ok, i think i read 3 of these comments that were from people who have never used the bestbuy in-store pick up option. why write a review if you've never used a product?
i've used bestbuy in-store pick up probably 8-10 times. 1 time i went in and they had a new procedure of giving $50 gift cards if your instore pick up wasn't ready in less than 2 minutes of reaching the counter. needless to say that was the one time they couldn't find my Guitar Hero w/ the guitar behind the counter, and i didn't get any gift cert.
yesterday i ordered a blu-ray player and Men in Black and Hellboy on Blu-ray, all was correct except they gave me a copy of Hellboy 2, which was double the price i paid for Hellboy, so i've got that going for me.
the worst thing about in store pick up is when the two closest parking spots designated as "for instore pickup only" are taken even though there's no one at the customer service desk.
TonyK - 15 years ago
No problem BB, 3 out of 3 and 2 out of 2 for the now defunct CC.
Jeff - 15 years ago
I never had a problem with instore pickups at Circuit City. They always had the product and all I had to do was bring the same credit card and an ID to pick it up. I never tried instore pickup with Best Buy because I learned not to trust their website from a regular online order to be shipped which took a month to arrive instead of 3-5 days.
Bill Smith - 15 years ago
I too will never set foot insude a Best Buy again. I ordered a big screen TV in the store and was given a firm delivery date for pickup. When I went to pick it up it was nowhere to be found, and they had no idea when it would come in. When I went to cancel the order, they asked "don't you want to wait?" but no one could tell me when it was coming in, if ever. I couldn't believe how stupid they are. I had to argue to get a refund. I went to Circuit City and they not only had the TV in stock, but beat Best Buys price!
Tom N - 15 years ago
Ive been ordering from the Bestbuy's online service & store pickup for years & have not had an issue. May be that the store Manager in the article needs to fix his inventory problem. Thanks for the article.
Bill - 15 years ago
My first online purchase with in store pickup was an $800 digital camera. I was unaware that online prices were not necessarily the same price you would get in the store (at that time, not sure if its changed). So even though I had just driven 30 minutes to my local Best Buy, I had to drive back home to make the purchase and then back to the store to pick it up.
Got home and the camera did not work, spent 5 minutes on the phone with Nikon support who told me to exchange the camera-not the fault of Best Buy. Drive back to Best Buy they will take the camera back, but they can't exchange it because it's an online purchase, as told to be by 17 year old kid at counter and Manager. So I return it, drive home yet again to make the purchase online and drive back to Best Buy to pick it up. Thankfully everything went well this time or I would have gone off on somebody at Best Buy. Took a good 2-3 years before I attempted another online/pick up purchase at Best Buy. And although they have all gone smoother, I still end up waiting 10-15 minutes like everyone else wondering why no one is working the pick-up counter as I stare at whatever it is I'm supposed to be picking up sit on the shelf, not more than 20 feet away from where I stand while there are no lines at the registers.
Thankfully I haven't experienced a situation where it is not there when I get there, because that is the only reason I still shop online with Best Buy. Don't want to make a wasted trip.
Rich - 15 years ago
The main issues I've had were long waits in the customer service line. I wouldn't order again for pick up again unless it was an online only deal that allowed for in-store pick up, or if the item was sold out every where but online.
Armando - 15 years ago
This is the second article I read at cnet that is against Bestbuy. What is going on? The first one was about price matching.
I am not against bringing this issue up but it seems that Cnet is looking for perfection and which doesn't exist. I do believe that bestbuy is trying to do their best but to get 100% satisfaction it's impossible.
I don't get it what's to goal with this article? Do you want people to stop buying online and pick it up in store?
tclark - 15 years ago
I've only tried Best Buy in-store pickup once, the experience was terrible - long wait in the customer service line only to find that the item I had ordered wasn't there, long wait for them to find it, etc. I did finally get what I had ordered, though. Uesless aside: Circuit City was much better, I used their online pickup multiple times without ever having any problems.
