Our washing machine died last week, so after a bit of scouting around, the wife and I ended up at Best Buy. We bought a mid-level front loader by Samsung…supposedly a really good machine. But get this: because we walked in and bought a floor model (essentially, it had been delivered to someone who returned it for some unspecified reason,) we also got a $200 gift card on top of our purchase. The machine is still under full manufacturer’s warranty as well.
Well sir, today, I went back to the store and picked up my free (well, essentially. I did have to make up a pittance for the full value) LG 19" LCD monitor.
And guess what. I bought the floor model (:)), so I got another $25 gift card on top of it.
$225 of free stuff for buying a $700 washer. Very good incentive.
I don’t think really qualifies as a “positive” story, more just like status quo. Best Buy always gives significant gift certificates for returned or floor merchandise. Some stores give straight up discounts, Best Buy does this. Sure, it can be a good deal for the customer, but this is just how their store normally works.
I mistakenly rebooted a router in the middle of a firmware upgrade last night, fairly sure I’d hosed the thing (as it wasn’t coming back to life) and so decided to head on up to Best Buy for a new one. Now, normally I wouldn’t have cared but the wifes laptop was hosed too (Winsock got bassackwards) and she was cranky.
So anyway, it was getting late and I was getting tired and frustrated, I powercycled the thing one more time and it came back, so I didn’t have to go to Best Buy after all!
Yay. An ogre who is happy with his washer and monitor is good for all of Doper-ville
I’ve only bought at best buy once… mostly because there isn’t one too near me. Got a gift card as a prize from work, and put it towards a DVD-recorder VCR. I’m still quite happy with it, especially now that I’ve worked out how to make sure that a recurring-schedule program will keep recording even if I’ve skipped days.
I actually dislike BB for that gift card nonsense with open stock.
We were there a few days ago, and saw an under-cabinet radio/tv that looked like it’d be a nice addition to the kitchen, but rather than simply discounting it, it came with a gift card, so we’d be forced into spending the full amount and buying something else from them to use the card, rather than just getting the radio for less.
Amazon sells it for less and ships it for free, so guess where we’ll be buying it from?
I understand your point, but hey, I like free electronic stuff. Also, I noticed that many of the open stock items (including some washing machines) were, in fact, discounted and had a gift card applied as well. We just happened to want a front-loader for water and energy efficiency, and those models tend to be the higher-end of the market.
I have a positive Best Buy story. I had been shopping for a while for a home theater system, but I really did not want to buy it online. I found the same system at BB, for about 30 or so bucks more. I went down to the local BB and told the guy that I had been shopping for awhile, that I wanted that one, but that it was just a little bit out of my price range. He called his manager (who had a sweet “I am a manager” 'stache) and he knocked 50 bucks off. I know that he sold it to me that cheap for some reason, but I still think that was pretty cool.
