Wow. Which items are marked up 90% over cost? I’m guessing it’s cheap stuff like soda, paper, and cables.
Actually, you’re looking at 900%+ markup. Simple math: $10.00 retail price. 90% discount. Cost to loyal employee, $1.00. Give the store 5 cents profit. and the store paid 95 cents for it.
When a store marks an item up from $0.95 to $10.00, that’s $9.05 markup. $9.02 / $0.95 = (roughly) 953%.
Ain’t retail fun?
Ah, right. I must have dropped a zero; I originally wrote 1000% but I knew that was too high.
Former blueshirt checking in…
The manufacturer’s warranty is only valid from authorized resellers. If you are giving it as a gift you are not reselling it, so you are not breaking any rules. If you buy it from BBY to resell it on eBay, you’re not an authorized reseller, so the manufacturer doesn’t have to honor the warranty they offered. Simple.
Well, there are times you can tell. A person has used an hour of your time finding out about the newest technology, what’s needed to run this program and that game. Then they whip out the Dell circular or printout and say “I think I’m just going to buy a Dell, they have a better deal.” :smack:
But we can look up employee cost easily and take 5% off of the price to figure out Best Buy’s cost. <shrug>
There’s a reason they want you to buy those Monster Cables. Soda is not marked up 90% though, it goes from about $0.80 to $1.00. Paper has good markup. Surge protectors have good markup. Basically, for most big-ticket items, BBY sells the “big thing” (be it TV, computer, stereo) at a quite reasonable markup (indeed, many of these items are loss leaders, especially with computers which have numerous mail-in rebates) and then makes money on selling “accessories” (cables, extra ink/paper, surge protectors, some DVDs to go with that player), “subscriptions” (MSN, broadband, netflix), and the PRP (product replacement plan) or PSP (product service plan) extended warranty.
Before I hear any bitching about what terrible values those last two are, let me head it off by saying they are NOT. I am led to believe we get those for 5% above cost as well, and they typically cost circa 50% of the retail price. Considering that many people who get the PRP/PSP forget about it or lose the receipt or do not claim for any number of other reasons, the PSP/PRP is probably a fair deal if you are not an idiot!
Oh, and I’m also going to point out that for everyone who complains they can never find help, there’s another person who complains that the salespeople are always harassing them.
Anyway, if you don’t like it that Best Buy doesn’t like you, then don’t shop there, and both you and the company will be happier. 
Any other questions?
I’m writing a book about a walmart-like company being its own military and I call it The Value Force. So I imagine the Value Force would go out and fight against Demon Customers commanding Value Destroyers.
“The Value Force…fighting to bring you freedom and low prices!”
(aside)
Reminds me of Jennifer Government by Max Barry: