The Best Buy Black Friday Shopping Experience
Every year my family takes a christmas photo over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and sends out an embarrassing holiday card to our friends and family. This year we’re taking a night shot that will require a flash. Which meant I needed to buy a flash while on vacation in Florida. Normally I would have just gone to B&H Photo before I left NYC, but I forgot.
That’s how I found myself at Best Buy on Black Friday. What follows is my experience dealing with a stubborn sales manager and a rigid price-matching rule.
Upon arrival I was pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t a nasty melee amongst patrons fighting for the last $400 75 inch plasma TV. They had probably sold out already. I must have missed all of the good action.
Quickly, I forced my way past the crying babies and lunatics towards the Photo Department. I had no intention of paying more than B&H’s price for the flash. Surely that wouldn’t be a problem, I thought. Best Buy has a price matching policy. If the item was more than what I knew it sold for at B&H I’d just invoke said policy and be on my way. Oh, if it were so simple!
Arriving at the photo department I found the price of the 580 EX II was almost exactly $50 more than at B&H. Upon flagging down a shellshocked employee I asked him about their price matching policy. Apparently Best Buy doesn’t price match on Black Friday. That seems like a fair policy. Most of the advertised prices on Black Friday are for a very limited number of items at each store. That being said, I know for a fact that the price of the 580 EX II at B&H has been the same for quite some time.
Perhaps the Sales Manager would be reasonable and make an exception in my case so that I wouldn’t have to come back the next day. Naturally, this story wouldn’t be very interesting if he had been, so I left empty handed. As I left, I noted the 300 person line at the register and felt glad I wasn’t in it.
Over the course of the next hour I scoured the internet and called every photography store within 100 miles to get quotes. About an hour into this exercise I realized that the $50 difference between the price of the flash at Best Buy and B&H was simply a manufacturers instant rebate. Attempts to get ahold of the local Best Buy to confirm the rebate failed after 11 minutes of ringing. It was at this point that I began to get exasperated myself. Another 5 minutes of ringing with the national line put me in contact with a nice lady that confirmed that there was indeed an in-store manufacturers instant rebate. ”No problem,” I said I’ll just run back up to the store.
Armed with this new information I could just strong arm the sales manager into knocking $50 off the price. Another 20 minutes in the car, I made my way back. This time, according to the sales associate the $50 “must have already been taken off the price of the flash and it just wasn’t noted on the price tag.” Ugh!!!! Again, no luck!
The final solution was to buy the flash at full price and then come back the next day with the receipt and I would be given a refund. This I did. In the end, I did get what I want. I didn’t have to wait in the 300 person line (they ran my card at the photo department), but I really had to jump through a lot of hoops. Not to mention the fact that they never acknowledged the in store rebate. Granted, I didn’t have a whole lot of options (every other store in the area either didn’t have the flash or wouldn’t match the price). So I am grateful for eventually price matching the flash, it just seems like this should be a proto-typical case study in how not to handle a customer.
Perhaps I’m wrong. I’d love the hear your feedback.