Scott - 15 years ago
I've used in-store pickup dozens of times and never had a problem. The only it even came close to being a problem was when I received an email that stated the item was suddenly out-of-stock and they offered to ship it without charge.
Maybe it's because I live and shop in the Minneapolis area where Best Buy started from and is based in. Results could vary depending on what state you live in.
I love in-store pickup because I can comparison shop and spec check without standing in some crowded aisle enduring rap music booming from the car stereo department and sales people bugging me. If it's out of stock or too expensive I'll have saved a trip.
My usual time from walking in the door to walking out with my item has always been less than 5 minutes.
Evan - 15 years ago
Ironically, my best in-store pickup experiences were with Circuit City, where they consistently sent me a confirmation within hours of ordering and had my merchandise ready when I came to pick it up.
My experiences are mixed with Best Buy and Barnes & Noble, who I ordered from in the past. The biggest problem has been in the confirmation process. In several cases with Barnes & Noble, I ordered something on their web site for in-store pickup, and either never received a confirmation or got a notice stating that the item turned out to not be in stock.
I would agree with the author's conclusion that in-store pickup only works if it's close to 100% reliable. Given my experiences, I would rather just complete the order online, and then wait a few days for the direct shipment (or pay extra for 1-2 day shipping). I still think a company web site is helpful for knowing whether an item is likely to be in stock, but then I would rather just go to the store and take the item off the shelf, which has a higher success rate than in-store pickup.
Martin - 15 years ago
One of the problems with the Best Buy pickup experience in my area is that you go to the Service Desk... Behind the kid returning their broken Xbox, the lady with the TV remote that shipped with dead batteries, and the elderly couple who can't figure out why their microwave oven won't show the CNN channel when they punch in 46.
Last summer I placed an order online for Microsoft Office 2007 Home/Student edition on a Sunday, after seeing it in the Sunday newspaper ad. The next day in early-afternoon, I went to the designated counter of the nearest store, and waited for a Blueshirt to show up.
Five minutes later, one came and took my confirmation and disappeared.
Ten minutes later...
[By this time, I could've easily walked to the department on the retail floor, found the item, taken it to check-out, waited a moment in line, purchased it, and been halfway home]
The Blueshirt returned with the product, and proceeded to complete the checkout process, stopping to ask a manager how to do it, because she'd never done an 'in-store pickup' before.
Conclusions:
1) Make certain that your 'real-time-inventory' is truly up to the task of showing what items are 'in-stock' in real time. You can't. Fudge. This.
2) Designate a Manager to be responsible for the whole In-Store Pickup process, not a Blueshirt.
3) Designate a 'Check-In' area at the ENTRANCE to the store: Have the quasi-greeter/security person at the front door start the process by entering your Pickup Number into the store computer and start the process. Then a blueshirt finds your item and brings it to a Designated In-Store Pickup cashier.
4) Keep asking for customer feedback, and work to improve the experience until there is 99% satisfaction, not 29%.
A few years ago, I spent many a lunch hour at CompUSA waiting for in-store pickup. They never got it right, either. The ONLY reason I kept going back were because 1) the company had an account and I didn't have to buy the stuff on my personal credit card and wait for reimbursement, and 2) because they usually had the exact items we needed in stock.
I'll agree with Joe G. Service in the Houston area stores has been just as advertised.
I'm a big user of this service at Best Buy and I am generally pleased with the performance.
If I get to the store before my acknowledgement email, maybe they'll not be ready. Sometimes that acknowledgement is late or never shows up (spam blocker?).
I do expect the whole thing to work in the 30 minutes it takes me to arrive at the store, which is certainly unreasonable.
Byron Lutz - 15 years ago
I have only used it once for a 50" plasma TV. The only complaint I have is it took a bit long to have it placed in my van. But the personnel was very helpful.
I would use it again.
