anyway, I'd have thought that the number of people preferring BB due to CC's uncertainties would be completely offset by the number of people going to CC to seek out store-closing "bargains" (unless these shoppers are savvy or the stores in question were already closed).

I didn't really see huge sales anywhere, and certainly not after Christmas. I think retailers are just hoping things will get better.

Speaking just for our area, the competition increased for the 3 area BBY stores. In the past year I think we've gotten a couple new Walmart Supercenters and at least 3 new HHGregg electronics stores, which is sort of like Best Buy with more knowledgeable service people.

And among the fatwallet/slickdeals/etc people, BBY has a pretty tarnished rep. It's going to take a lot for them to recover from stuff like the "fake website scam" and the whole "angel/devil customers" attitude.

@redskull: Thanks! I thought so but when 20 people are telling you the complete opposite you start to question yourself.

Total BBY revenue only fell by 1% in December so I wouldn't say this news is horrid. [www.marketwatch.com]

Kind of OT but I seemed to have missed the memo- Is Circuit City closing all of its stores or just some? My family and I were arguing about this over the holidays.

Also, since I am a Consumerist reader, I had no part in Best Buy this holiday season as I also don't every other time of the year.

I ended up buying a King of the Hill boxed set, which was pretty cheap, but no big ticket items. I personally thought most of the after Christmas sales at the mall were pretty weak. After their "50-60% off" prices, stuff was still about what it normally cost after their typical weekly sales.