Apple in Best Buy Pilot Over?

[question fear]

for god's sakes, its friggin retail

Look, some people have touched upon this briefly, but I am going to try to coherently explain this.
Best Buy is a retail job. The people working there are at minimum wage or a little above, and probably dont have much investment in the job itself. This is the worker you are far more likely to encounter at Best Buy over say, a manager or supervisor who has a more vested interest in customer service and might have more experience in selling or making a customer happy.
Training would make a difference, yes. But we're in a bad economy right now, still, and sales are not what they used to be in most stores. Even a chain like Best Buy cannot afford to throw away money, which is what happens when you invest in tons of training for a person who's going to leave in a month to go to college/high school/work at starbucks, whatever. And if you pick and choose the employees to train, then you dont have trained employees there all the time. And as much as it would be nice to staff a store with people who love their jobs and will absorb and engage in all their training, this is not likely, at least not without serious payroll and staffing issues.
It sucks for the customer, I am not going to deny that. But really, the solution is, if you are going to shop in a one-size-fits-all retail chain like best buy, do your research ahead of time. Walk in and strike out on your own to find what you need, and blow off the employees if you have to. Or use them to your advantage, make them gopher for you.
I do not think that Best Buy's model is good. But I do think its tough to work out a better one without being a more boutique specialty store, at least in the world of electronics where people can't just pick something up, look it over and buy it...at least without RESEARCH.
So to end my rant: Consider who you are dealing with when you bitch and moan about best buy, and consider if you'd really be much better on minimum wage, with impossible sales goals, at the end of your shift, wanting a nice easy sale so you can get out of there. You might try to sell something easier too, and if it pisses you off then go in informed or complain to best buy corporate...pissing away your complaints here only serves to vilify retail workers who never claimed to be experts (the exception being the ones who DO claim to be experts. you should kick them.) [also, best buy will just pop you into whichever dept needs help-i was selling video games for a while, and i couldnt answer why an xbox was different from a playstation 2. Luckily there were some nice teenage video game demos junkies who taught me.]

From Retail Hell-
Carly

 

[rdowns]

I agree to some extent, however, Fry's do carry apple products and quite a bit, more so than CompUSA. Apple's best bet IMHO is to open more retail stores. Bring the apple experience to the public.

That's great. Who is Fry's? None in the greater NY metropolitan area, you know, the #1 market in the country.

 

[rdowns]

I've heard that one of the main reasons why PCs get more respect from sales staff is that the PC vendors are very competitive in offering perks to sales people. Why would someone bother to push a Mac over an HP if HP is giving a kickback to salespeople who hawk their products.

Excellent point. I got my first Mac (Mac SE) by selling a ton of Apple //gs systems one xmas season. That's what got me hooked on the Mac. Through my years as a reseller, I got many perks from SPIFs (saleperson incentive funds) like a 32" Toshiba TV from Megahertz modems, more electronics than I can list from HP, trips from Compaq, lots of cash/AmEx gift checks and many household items.

 

[jade]

That's great. Who is Fry's? None in the greater NY metropolitan area, you know, the #1 market in the country.

Fry's is a large WEST COAST retailers (primarily). It is a lot like Costco, and the store is gradually expanding to some other techie areas: Austin and Virginia....

The whole point of Apple being in BEst Buy is simple, that is where America buys there computers. the average user hates Fry's, and they go to best buy. This is why Apple wants and needs to be there. The reality of course is myuch harder to figure out. But it is an extrememly important step for Apple to be in a major electronics retail channel. Circuit City and Good Guys are not at all important, seeing that Best Buy is the largest electronics retailer (well besides Walmart)

 

[Borg3of5]

Best Buy sucks for Apple

I worked at Best Buy for a year back around 1995, when Apple was big on the Performa line. I was basically the only person in the store that knew something about Macs, and almost the entire computer department were PC-whores. No one ever spoke well about Macs, except a coworker friend of mine, and myself. Everyone was big into the big mHz thing, and how Windows 95 allowed PC's to do everything a Mac could (blah-blah-blah). On and on all I heard was "the Mac is a Fisher Price type computer; it's only for kids."

