Amazon Vs Best Buy

Best Buy Vs Amazon

I could not resist writing about my recent shopping experiences. You might have had similar experiences already. What a change in the way we shop and interact with merchants! Who are going to be the winners?

I had two examples recently where I realized that Best Buy is NOT the best place to buy electronics. And how Amazon is eating its lunch.

On Black Friday I went to the Best Buy store with my family to see if we can find a good deal on TV for our newly finished basement. The sales person wanted to sell us a $3000.00 entertainment system, even after I told her my budget for TV is about $500 to $600.

All the super duper deals were gone as we reached the store at 2 PM on black Friday. Sorry Best Buy I did not get in the line at midnight. I reached back home and tried BestBuy.com and found a good deal on Smart TV. The web-site will not let me buy it or place a hold on it, it said the deal is only available on the store. I called the store to make sure that particular TV is in stock. The operator told me that it is NOT, but if you come to the store, we will take your order and when the item is in stock again, we will notify you and you can pick it up.

I told him why do I have to physically come to the store, why can't you take my order, I will give you my credit card, nope that will not do, he insisted.

So at 8 PM on Black Friday, I went back to Best Buy to order in person, there I was told that the operator was wrong in telling me that I could order this from the store, because they are not going to get this particular TV anymore. Sorry! I came back home very upset. Finally I ordered online through sears.com the exact same TV, though that was not that great an experience either, but at least they did not insist I visit their store in person to place the order.

Second example, well because we bought the "Smart TV", it needs a wi-fi adapater. Last Friday night (almost couple of months after we black Friday), we wanted to use Amazon Prime to watch one of the Classics on the new TV.

After I read the TV manual I found out that it requires a wi-fi adapter, which does not come with TV. How dumb is that? As I was going to be closer to Best Buy, I thought I will check out there. Lo and behold they had the adapter, $89.99. I decided not to buy it and just take the picture of the adapter package and go home and google it. I could not believe that a 3 inch adapter is one fourth the price of TV.

I found it available for half the price at Amazon. It took me less than a minute to order it. With my Amazon Prime it arrived in two days.

Out of curiosity I tried searching for the same adapter at bestbuy.com, I tried "panasonic wifi tv" Here are the screen shots (below) for what Amazon shows and another one with what Bestbuy shows. Picture is worth thousand words ! As you will notice that though Bestbuy strictly deals into electronics, it still did not show me what I was looking for in my search (on the first page, honestly I did not bother looking on the subsequent pages) and Amazon (which sells everything in the world) showed it as a first item in its search.

So even if I wanted to buy this adapter from BestBuy.com, I would have a very hard time finding it on their site and it would have taken longer to place the order and longer to get it shipped to my home.

Best Buy will be history, if it does not figure out a way to be like Amazon.

Quaid