In interesting post over at the Consumerist. I agree that so far in my experience Best Buy has been a better shopping experience. The are much better at handling people who actually don’t need help, and just want to buy and get the hell out.
What I found interesting was in one of the comments:
I call this AOL Economics. They’d rather have a bunch of customers with most of them unhappy rather than a few customers with most of them happy.
Where has this guy been for the last 10 years? Price is king- it doesn’t matter how shitty the service- if it a few bucks less than your competators you’ve got the sale. There is no loyalty to retailers anymore unless they have excellent product differentiation and a Sony TV at Best Buy is the same as one at any other store. Its similar to air travel- everyone bitches about service, but no body wants to pay for it.
By the way, I scored big time at BB this Christmas- went in to pick up gifts for my parents, and both items we on sale and priced lower than the internet.