Look at us now: G5's-the paramount of computing. PC's will never be a quality product, as long as Win-blow$ exists, AND especially when it continues to have DOS under it. I'm sorry, but to say that DOS doesn't exist anymore is a crock of mess. Unix and its varities is here to stay. Microsoft will probably not go away in our lifetime, but now that everyone is realizing that that crap REALLY doesn't work, perhaps we will start seeing some market share expansion.

 

[BrendanP]

I'm 19

Good news for you on the job front as long as you aren't older then 30. It appears in the Northern Virginia area that there is a pattern of discrimination on floor workers that are over 30. In fact I know of at least 3 over 50's that never got a call back even for holiday help.

'Nuff said.

 

[TWinbrook46636]

Look, some people have touched upon this briefly, but I am going to try to coherently explain this.
Best Buy is a retail job.

Isn't the Apple Store a retail job too? Employees at places like this are anti-Apple, that's all. I hear their discussions all the time. By the way, my local Best Buy has a G5 on display laying ON IT'S SIDE with a 15" monitor on top of it.

 

[seanatki]

Saw this ad...thought I would share

Saw this ad on techtv.com.

Sean

 

[question fear]

Isn't the Apple Store a retail job too? Employees at places like this are anti-Apple, that's all. I hear their discussions all the time. By the way, my local Best Buy has a G5 on display laying ON IT'S SIDE with a 15" monitor on top of it.

and thats not ok. i wasnt saying that best buy's treatment of apple was ok, i was saying that you cant expect the people at the ground level to be capable of executing it.

and apple stores are retail jobs, and there are people who have complaints about apple retail stores too.

my point was that best buy employees are not necessarily to blame for all the complaints people have. being obnoxious, maybe, but you're also looking at a small percentage of the population complaining here. i was just defending those who have to deal with other people's crap all day long, and that sometimes they do stupid ****.

as for computers not being well maintained or merchandised thats a management/corporate issue. i can tell you as a former "merch team" member for best buy (believe me, i hate that company more than any of you could) you cant do jack **** off the planogram without at least your manager if not your gm giving it the ok. so if its ****ed, blaim best buy corporate, not the pimply 17y/o or the struggling college kid.

i know that best buy employees are not the best people to point to and say, look, humanize retail employees, but believe me, the job sucks, and sometimes you've had one too many contradictory instructions and you're notgoing to be the best you can be. **** happens. even to apple retail employees, people have complained about them here and there too.

-carly

 

[ffakr]

So to end my rant: Consider who you are dealing with when you bitch and moan about best buy, and consider if you'd really be much better on minimum wage, with impossible sales goals, at the end of your shift, wanting a nice easy sale so you can get out of there. You might try to sell something easier too, and if it pisses you off then go in informed or complain to best buy corporate...pissing away your complaints here only serves to vilify retail workers who never claimed to be experts (the exception being the ones who DO claim to be experts. you should kick them.)

Sorry Carly, this may be true most of the time but it's still a load of crap. I worked retail when I was younger. I didn't make too much more than minimum and I worked on perks. I was at a GNC health food store. Pretty much everything made by GNC (and Pro Performance, a GNC company) has an enormous margin for the company so nearly every GNC produced product has an employee kickback on it. A jug of sugary crap weight gainer may pay the sales person $2.50. You can actually make pretty good money this way if you're a sales whore.
I wasn't a sales whore. I pushed people tword what I thought were the best products and I even sent people to competitors if we didn't have something. Here I was, a nothing kid with a little edu background (pre-pharm at the time) and I actually had a following.. people would come in and ask for me, they'd avoid other GNCs..
Making less than $20/hour is not an excuse for being a moron or a jerk. It may be true all too often, but it isn't an excuse.
I'm way far off from perfect, but it doesn't take too much to have just a little pride in your work.. to learn about what your selling.. to be competent.
F* every crap ass Best Buy employee who can't be bothered to do their friking job.

