Best Buy Complains About Walmart's iPhone 5 Holiday Sale, Claims $65,000 Profit Loss in One Day

While I see nothing wrong with Wal-mart's advertising, I've got to say I was disappointed when I went to Wal-mart a few days before Christmas intending to buy both 16 gig and a 32 gig iPhone 5's and being told that Wal-Mart only carries the 16 gig model.

While it's probably something to do with policy of who can sell what products, if you're going to carry iPhones, maybe try carrying them all?

Between Dynex, Monster and RocketFish items being severely overpriced, Best Buy can take a hit every once in a while.

A friend of mine has worked at Best Buy for a few years and would tell me about the mad deals employees would get on product before they restructured and took away the employee benefits. He told me that he could get a Monster AV cable that retailed for +$100 for $12 at employee pricing.

Most of the time, Best Buy's sale prices are where their everyday prices should be, especially for computer accessories and such.

So the tl;dr version: Best Buy is butthurt.

Boo freaking hoo.

Does anybody know if the AT&T store will match this price or apple? I will need to get one today as im switching back from Sprint to AT&T.

Tubebaum said:

None of the Walmarts anywhere near my school had the iPhone 5 in stock when I found out about their deal. Just saying.

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I'd like to hear of just one person that got an iPhone 5 for $127. I'm sure there is, but other than here, I didn't hear of anyone I knew getting it. It wasn't the talk of the season, etc. Why? Because they didn't exist.

TOOFY said:

Does anybody know if the AT&T store will match this price or apple? I will need to get one today as im switching back from Sprint to AT&T.

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Not likely, AT&T usually has their own deals, and they make money when a phone is activated on their network, as for Apple, never, they only shove the cost off to the carrier, I have never seen them do that.

ECUpirate44 said:

This.

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Better pricing would fix that. Make the price closer and id be willing to pay a little more. But bb is always much more with bad sevice

PeopleTheseDays said:

I don't understand what is happening becausing checking stock of other stores seems to be the proper way to do it. If the other stores don't have stock then you couldn't get it at that price anyway, and you're just taking advantage of best buy's inventory and/or convenience of location to obtain your item. Doesn't anyone else feel this makes sense?

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If the other store gives a raincheck then checking their stock is pointless.

Meh.... screw both of these places...

I buy from:

Online-
Amazon, NewEgg, Apple

Retail-
Fry's Electronics (They will match online pricing!)

winston1236 said:

Better pricing would fix that. Make the price closer and id be willing to pay a little more. But bb is always much more with bad sevice

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BB just has tons of overhead that online competition doesn't have. I think it would be difficult for them to employ a significant price reduction strategy.

Yeah, I don't know how they have any right to complain. All they had to do was enforce the policy of calling the competitor store to verify they have stock.

Otherwise what's to stop me from offering to sell iPhone 5's for $1? I don't actually have any though. But hey, go price match at your local retailer.

Wicked1 said:

They have become a showcase for people to look and see the products and then buy them online or somewhere else cheaper.

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Bingo.

best buy is probably pissed because all anyone buys from them is apple products.

Wicked1 said:

They won't have to, BB is bleeding cash and losing customers every month now.

They have become a showcase for people to look and see the products and then buy them online or somewhere else cheaper.

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I just hope they don't go out of business so I have someplace to go and play with the tech toys before I buy them somewhere else.

Seriously... Best Buy has to get price competitive if they're going to survive. This sounds like sour grapes, but I am surprised Apple let Walmart do the discount. Most of the time, it's never a direct price drop, but add-on freebies for discounts with Apple products. Like get a $50 iTunes card with your iPhone purchase.

Wicked1 said:

Not likely, AT&T usually has their own deals, and they make money when a phone is activated on their network, as for Apple, never, they only shove the cost off to the carrier, I have never seen them do that.

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Actually, the Apple Store does price-match, but like another poster said above, they only match brick-and-mortar stores and call to confirm stock availability first. This is only prudent, and a way to cut down on sales like Wal-mart advertised where its likely just a way to get people in the door and their stock is severely limited.

Seems like BB should be mad at their own stores and managers for allowing price matching on such a dubious promotion, that is, unless local Wal-marts really did have them in stock, then like another poster said, the price-match policy should be valid and it's fair and square.

AFDoc said:

Sounds like a bunch of whining to me.

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Yep. I know a handful of people who had shiny new $127 iphone 5's under their Christmas trees. No supply worries from my perspective in the Washington DC/Baltimore area.

ECUpirate44 said:

This.

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That.

Wow....I NEVER thought I'd see the day where MR users were running to Walmart's defense of discounting Apple products.....or maybe it's just the fun the mob has piling on whoever the target of the day is.

When the original Walmart post came out, it was filled with smarmy remarks about Walmart customers and how they were unworthy to sell your beloved Apple products.

Now some of you are championing competition....even though Apple clearly envokes strict price controls on almost everyone who sells their equipment.

The hypocrisy of this site is a trip.....

If we want competition, then truly open it up and let resellers sell Apple gear for any price they choose. Otherwise spare me the economics lessons Best Buy needs to learn about competition.

Avatarshark said:

We are suppose to care because...

Besides 68,000 is a drop in a bucket of multi-billion dollar gouging sales during the year

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You're supposed to care because years ago walmart did something similar with medicine and drove hundreds of small pharmacies out of business by selling the prescriptions at a loss. It's the epitome of antitrust. Just because BB has money doesn't mean they have to put up with it any more than saying someone who's rich deserves to be robbed.

Color me cynical, but I have very little sympathy for one of two large corporations complaining about a small loss of sales for an item that amounts to a tear in a salty sea. It's tantamount to Ebenezer Scrooge throwing a fit over pennies. A lot of people barely see that about in one years worth of work. This is the price of competition, Bestbuy; if you don't like it, then don't price match.

haydn! said:

To make sure I'm reading this right...

Best Buy complained because a competitor sold a product at a lower price? Which they felt forced them to offer it at the same lower price, leading them to loose money?

1. It's called competition,
2. Nobody forced Best Buy to drop their price. Some customers may have still chosen them over Walmart through brand preference/convenience of location,
3. No-wonder they failed so miserably in the UK if this is their response to a bit of friendly computation.

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I think the complaint is that they advertised something that they had very little of or did not have at all. As far as I understand things, this is quite normal.

You have a few good deals that people bust the doors down to get to and then the other 98% of the shoppers that didn't get the item are now browsing your store for other stuff. Best Buy is QQ'ing because of this, and QQ'ing over pennies.

future shop same thing?

I just called my local Wallmart and they say they have black 16GB iphone 5 for 127 in stock. I may go there during lunch hour and pick one up. Not a bad deal.

...

mantan said:

Wow....I NEVER thought I'd see the day where MR users were running to Walmart's defense of discounting Apple products.....or maybe it's just the fun the mob has piling on whoever the target of the day is.

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I was surprised as well. I'm used to hearing people bash Walmart while giving stores like Target a pass. They're virtually the same thing.