Apple Pulling iPad 2 from Best Buy?

[snebes]

Apple products are price-locked. No second hand retailer marks up on them, like Bose. Retailers are told what to sell at and they comply or they lose rights to sell the product. If these are overpriced, it is Apples doing.

You might want to look at Best Buy's pricing again.

All iPads, iPods and Macs are sold $.99 (at minimum) above Apple.

Time Capsule 1TB $334.99 at Best Buy, $299.00 at Apple
2TB $499.99, $499.00 at Apple

Airport Extreme - $189.99 at Best Buy $179.00 at Apple
Express, $109.99 at Best Buy, $99.00 at Apple

The small accessories are just as bad. And Apple isn't the only brand they mark over MSRP too. I wouldn't be surprised is Bose products were too.

 

[Joshuarocks]

Best Buy is now WORST BUY!!!!

 

[coolbreeze]

You people don't know the facts and are jumping to conclusions. You need to realize that this is a RUMOR site....

Share the facts then sir.

We are reacting to a rumor on a rumor site.


AppleBestBuy? (applebb)?

 

[BLUELION]

What!!!

This is a rumor site??? Really?? No way!

You people don't know the facts and are jumping to conclusions. You need to realize that this is a RUMOR site....

 

[bobsentell]

Meh. Makes room for HP's inventory. You know, the company that sells more computers than any other company.

 

[FlameofAnor]

I was in Best Buy the other day and they had a stack of 64GB WiFi iPad 2's on the counter, and a salesman was looking for the key to lock them away.

I asked him if these were available for sale, and he said they were all spoken for...... now, I wonder if that was really the case.

 

[goodwilldrums]

This is interesting. I was at Best Buy today and overheard the overstaffed workers talking with each other about how they couldn't sell iPads anymore...

They were just as puzzled as I was

 

[coolbreeze]

You might want to look at Best Buy's pricing again.

All iPads, iPods and Macs are sold $.99 (at minimum) above Apple.

Time Capsule 1TB $334.99 at Best Buy, $299.00 at Apple
2TB $499.99, $499.00 at Apple

Airport Extreme - $189.99 at Best Buy $179.00 at Apple
Express, $109.99 at Best Buy, $99.00 at Apple

The small accessories are just as bad. And Apple isn't the only brand they mark over MSRP too. I wouldn't be surprised is Bose products were too.

This.

I went to buy a Time Capsule 1TB from these goons one day and noticed the pricing. I pulled up Apple.com's pricing of the TC and asked the "mac specialist" WHY they are charging a $34.99 premium over Apple themselves. He instantly said "no problem, we'll price match." I told him I'd buy it now for instant gratification, and then order from Amazon for $285 w/no tax and free Prime shipping.

Then I'd return the overpriced "pricematched" one back to best buy. He said I can't do that.

I did it 48 hrs later.

I hate that place. If they just had the MSRP Apple price on the shelf without me having to catch them trying to make an extra few bucks, I would have bought it and walked out happy.

That stunt pissed me off and I hope they had to resell it as an open box.

I hate Best Buy.

 

[Zimmy68]

If there is one indisputable fact of this world...

Those on message boards that say they hate Best Buy, are the first to grab the Sunday ad and visit the store at least weekly.

Bank on it.

 

[HyperZboy]

This notion that Best Buy is the only one hoarding stock is typical of the stereotypical Apple fan. And once again, I've never bought Apple or Mac products at Best Buy because the staff are not knowledgeable in most cases, the same way I never bought a Mac at Circuit City for the short period they carried Macs.

But which stores are well stocked the best with iPads?

See if you can guess. I'll give you a hint, it begins with an A.

Sure you can say, those are Apple's rules, deal with it, but that doesn't make it right.

The truth probably is that some Best Buys are probably near Walmarts and Targets so they don't want to be out of stock for 2-3 weeks while Apple hoards stock at its stores. I'm sure none of them want to be out of stock for 2-3 weeks and suspect that Best Buy is the not the only offender of conserving stock due to Apple's inability to meet demand.

Not one of these chains wants to be known as the chain that didn't have iPads for 2-3 weeks giving consumers the impression they don't carry it anymore!

The only difference is Best Buy got CAUGHT!

I would bet that this directive came from corporate and applied to a limited number of stores that were faced with the possibility of being out of stock for an extended period of time.

People can conjecture here all they want, but no one really knows the details of Apple's supply promises vs. what it delivered with any of these chains.

 

[coolbreeze]

If there is one indisputable fact of this world...

