360 Bundles Lead To Best Buy Housecleaning 115
Groo Wanderer writes "At the launch of the XBox 360, there were reports of forced and unwanted bundling by several companies, most notably Best Buy. There were things said back and forth, and the usual corporate banter. They have followed through, this time, and a good number of people lost their jobs." From the article: "We are told a manager that started the procedure is no longer employed at Best Buy. At least one senior district manager is no longer employed, and some of the nailings are rumored to have gone even higher. The big yellow inquisition did not stop there, and several other managers and assorted white collar workers were given an escorted walk to the parking lot."
Why is bundling wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems that if you don't want to pay the price you go elsewhere or you don't buy the product.
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:5, Funny)
Best Buy's don paid for all the Xboxes, which he then sold to his capos. One of the terms of this sale was that "youse hafta agrees wit company polisees, capiche?"
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:1)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? B &W (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the store's perspective, this is bad because it probably drove a lot of customers into the arms of competitors. Which means that customers they might have counted on to come back to purchase games and accessories will now turn to online stores or other retailers for their needs.
THAT is what's so wrong.
Oh, and it can attract the attention of the Federal Trade Commission for anti-consumer practices.
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
That's par for the course in every other market.
Ever looked into buying a new car that is particularly popular? They never have one for the MSRP. Convieniently the only ones they have in stock have options you didn't need, and co
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
Ever looked into buying a new car that is particularly popular? They never have one for the MSRP.
Yeah they do. They only exceptions I've seen have been the Lotus Elise and Porsche Cayman.
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
There were also rumours that some EBs and GameStops were fiddling with the pre-order wait list based on how many games and peripherals were also pre-ordered. Does anyone have more information on that?
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
This is also how the featured game of the month works, also. No matter how bad it is, each store has to sell a certain amount, and people do get fired when they're not met (even when the game was Turok and the number worked out to 20 in an hour every hour, even though the store was lucky to get 20 people in some days.)
Managers that have stores that don't meet the numbers are first sent off to work in the crappiest stores, sometimes forced to demote themselves (with a threat of just being fired otherwise) and then promptly let go within a few months.
EB Games has to be one of the worst companies I've ever worked for. I'm glad it was just a job I had while looking for real work instead of a career like it is for some of the managers.
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
If for some weird reason I decided I had to buy an Xbox 360 tomorrow (like I could - every game shop in town still has 'out of st
You could work in sales... (Score:2)
Negative sales models are often in evidence in organizations where the business model itself is unsustainable (most common in my opinion) or where the owner i
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
False Advertising (Score:3, Informative)
But if you did run into blatant false advertising, the way to go would be to contact your state's Consu
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:1)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:3, Interesting)
And yes, it is illegal (at least in most states... I don't know if it's federal). The FTC has guides [ftc.gov] against it, and Best Buy violated a good number of them.
However, there are "CYA" wordings that most places use, although Best Buy might not have. Usually they'll say "stock limited to quantity
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:1)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
I think you're wrong in your example. If I come into the store for product x, and when I get in there find out that it either never existed, or they had an unreasonably low number of them to begin with, and they attempt to upsell me to product y, that's a bait-and-switch. The key though -- and what makes a fraudster different from a "good salesperson" -- is that the fraudster intends to do this from the beginning.
Plus, a product standing alone, and a product that can only be sold as part of a bundle, mi
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
If you talk to the employees about the minimum number, you will generally find out the store received less of the advertised minimum for most of those items. While around here at least they will usually have more of bon
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2, Informative)
This regional manager died, and when he did the last remaining shred of soul the company had die
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:3, Informative)
Second, this policy was not approved by the upper best buy management, thus the heads of the lower managers who told the stores to do this rolled.
You may act all shocked that managers are getting fired, but I bet you'd do the same to any employee
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:1)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2, Redundant)
Bait and switch, not bundling (Score:5, Informative)
Here's an example snippet from one of those articles:
TMCnet news reports similar events in Spokane, WA. Best Buy's Sunday ad offered the Xbox 360 for $299 dollars, but a sign was posted at the store on Tuesday as a "correction notice" to inform customers that they could only buy package deals starting at $569.93.
If best buy advertises something for $299, and doesn't actually have that item but has a similar one that's more expensive, that's bait and switch, and it's illegal in the United States. You cannot advertise one price for one model or package then sell another model/package that has more features but at a higher price simply because you never had that model. The ad said they were selling it so they better sell it. In fact, the law states that those people had the right to demand the higher bundle for the lower price, but I infer from the article that Best Buy obfuscated this enough so that few to none of the people scammed were able to catch that when they first went in.