Joe G. - 15 years ago
At least the local Best Buy in Bowie Town Center, Maryland, has never let me down on any any of the half-dozen or so in-store pickup purchases I've made. Considering how dismal your (and other) published reports are, it sounds as though the inventory and order processing execution is too dependent on store personnel, so it varies widely from store to store.
ok, i think i read 3 of these comments that were from people who have never used the bestbuy in-store pick up option. why write a review if you've never used a product?
i've used bestbuy in-store pick up probably 8-10 times. 1 time i went in and they had a new procedure of giving $50 gift cards if your instore pick up wasn't ready in less than 2 minutes of reaching the counter. needless to say that was the one time they couldn't find my Guitar Hero w/ the guitar behind the counter, and i didn't get any gift cert.
yesterday i ordered a blu-ray player and Men in Black and Hellboy on Blu-ray, all was correct except they gave me a copy of Hellboy 2, which was double the price i paid for Hellboy, so i've got that going for me.
the worst thing about in store pick up is when the two closest parking spots designated as "for instore pickup only" are taken even though there's no one at the customer service desk.
No problem BB, 3 out of 3 and 2 out of 2 for the now defunct CC.
I never had a problem with instore pickups at Circuit City. They always had the product and all I had to do was bring the same credit card and an ID to pick it up. I never tried instore pickup with Best Buy because I learned not to trust their website from a regular online order to be shipped which took a month to arrive instead of 3-5 days.
I too will never set foot insude a Best Buy again. I ordered a big screen TV in the store and was given a firm delivery date for pickup. When I went to pick it up it was nowhere to be found, and they had no idea when it would come in. When I went to cancel the order, they asked "don't you want to wait?" but no one could tell me when it was coming in, if ever. I couldn't believe how stupid they are. I had to argue to get a refund. I went to Circuit City and they not only had the TV in stock, but beat Best Buys price!
Ive been ordering from the Bestbuy's online service & store pickup for years & have not had an issue. May be that the store Manager in the article needs to fix his inventory problem. Thanks for the article.
My first online purchase with in store pickup was an $800 digital camera. I was unaware that online prices were not necessarily the same price you would get in the store (at that time, not sure if its changed). So even though I had just driven 30 minutes to my local Best Buy, I had to drive back home to make the purchase and then back to the store to pick it up.
Got home and the camera did not work, spent 5 minutes on the phone with Nikon support who told me to exchange the camera-not the fault of Best Buy. Drive back to Best Buy they will take the camera back, but they can't exchange it because it's an online purchase, as told to be by 17 year old kid at counter and Manager. So I return it, drive home yet again to make the purchase online and drive back to Best Buy to pick it up. Thankfully everything went well this time or I would have gone off on somebody at Best Buy. Took a good 2-3 years before I attempted another online/pick up purchase at Best Buy. And although they have all gone smoother, I still end up waiting 10-15 minutes like everyone else wondering why no one is working the pick-up counter as I stare at whatever it is I'm supposed to be picking up sit on the shelf, not more than 20 feet away from where I stand while there are no lines at the registers.
Thankfully I haven't experienced a situation where it is not there when I get there, because that is the only reason I still shop online with Best Buy. Don't want to make a wasted trip.
The main issues I've had were long waits in the customer service line. I wouldn't order again for pick up again unless it was an online only deal that allowed for in-store pick up, or if the item was sold out every where but online.
This is the second article I read at cnet that is against Bestbuy. What is going on? The first one was about price matching.
I am not against bringing this issue up but it seems that Cnet is looking for perfection and which doesn't exist. I do believe that bestbuy is trying to do their best but to get 100% satisfaction it's impossible.
I don't get it what's to goal with this article? Do you want people to stop buying online and pick it up in store?
I've only tried Best Buy in-store pickup once, the experience was terrible - long wait in the customer service line only to find that the item I had ordered wasn't there, long wait for them to find it, etc. I did finally get what I had ordered, though. Uesless aside: Circuit City was much better, I used their online pickup multiple times without ever having any problems.