 

[AllieNeko]

I stopped by a Best Buy not to long ago in my parent's town (far from the Apple Stores and CompUSA's and Micro Centers we have in civilization ;-)). They had a few Macs out on display right next to their PC counterparts.

LOL... if you think a place that doesn't have the Apple Store and CompUSA isn't civilized. I live 125 miles from the nearest Best Buy! 240 miles from CompUSA! Never heard of Micro Center... The Apple Store - a mere 515 miles away

The state I'm in in case you're wondering - Montana. And yes, we ARE civilized

 

[abbazaba]

Doesn't seem to be happening

Even a chain like Best Buy cannot afford to throw away money, which is what happens when you invest in tons of training for a person who's going to leave in a month to go to college/high school/work at starbucks, whatever. And if you pick and choose the employees to train, then you dont have trained employees there all the time. And as much as it would be nice to staff a store with people who love their jobs and will absorb and engage in all their training, this is not likely, at least not without serious payroll and staffing issues.

I work at Best Buy, and I have to say I disagree. I understand the logic, however the newhire process seems to eliminate most of the types of people that would leave in a month. Many employees are already in college, my store is close to ASU. The store has a VERY low turnover rate simply because they make sure to hire people with good resumes. To work in sales (except for no-brainer depts. like media /appliances) newhires are asked in their interview technical questions about the thing they would be selling. Some one wouldn't be hired into say, the computer department without knowing a good deal about computers. I was started comfortably above minumum wage, and the store is a very good environment. Best Buy isn't a ****ing McDonald's. It may not be a career but the employees (in my store at least) are more reputable than people may give them credit for. I have been in other stores (namely one in Chicago) that did seem like ****holes full of idiots. ALSO...I could agree with some of the people posting here more about bias against Apple stuff in Best Buy. Everyone there seems to hate Apples. Not sure why...just a bunch of Windows buffs I guess. We do have a table in a pretty prominent spot near the front of the store with a 20" iMac, a G5, and an iPod on it.

On to the topic though. I checked up on the Apple section at my store, and not one item was on clearance. This is suprising because this is the time of year that lots of stuff is getting moved out to be replaced by either newer models of old products or new products altogether. If Best Buy was planning to discontinue Apple products, then they would have stopped ordering more shipments of Apples and placed the line on clearance.

=p

 

[question fear]

1) I currently work in retail management so I sometimes get sensitive at the broad strokes people get painted with. Not necessarily here. Maybe I should stop posting after long days at work.
2) New disclaimer: my experience at best buy was that the store i worked in was horribly managed, poorly maintained, and overall just not very good. at the same time, most of that was what we were being fed and not the employees themselves. If we werent being given the information then there wasnt much we could do to sell anything.

Also, im not saying theres no way to get a good sales person at best buy, or that no one there takes thier job seriously...what came through, albeight incoherently i think, was that i was trying to say that sometimes you have a bad day, and that grouping everyone under the heading of the one unhelpful or ****ty guy wasnt cool.

finally, i dont deny that best buy might not be taking very good care of their mac section, but again, thats more a management thing than a computer employees thing.

 

[Sayer]

Who cares?

There are Best Buy's that didn't even have any Mac support at all including any kind of Mac software. One up the road from me had iPods, that's it, and you really have to look for 'em.

If that's how they want to run their stores let 'em. Apple seems to be taking it in stride with their own stores and markets large enough to support other outlets (Fry's, CompUSA and others).

Oh well. Sales tax is almost 10% around here so I'd rather buy online anyway.