And to top it all off, companies should and do go out of their way to avoid these mistakes, because the law also says that if a company does make this mistake, customers have every right to take advantage of it. This is to make sure companies don't up and use the "oops, That's a mistake in the ad we don't stock that. Gee, that's 4 mistakes in just one month, sorry, but I do have the higher end model for you if you like."
If it were a simple stock out that's one thing but some stores never even stocked one of the nonbundled console.
This smacks of a small time conspiracy but it's most definitely illegal. Best Buy is cleaning house to make it look like they care and showing good will so as to deflect any consumer lawsuits.
Re:Bait and switch, not bundling (Score:2)
Best Buy does (or used to do) this every single week with low-end laptops. They advertise a $599 laptop, but only have two of them per store. This is not significantly different than not having the item at all. Maybe this "housecleaning" means they won't do the continual bait-and-switch with popular items? I doubt it.
Re:Bait and switch, not bundling (Score:2)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:1)
That's not what happened (Score:2)
The advertising was printed up by corporate, which indicated what should have been happening in the stores. I've worked retail -- you don't get much say at the store level into what kind of promotions you're going to sell or not; what gets printed in the flyer is what happens. If the flyer says "Widget x now $150!" you'd best have Widget X on the shelves for $150, or you're going to have problems.
What Best Buy is claiming (and based on my own retail experience, seems quite believable) is that some m
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
Or if your supermarket told you you could only buy brand x milk if you also bought brand x bread too, you would have every right to complain.
Same thing here.
Bundling IS NOT illegal by itself (Score:2)
Your car dealer or your grocery store would both be within their rights to do those kind of promotions. Bundling, by itself, isn't illegal.
Look at cable TV and cable internet -- cable internet alone (if you can get it) might cost $80 a month, but buy it along with digital cable television, and it's only $35 a month!
You have every right to complain, but nobody is going to take you seriously. There's nothing wrong with that promotion (provided they're not abusing a monopoly pow
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:1)
Are you expecting stores to anticipate how weak willed and dimwitted the thickest of us are and treat us all in this manner?
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:2)
Funny, I never see comments like this at +4 insightful when rippable audio CDs are discussed. Just a lot of casuistry regarding copyright infringment.
Re:Why is bundling wrong? (Score:1)
Re:Well.. (Score:2)
Re:Well.. (Score:1)
Meanwhile... (Score:3, Funny)
GATES: It is of no concern. Soon the Rebellion will be crushed and young Sony will be one of us! Your work here is finished, my friend. Go out to the command ship and await my orders.
Housecleaning (Score:3, Funny)
Lemme git this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then, when they get heat for it, they respond by firing the retail managers, but keep all the largesse of the whole scam firmly in their pockets.
And we are supposed to take this as an indicator that they are interested in doing the right thing?
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:1, Interesting)
In this case, I wonder how many memos those Managers got stressing the importance of hitting their Christmas sales figures? And how many even more specific numbers regarding units of 360 add-ons? How do you hit those numbers without bundling contrary to the cor
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
Occam's Razor leads me to suspect that it was just plain old immature grab-assery which lead to that particular scandal. Give a bunch a 20-something idiots that much authority without enough oversight, and that's what you get, as hidden video of a typical frat hazing will usually confirm.
Those
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
The general rule of thumb in Armies is to not tolerate any sort of undisciplined shenanigans in general.
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2)
On paper, sure. In wartime--not always so much. Sure, soldiers will follow an order to march, to move out, to fight, to salute, etc. But getting a bunch of testosteroned, stressed, pissed-off young guys to all stop drinking, grab-assing, and kicking prisoners in the balls (and all in the middle of a wartime situation, no less) is a different story.
Besides, tent hooch in the desert is some of the best stu
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2)
Marines are infact more prone to brawling and grab-assery. So some NCOs were obviously dropping the ball somewhere. Someone let the little shit go and it eventually got out of hand.
Lack of discipline tends to get your own men killed. Somehow the delivery of this message to the dog faces at Abu Graib stopped. Their operational or living conditions are irrelevant. Soldiers are specfically trained to keep it together regardles of the situation.
It's qu
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:1)
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone told some inbred deliverance-manchild-like retard fucks like Lyddie England detailed instructions on how to humiliate moslems.
Dogs are unclean, Men are above women => a woman holds them down on a leash like a dog.
That's far too creative for those retards. The fact they got CAUGHT was because they are retards who took photos.
OT: Don't underestimate the fucktards. (Score:1)
They didn't need to be told, people like that are more than capable of figuring things out for themselves.