I've used in-store pickup dozens of times and never had a problem. The only it even came close to being a problem was when I received an email that stated the item was suddenly out-of-stock and they offered to ship it without charge.
Maybe it's because I live and shop in the Minneapolis area where Best Buy started from and is based in. Results could vary depending on what state you live in.
I love in-store pickup because I can comparison shop and spec check without standing in some crowded aisle enduring rap music booming from the car stereo department and sales people bugging me. If it's out of stock or too expensive I'll have saved a trip.
My usual time from walking in the door to walking out with my item has always been less than 5 minutes.
Ironically, my best in-store pickup experiences were with Circuit City, where they consistently sent me a confirmation within hours of ordering and had my merchandise ready when I came to pick it up.
My experiences are mixed with Best Buy and Barnes & Noble, who I ordered from in the past. The biggest problem has been in the confirmation process. In several cases with Barnes & Noble, I ordered something on their web site for in-store pickup, and either never received a confirmation or got a notice stating that the item turned out to not be in stock.
I would agree with the author's conclusion that in-store pickup only works if it's close to 100% reliable. Given my experiences, I would rather just complete the order online, and then wait a few days for the direct shipment (or pay extra for 1-2 day shipping). I still think a company web site is helpful for knowing whether an item is likely to be in stock, but then I would rather just go to the store and take the item off the shelf, which has a higher success rate than in-store pickup.
One of the problems with the Best Buy pickup experience in my area is that you go to the Service Desk... Behind the kid returning their broken Xbox, the lady with the TV remote that shipped with dead batteries, and the elderly couple who can't figure out why their microwave oven won't show the CNN channel when they punch in 46.
Last summer I placed an order online for Microsoft Office 2007 Home/Student edition on a Sunday, after seeing it in the Sunday newspaper ad. The next day in early-afternoon, I went to the designated counter of the nearest store, and waited for a Blueshirt to show up.
Five minutes later, one came and took my confirmation and disappeared.
Ten minutes later...
[By this time, I could've easily walked to the department on the retail floor, found the item, taken it to check-out, waited a moment in line, purchased it, and been halfway home]
The Blueshirt returned with the product, and proceeded to complete the checkout process, stopping to ask a manager how to do it, because she'd never done an 'in-store pickup' before.
Conclusions:
1) Make certain that your 'real-time-inventory' is truly up to the task of showing what items are 'in-stock' in real time. You can't. Fudge. This.
2) Designate a Manager to be responsible for the whole In-Store Pickup process, not a Blueshirt.
3) Designate a 'Check-In' area at the ENTRANCE to the store: Have the quasi-greeter/security person at the front door start the process by entering your Pickup Number into the store computer and start the process. Then a blueshirt finds your item and brings it to a Designated In-Store Pickup cashier.
4) Keep asking for customer feedback, and work to improve the experience until there is 99% satisfaction, not 29%.
A few years ago, I spent many a lunch hour at CompUSA waiting for in-store pickup. They never got it right, either. The ONLY reason I kept going back were because 1) the company had an account and I didn't have to buy the stuff on my personal credit card and wait for reimbursement, and 2) because they usually had the exact items we needed in stock.
I'll agree with Joe G. Service in the Houston area stores has been just as advertised.
I'm a big user of this service at Best Buy and I am generally pleased with the performance.
If I get to the store before my acknowledgement email, maybe they'll not be ready. Sometimes that acknowledgement is late or never shows up (spam blocker?).
I do expect the whole thing to work in the 30 minutes it takes me to arrive at the store, which is certainly unreasonable.
I have only used it once for a 50" plasma TV. The only complaint I have is it took a bit long to have it placed in my van. But the personnel was very helpful.
I would use it again.
At least the local Best Buy in Bowie Town Center, Maryland, has never let me down on any any of the half-dozen or so in-store pickup purchases I've made. Considering how dismal your (and other) published reports are, it sounds as though the inventory and order processing execution is too dependent on store personnel, so it varies widely from store to store.