Those on message boards that say they hate Best Buy, are the first to grab the Sunday ad and visit the store at least weekly.

Bank on it.

Oh I believe you. They go into BB on Sunday morning, buy their gadget, decide if they like it, get home, order from Amazon, return to said BB once they receive the same, cheaper item.

Retail and B&M is doomed.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

After reading more of the responses working retail I might be able to shed on some light as to why BB might hold back on selling what they have on hand.

As one poster mentioned BB store managers have a quota or sales goal to make each day it seems. The sad fact is that when hot products enter the market they can skew your sales data for that day, week, or month. So taking and throttling sales to make ones sales goal can help out the following year.

Sadly sometimes you get corporate HQ that is just focused in on gains over LY, never mind that hot product that was blowing off the shelves was the reason for it. In particular for a publicly traded company that has shareholders to answer to.

As an example; lets say the local BB store got a 100 iPad 2 64GB 3G's in this morning. That is about $83K in sales. And lets say they average sales without the iPad 2 for the same day LY was $500K. Next year that manager would be looking at needing a $583K to make his goal.

Bean counters at the corporate level don't care one red cent about any hot item that caused the spike. Nor do shareholders of public companies. I personally have seen in the past when the store I worked for made it goal for the day, hold back on processing an order till the next day to give us a jump on the next days sales. But NEVER to the point that customers with money in hand were denied buying the product right then and there.

And that is where I think BB is getting in trouble with Apple right now....

 

[BC2009]

When I worked retail in high school I can remember we had a daily sales goal and that goal was based on how we had done last month and the previous year at that time. The managers were rated on their ability to achieve their sales goals and by how much they sold overall (i.e.: the best managers were the ones with the highest goals and still made their goals). However, the managers got dinged for missing for their goals.

I am betting that this is a game that Best Buy managers have played for quite some time to ensure they can consistently make their sales goals and avoid their their goals from being artificially inflated to a level where they could not consistently achieve their goals. I doubt this was a company-wide Best Buy policy, but rather a consequence of the way they do performance ratings on their store managers.

Either way it is DEFINITELY poor customer service. If somebody takes the time to drive down to your store and you have stock that has already been received into the inventory system and could be sold and you turn that customer away because the manager is looking out for his performance rating then you just told your customer that the manager's performance goals and ratings are more important than the people who help you achieve those goals with their hard-earned money.

 

[magbarn]

Good for Apple on this. One less retailer over charging for their products. I hope they pull the Apple stores out all together and find a new retail partner.

What 'new retail partner'? Kmart? BB is the last big box electronic store nationwide in the US. There's a few Fry's/Microcenter's around, but those are far and few in-between.

I got the call for the ATT 64gb I had reserved with the $100 gift card a week ago. Had to waste a work-day going to BB as instead of the '48 hour hold' I originally thought I had, the manager said they were in some 'trouble' with Apple and said he could only hold my reservation for a few hours as Apple did not like them holding the ipad 2's in reserve.

 

[Juan007]

BestBuy are some of the most notorious criminals in this country and Apple should pull out completely from their worthless trash retail stores. I'm sure Amazon could move all the stock Apple allocated to BestBuy in about an hour. iPads, iPhone, iPods, Macs... EVERYTHING that Apple sells should be taken off BestBuy shelves. Let them sell Xoom tablets all day, there's a giant market for those.

This scam BestBuy is pulling is just the lastest in a long series of scams from the mafia of retail. Steve Jobs is pulling an Eliot Ness, he's the only one who can take these criminals down. Good for Apple.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

You might want to look at Best Buy's pricing again.

All iPads, iPods and Macs are sold $.99 (at minimum) above Apple.

Time Capsule 1TB $334.99 at Best Buy, $299.00 at Apple
2TB $499.99, $499.00 at Apple

Airport Extreme - $189.99 at Best Buy $179.00 at Apple
Express, $109.99 at Best Buy, $99.00 at Apple

The small accessories are just as bad. And Apple isn't the only brand they mark over MSRP too. I wouldn't be surprised is Bose products were too.

Noticed this as well on some items I have looked at BB.... they seem to be counting on the uneducated consumer of late. Working retail, I hate it when folks whip out their cellphones to do a barcode search (at least at the shop I work at we are competitive most of the time) - but at BB I do it all the time now... no reason to pay more than the retail price for something to make shareholders happy....

 

[koobcamuk]

BestBuy are some of the most notorious criminals in this country and Apple should pull out completely from their worthless trash retail stores.