Or did you never get bullied in elementary school? The average schoolyard bully might be dumber than a bag of hammers, but they always have an eerie propensity for figuring out exactly how to humiliate others. It's
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2)
A great many of those photos - the ones that show people in uncomfortable positions with bags over their heads - are great examples of the two core features of modern American-invented psychological torture: self-inflicted pain and sensory deprivation. Grab-assery can explain why those photos were taken, but if it were just t
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:1)
IIRC, most of the guards at Abu Grahab were relatively inexperienced Army contractors. They had only been in that environment for days and weeks, not months and years.
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:1)
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2)
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2)
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:1)
It may be different in the US, but here in Canada, Best Buy employees are not on commission (or so they say - they even advertise this). If it is the case, I presume there is still some kind of compensation related to sales (otherwise what'
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:1)
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2)
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2)
Well, they didn't have their customers [slashdot.org]arrested [slashdot.org] this time...
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2)
Very soon after the incidents occured Best Buy corporate stated that anyone who purchased a bundle could return any/all parts of the bundle to any Best Buy and get a full refund on the purchase price, even if the items were opened.
Yest Best Buy is evil. Yes Best Buy sucks. But, in this at least, when corporate found out about what was going on they attempted to rectify the situation to the benefit of the customers.
Re:Lemme git this straight... (Score:2)
RTFA.
I'm not so sure how to feel about this (Score:3, Interesting)
Best Buy had to sell the 360 at a certain price point, and that price was seemingly far below what the demand for the 360's was. So from a certain perspective, the bundles make sense if you're trying to make supply meet demand.
On the other hand, we told our son we'd get him an XBox for Christmas since the price should go down with the 360 coming out. I figured they would go down to $129 or maybe even $99 if we were lucky. And then what happens? They throw in a cruddy racing game and jack the price of the original XBox UP by $30 to $179! The racing game isn't too bad, but it isn't a game we would have chosen to buy if it weren't bundled with the system. I don't like what they did, so I can understand peoples' complaints, but I see very little difference between what Microsoft has done with the original XBox and what Best Buy has done with the XBox 360.
Re:I'm not so sure how to feel about this (Score:2, Informative)
And a little thing to note - Forza is not a cruddy racing game, but actually pretty darn good.
Re:I'm not so sure how to feel about this (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe so, but he actually wanted to get his "son" DOA volleyball and GTA.
Re:I'm not so sure how to feel about this (Score:2)
RE: Forza. You'll note, I did say "not too bad", but he didn't want a racing game. He wanted Morrow Wind and Star Wars KOTR, both of which I would pick if it were for me as well. But I already have enough games I haven't played on my PS2, and also for my Powerbook.
Maybe so, but he actually wanted to get his "son" DOA volleyball and GTA.
I already have GTA on my PS2. My stepson doesn't get to play rated "M" games unless we decide that they a
Re:I'm not so sure how to feel about this (Score:1)
Not to mention that the X-Box is still sold standalone. If the shop didnt bother to have standalone units thats their fault not Microsofts.
The only thing about it is (Score:2)
Re:This HAS to be BS! (Score:2)
Re:How much you wanna bet.. (Score:1)
Re:What is the definition of "forced"? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a "don't be an ass to your customers" issue.
Congrats to Best Buy for at least appearing to fix the problem.
$2 bill fiasco (Score:2, Interesting)
BestBuy: good concept, bad execution.
Re:$2 bill fiasco (Score:1)
Re:$2 bill fiasco (Score:2)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.ole
Re:$2 bill fiasco (Score:2)
Gotta love this country...
Greed Kills (Score:1, Offtopic)
War on xmass it is, then.
Re:Greed Kills (Score:2)
They have to move those titles somehow... (Score:3, Informative)
The titles weren't the problem. Best Buy left it open which games you could buy, and there were multiple games that everyone wanted (Perfect Dark Zero, COD2, PGR3, Kameo).
The problem was many Best Buy stores *forced* you to purchase certain accessories. One of the bundles included 2 games and a wireless adapter (waste of money) the other forced controllers and recharge packs.
Scapegoating? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Solution: Fire a bunch of lower managers. Blame it all on them. Sure, it's rotten, but whatever works.
Re:Scapegoating? (Score:2)
Re:Scapegoating? (Score:1)
Can't resist (Score:4, Funny)
Bundles != Bad (Score:1)
A different way to look at it. (Score:2)
I would not be surprised if the people at the top of this fiasco covered through their underlings to the lions to save their own asses.
Where's all the hate? (Score:2)
Let's look at why this happened:
What happens? The people at the end of this chain get cut off. Aren't we supposed to be hating on Microsoft here?
Re:did they really lie about the price? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:did they really lie about the price? (Score:1)