Best Buy Price Match No Match for Fairness

Secaucus, NJThe lengths to which Best Buy staff resorted in an effort to deny a persistent, but deserving customer what amounted to a $30 price match appears laughable—but it's no laughing matter to disgruntled customers willing to take Best Buy to court over its Price Match policy.

We won't bore you with the actual policy, which you can view quite easily—complete with exclusions—on the chain's web site at BestBuy.com

But we would like to tell you Steven's story, after he attempted to buy a Bluetooth headset from Best Buy in New Jersey. His home state banned the use of cell phone handsets in the car while driving, so Steven read up on headsets.

After doing some research, he determined that the model he wanted was stocked at both Best Buy, and J&R of New York. The price at J&R was $30 cheaper. However, upon reading the Best Buy Price Match Policy, Steven was confident that he could buy the headset at his local Best Buy store, at the lower price.

An educated consumer who apparently always does his homework, Steven called the Best Buy corporate head office, just to make sure. Yes, he was told, the headset would qualify under the Best Buy Price Match guidelines.

So off he goes to his local Best Buy store in Secaucus, armed with a copy of the Best Buy Price Match policy, as well as the contact information for J&R in Manhattan, about six miles away.

'No problem,' he was told by the cashier, who directed him to a customer service desk. However after a brief wait, he was told by the customer service rep that, according to the manager, she could not match the price.

"Let me see the manager, then" asks Steven. After a few minutes an individual shows up: Steven assumes he is the manager, although he does not introduce himself. The answer was the same. The customer waited for another ten minutes while someone in back apparently checked with 'corporate', which apparently answered that a Price Match was always at the store's discretion, and the store was choosing not to honor the policy.

Steven went through two more so-called 'managers,' before he was finally introduced to someone who was, indeed, the manager—suggesting that the first two were not managers at all, but rather store employees allegedly recruited to stonewall him.

The answer was the same: the store would not match the price.

The reasons? First, Steven was told that J&R was a wholesaler, and they could not price match with a wholesaler. However, J&R in New York is a retailer. Rather than a chain, like Best Buy, J&R is a retailer with a large retail store in New York and a thriving web presence with on-line sales. The customer made the point to Best Buy that the latter was simply branding the competitor as a wholesaler due to their lower prices.

Then Steven was told that Best Buy could not price match, as J&R is a 'mom-and-pop' operation. That's hardly the case. While the store began humbly in 1971 selling vinyl albums, it has grown to encompass an entire block in Manhattan.

In the end, after fighting for nearly an hour, all the manager would agree to do was a $20 discount, but would not offer the full $30 price match. After asking for contact information for store management only to be refused, Steven walked out.

One can only imagine why Best Buy in Secaucus refused the price match on a relatively small item. It has been reported that stores do, indeed have discretion—and a store may balk at price-matching large, big-ticket items. They are more likely to match smaller purchases.

Comments posted in response to Steven's blogged essay suggest that while Manhattan is six miles away from Secaucus 'as the crow flies,' the drive to Manhattan to buy the headset at J&R could take hours in traffic gridlock, and prove costly in fuel, parking and turnpike fees—eating up any savings. Best Buy could have been aware of this fact and may have hoped that by stonewalling a customer; said customer would just give up and pay the extra $30 dollars.

Human nature—and perhaps Best Buy's own experience—suggests that most customers, when challenged, will simply give in and not pursue the matter any further, especially on a less-expensive purchase.

Steven may have also had the opportunity to order the item on-line at J&R.com, a blogger suggests, and could have had it in his hands in two days. It is not known if the headset he sought was an in-store-only item.

Still, the fact remains that in denying this customer a price match that the policy, as published and read, digested and understood by the customer, Best Buy has lost a customer over $30. An educated customer who did his homework, had the paperwork in hand, and had even called Best Buy corporate headquarters to ensure the Price Match policy pertained to the purchase he wanted to make.

He was told that it was. Business and Retail 101 dictates that 'the customer is always right.' Some retailers even side with the customer, when the customer is in the wrong.

However, in this case it should have been obvious to Best Buy staff that this customer was not your average customer. This customer was not going to go away without a fight, armed as he was with information, which suggested the policy was in his favor.

In pushing back for an hour over $30, Best Buy appears to have demonstrated that not only is it heartless and stubborn, but extremely mis-informed as to the value of fairness, and good public relations.The home electronics industry is hugely competitive, and the Best Buy chain has been described as the largest of its kind in the United States and Canada.

But for how long? That's the question, in view of such behavior that in the end, kills customer loyalty. For $30, Best Buy not only lost a customer, but also bought itself a ton of ill will and negative publicity—not to mention a potential putative class action lawsuit.