How are they criminals?

Are they as notorious as Al Capone yet?

 

[brewser]

This notion that Best Buy is the only one hoarding stock is typical of the stereotypical Apple fan. And once again, I've never bought Apple or Mac products at Best Buy because the staff are not knowledgeable in most cases, the same way I never bought a Mac at Circuit City for the short period they carried Macs.

But which stores are well stocked the best with iPads?

See if you can guess. I'll give you a hint, it begins with an A.

Sure you can say, those are Apple's rules, deal with it, but that doesn't make it right.

The truth probably is that some Best Buys are probably near Walmarts and Targets so they don't want to be out of stock for 2-3 weeks while Apple hoards stock at its stores. I'm sure none of them want to be out of stock for 2-3 weeks and suspect that Best Buy is the not the only offender of conserving stock due to Apple's inability to meet demand.

Not one of these chains wants to be known as the chain that didn't have iPads for 2-3 weeks giving consumers the impression they don't carry it anymore!

The only difference is Best Buy got CAUGHT!

I would bet that this directive came from corporate and applied to a limited number of stores that were faced with the possibility of being out of stock for an extended period of time.

People can conjecture here all they want, but no one really knows the details of Apple's supply promises vs. what it delivered with any of these chains.

You are an idiot to believe any of that. BB wants to save stock for their Sunday ads. That is the drive to bring customers in. They do this with any limited product. It's their nature. They need a certain number that matches their ad. They will tell you they are out of stock but they are waiting for Sunday.

 

[BC2009]

As an example; lets say the local BB store got a 100 iPad 2 64GB 3G's in this morning. That is about $830K in sales. And lets say they average sales without the iPad 2 for the same day LY was $500K. Next year that manager would be looking at needing a $1.3M+ to make his goal.

Good example, bad math. 100 iPad 2 64GB 3G = $830 x 100 = $83,000, not $830K. If Best Buy stores were pulling in $1M+ per day or even $500k+ per day then their stock would go through the roof.

I concur with you on the whole bean counter thing. I work for a large company and its amazing to me how much money bean counters waste in their attempts to save a few pennies. We once spent over $10,000 in time (when computing hourly wage by salary) to purchase a $100 piece of software because the bean counters tried to make us jump through hoops to prove we really really could not do without it. It was sad.

 

[yodaxl7]

As best as I can figure, it works like this. Managers get good grades if they sell certain amounts of products.

I'll use low numbers here. Let's say BB corporate wants you to sell at least 5 iPads a day to make your "Quota". One day, 10 iPads come in. You sell all ten, yay, you made quota for the day.

But the next day, none get shipped to the store. So, boo, you didn't make quota, since you didn't have any to sell.

So, if you get 10 the day after that, & not knowing if more are coming tomorrow, you sell 5, make quota, and hold the other 5 for the next day when, low and behold, none get shipped to the store. You still have 5 left over to sell, which you do, and again you make quota for the day.




Basically the more days you make quota, the happier BB corporate is, and the better chance Mr. Manager gets a bonus down the road.

Mr. Manager

Best buy should fire these managers! Days without iPad, these days less customers in the store. Withholding a few would bring customers on days without any in stock.

 

[Kwill]

Best Buy told me today that they had them in but Apple would not let them sell them. I have been going for two weeks every other day and they finally tell me they have them and can't sell them. I hate this crap. I want my IPad 2.

Explains why Apple is opening up Toys R' Us as another outlet.

 

[safe4mx]

Well that's pretty childish of both parties.

 

[FlameofAnor]

Explains why Apple is opening up Toys R' Us as another outlet.

Seems like both Target and Radio Shack should be getting more stock soon.

 

[EETFUK]

It's great that BB sells them. I just walked right in and bought my iPad 2 instead of waiting for a month or longer from Apple. BB was happy to take my cash. haha.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Either way it is DEFINITELY poor customer service. If somebody takes the time to drive down to your store and you have stock that has already been received into the inventory system and could be sold and you turn that customer away because the manager is looking out for his performance rating then you just told your customer that the manager's performance goals and ratings are more important than the people who help you achieve those goals with their hard-earned money.

Amen there brother!

In working with a family owned type chain store for the last 12+ years; so happy that we take our lumps when hot products come out. Though I miss the days where it was the yearly performance that mattered the most.

It is maddening at times at how the bean counters and senior management look at things. All one can hope for is a manager like the one that I have that sees my "numbers" don't reflect the way the accounting is done.