 

[kingtj]

Best Buy and Mac sales

Hi there! As a fellow St. Louisan, I agree with you on this one. Best Buy was originally intended to be pretty much a "discount store" for electronics and appliances. Over time, it sort of morphed into more of a retail outlet. (I remember in the "old days" of Best Buy, much of the excitement of shopping there was to grab up one of the many "red tag" or "yellow tag" discounts on opened/previously returned merchandise, or closeout items. Lately, I barely see any of that - and prices aren't much of a discount, either, unless they're running a sale.) Still, they seem to manage their stores like discount stores.... with the cheapest labor they can get ahold of, and not much incentive for employees to better themselves through training. (I know more than one Best Buy employee who primarily took the job because he already bought a lot of stuff there, and mainly wanted the employee discounts. But they've gotten more and more picky about handing those out. At Xmas time, some employees were told they couldn't get a deal at all on LCD flat panel monitors, because they were too "hot" of an item.)

I can't see why Apple would want this type of place displaying their products. Perhaps the iPod, because it's in more of the "consumer electronics" category - but not their main product line of computers. Quite frankly, I think Radio Shack might be a good partner to sell Apple products. They have smaller stores that tend to give people a little more personal attention, and I could even see them striking an exclusive deal to sell only Mac hardware. (Radio Shack hasn't sold their own PCs for a LONG time now, and it seems like they've changed vendors they do carry several times in the last few years. They were all IBM Aptiva for a while, and now I guess they're mainly Compaq.....) They also tend to get a lot of older customers who would be good candidates for a Mac system. (EG. Generally not too computer literate, and just need something easy to use to get on the Internet and check email with, etc.)

As a previous employee of Best Buy back in the days of their original relationship with Apple, I kinda expected to see this (although not yet confirmed). BB's computer sales employees are routinely anti-Mac without ever using them (what's new?). That area was always neglected unless I "patrolled" it (I was in the "media" dept.). If I wasn't working, inquiring customers were told to come back when I was working if they had questions because the HO (home office) employees wouldn't even attempt to help them.

Right before I left the company, they brought in the original 233 iMac and although it sold okay (they rarely had but a few in stock), it quickly faded away too.

Unless Apple intends to hire its own people to staff the Mac section open-to-close, they're wasting their time (IMO).

Personally, I like this "new" idea floating around about opening kiosks, etc. in universities or shopping malls (if not a real Apple Store). The Apple Store here in St. Louis is always busy and seems to get good reviews by non-Mac users who ventured in out of curiosity.

 

[funkee munkee]

According to one report, Apple's Best Buy pilot program has been terminated.

Apple and BestBuy launched a pilot program to sell Apple products in Best Buy retail locations.

No details are available as to the circumstances around the end of the program.

Overhead a BB employee telling a customer that the items were pushed out due to agreements with other companies whose products competed with Apple. Make of fact Apple products never appeared at the BB near me

 

[trebblekicked]

anyone been to the chicago best buy on north ave? i've been there twice since the pilot started, and both times there were 1 or 2 apple staff patrolling the mac section, and BB employees were intermingling w/them. i talked the apple rep for a while, and he was cupertino trained and quite knowledgeable. am i missing something or do the best buys in yr guys areas not have apple staff? does anyone know if the apple crew was pulled from North Ave?

 

[reyesmac]

I think until Apple starts getting creative with the way they sell computers things are not going to get better. They should have an unbreakable OS that they can use on their display machines so that people cant go in and make a mess of things.

 

[iEric]

I think its because they can't make any money. Better left w/ apple stores.

 

[fluidinclusion]

No iPods here

At least you guys have iPods for sale in your Best Buy. The BB here in Kalamazoo Michigan used to sell iPods (and although they were in a box - they weren't locked in a cabinet). They don't sell them here anymore. They aren't in the MP3 player section, and they aren't where they used to be. None of the employees I asked knew anything about iPods. Pretty sad. I'd be happy if they sold stuff out of mini Kiosks with Apple (or highly trained BB) employees. People ARE curious. However, curiosity is not enough to keep a conversation going if the "expert" says no. And yes, the BB employees are "experts" in the average consumers mind. Most people I know who have 4-year degrees have trouble doing even basic OS functions on Windows (no jokes about the crowd I hang out with, please)

 

[fluidinclusion]

Depends

I think until Apple starts getting creative with the way they sell computers things are not going to get better. They should have an unbreakable OS that they can use on their display machines so that people cant go in and make a mess of things.

If BB won't lock them down properly, is that Apple's fault? Who gives admin access to a display machine?

 

[fluidinclusion]

About buying online,

.

I could give a rat's behind if they stop carrying apple products. You can buy them online and you get free shipping.

you can, and I can. Most wont. People wait until the last possible moment. Then they go to Best Buy to get it. I see it all the time. It's how our whole company operates (on and off the job). We can't change that. I think for Apple to promote marketshare, they need to do whatever it takes to open Kiosks or something else that will accomplish the following:

1. Keep an Apple presence in Best Buy (and CompUSA for that matter)

2. Make sure the computers and displays are in order.

3. Reduce/eliminate misinformation or FUD (intentional or otherwise, usually otherwise out of ignorance by staff - they just don't know and just don't care) Cut into margins if they need to. Long term, it needs to happen to go above 3% or 5% or whatever it really is.

 

[fluidinclusion]

Sure?

I am trying to get a job at a Best Buy location in Coon Rapids, MN. I was talking to one of the guys by the PCs and asked if they were planning on getting Macs in at any point. He said he knew they WERE getting them in. This indicates the pilot program was a success because there is another store in the area that already has Macs, and he said they were in talks to bring Macs into all stores.

Good news for me.

Are you sure he just wasn't trying to keep you in the store to buy stuff? I'd be surprised (but very happy) if BestBuy expands the program nation wide.

 

[fluidinclusion]

BB Near WI with Macs

Where is the pilot program running? Anywhere near Wisconsin? I was hoping to my my G5 there, when the Rev B come out, so that I could get points in the BB rewards program. Not much, but it translates to something like 4 or 5 percent back in store credit. Since no one else ever offers an incentive that I'm interested in, this always seemed to be the way to go. Plus, if my cinema display had a dead pixel, I think I would have a better chance bullying the high school girls at BB and getting a new unit than I would from the elitist pretty boys at the local Apple store.

(I don't like the staff at our Apple store, in case you couldn't tell. They couldn't sell a snickers to a starving man. They'd just tell the man about how beautiful the snicker's GUI is and never bother to show the ease of use and practicality of the candy inn question.)

My suggestion would be to drive the 45 minutes to Chicago and find a BB. I'm from WI originally, but live in SW Michigan. I regularly drive home to Milwaukee and often stop at the Chicago Apple Store along 294. I love it. Great store - great people. I tried to visit the Apple store in Milwaukee once, but it didn't open until 11:00 am or something (weekend). However, I was very disappointed with the state of the main window display. It was for the new G5, but it had so much dust on it that you'd think it had been sitting there for 2 years - no kidding. Buy a dustcloth guys!

 

[TiFighter]

BB iPod display

In my local BB store the iPods used to be just locked in a display cupboard. I just went in today and they downsized their PDA section to make room for portable music players. There was the Napster, iPod and a couple of others there with a small set of speakers up to play each through. There was also a display with a bunch of iPod accessories. This was the first time I had played with any of the iPod competitors. I spent a minute with each and could only figure out how to play a song on the Napster device (and of course iPod). It's pretty much a ripoff of the iPod interface. Then I watched a junior high kid start playing with them... He fumbled with a couple like I did and then went straight to the iPod where he started flipping through tracks imediately. Of course this is a simple observation but it made me smile.

Good to see a functional display with competitors right there.

On a side note, in Target I saw the iPod display with a bunch of accessories, which was cool, but had to hunt around to actually find an iPod. Then it was glued to a board with all the other portable music players without any power to it. At least it still looks great.