Score!!!!!

[KyzrSoze]

I was lucky enough to win one of the copies of NFS Most Wanted in the random drawing (Thanks to Mike Henderson and NFSG!). Anyway, the problem is that I don't own an Xbox 360, and I have no intention of buying one.

While I was waiting for the game to arrive in the mail, I hatched a plan.)=)

I took the game up to Best Buy, hoping that even though I did not have a receipt they would take the game in for a store credit. Easy enough, I found success at the returns counter, and the lady there told me to look around the store and find something comparable to trade.

Wanting to stay true to the gift, I wandered over to the software section hoping to find the PC version of the game. No luck though - they were sold out. I did need more storage space on my computer, so I walked over to the hardware section to look at hard drives. There my luck changed.

The guy working the section steered me to a great deal. They had a Western Digital 160 gig 7200 RPM drive (8 MB cache) listed for $119.00, and with rebates the sale price was...

$39.99:eek:

I got a credit of $59.00 for the NFS game, and within the next few weeks I will receive my rebate money, a $50 check and a $30 check.

Anyway, I got a great deal on a HD and I will have $20 left over to put toward NFS MW when the shelves are restocked in a week or two.:)

[jtace]

sweet! :)

[Wazza]

Excellent!

I need some more HDD myself.

I'm maxed out on 400Gb, plus another 100 on a network PC, and another 120Gb burnt on DVDs.. I really need a Terrabyte drive. :rolleyes:

[chris]

Pretty good deal. :)

[KyzrSoze]

I'm maxed out on 400Gb, plus another 100 on a network PC, and another 120Gb burnt on DVDs.. I really need a Terrabyte drive.

Holy cow!

sounds like you need to .zip some pics!

[Myshkin]

Kyzr,

You didn't find that to be a bit unethical? Not that I really care, BB will just repackage it and sell it for full price anyways. But still you are basically selling it to them at full price, which means that they are selling it at their cost.

:nono:

:wave:

[KyzrSoze]

I did actually think of that, and my reasoning may be faulty here, but I originally walked in the store with the intention of simply trading my Xbox version for a copy of the black edition PC version - a dollar for dollar swap. I would have bought the hard drive anyway, so my deal there was the same as anyone else can get. The only glitch in the plan was that they were out of stock on the PC version of the game, so the sequence is a little out of order.

Tell me if I missed something in my logic, I may have to make amends.:blush::?

[Myshkin]

Heh don't take it too seriously, it was just the first thing that popped in my head. BB did not actually pay you full price for your copy of NFS:MW, they paid you their cost for the HD.

We do know that Best Buy is going to receive a total of $89 for the two products ($59 for MW if they just put it back out at full price, $60 from you of which they will return $30, assuming that the $30 rebate is BB and the $50 is WD). Their costs are the product cost of the HD plus labor costs for the transactions, restocking, and perhaps the cost of money over the time from when you exchanged it and when they sell it. In a way, BB just lent you $59 for the amount of time between when you exchanged it to when they sell it.

If you had just bought the HD from the in the first place, BB would have received $89 as well, so the only difference is the extra labor, money cost and misc costs involved in processing the exchange. If you had bought the MW from them in the first place, they would have received a total of $148, but their cost would have been the HD, the vendor cost of MW, plus other costs.

So, from a standpoint of money, I would say that BB came out a little shorter on the deal than normal but not much. So the only ethical question might be if it is fair that you forced them to incur the small, extra cost even though you did not originally buy the product from them so you weren't their customer. And that would apply whether you had exchanged it for the PC version or whatever.

But I can't claim to be an ethics expert. My logic may be completely wrong, and I admit that I probably need to think it though a little more. :help:

:beer: :wave:

[KyzrSoze]

If you had bought the MW from them in the first place, they would have received a total of $148, but their cost would have been the HD, the vendor cost of MW, plus other costs. So, from a standpoint of money, I would say that BB came out a little shorter on the deal than normal but not much.

Nothing like a good accounting question to really screw up my head.;)

It could be said that they came out slightly shorter on the deal than usual, but really most of the cost of processing a transaction (equipment, employees, paper, power, etc.) are costs that would have been incurred even I never showed up that day.

Still its just hair splitting. If I shorted them a bit, then the only way to make it up the buy something from them that I had not intended to buy before now and put a little back in their pocket. No, I dont want to take it too seriously, but questions of ethics are worth considering.

[Justin Martin]

[channeling rob]Or you could just realise that they are eveeel capitalist scum and deserve to be screwed out of $10 or whatever the difference ends up being. :spidey: [/channeling rob]

:D

[KyzrSoze]

Yes...of course...thats it. What he said.:D

[Myshkin]

Oops Kyzr there is another pitfall there. To say that the costs for labor, paper, etc. would have been incurred had you not been there is not quite right. You have to look at the cumulative effect, not just your single instance. Imagine if 50% of BB's exchanges were situations like yours, then BB would have to staff their exchange/return counter with double the amount of labor for the transaction and restocking. I doubt that the actual number of such exchanges is greater than a few percent, so the impact is likey small, but it is NOT zero.

Now if we multiply these small amounts by the number of BB stores, maybe the cost adds up. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. BB is not losing money overall, as far as I know they are a profitable company, and BB's exchange policy is meant to build customer loyalty... but I think you are taking advantage of a liberal exchange policy by doing this knowing quite well the game did not come from there. And nowadays you hear talk about some stores perhaps moving towards tightening up their return/exchange policies because of abuse... or because they are cheap bastards.

^_^ @ Justin, you know I actually had similar thoughts going through my head, and even considered putting in a channeled thought from Rob myself as a counter-point.

[KyzrSoze]

Oops Kyzr there is another pitfall there. To say that the costs for labor, paper, etc. would have been incurred had you not been there is not quite right.

I read your whole reason, but I still feel comfortable with my assessment. I wouldnt feel comfortable arguing the point if it werent for a few things:

1) In the end of our dealings, the company will make more money than if I had never walked in the door this week.

2) I did tell the lady at the returns counter that I received the game as a gift, I did not have a receipt, and that it was purchased out of state but that I did not know from where. If she had said no I would not have complained. I was up front with them.

If 50% percent of the customers were like me, then they would be have a 50% increase in customers, people who, like me, had not intended to buy anything from Best Buy last week and would not have been in the store except that they suddenly had something to exchange. And when they traded and then bought something else while they were there it would be bonus business for them. Their liberal exchange policy would have worked. It would have built customer loyalty and increased business.

[Myshkin]

&(

Actually if you were mostly honest about the exchange, that pretty much makes the argument moot. It wasn't actually purchased and it was a prize not a gift, but I'm not going to quibble over that. Bottom line is that the lady at BB could be pretty sure that it didn't come from them, she accepted it so no moral dilemma as far as I am concerned.

However, BB will have received $30 net from you ($60-30 rebate) plus a copy of MW. In exchange for your $30, they gave you a WD HD. They will have to receive the other $59 from a real customer sometime in the future that would have bought a copy even if you had not exchanged yours. To illustrate how BB's profit is affected by this, let us say that their product cost is 50% of the regular price.

So a $119 HD has a cost of $59.50, and MW has a cost of $29.50. With two everyday customers that buy those two products products, they would receive $148 in revenue with a product cost of $89 for a $59 profit before operating and overhead costs. In your case, they would receive $89 in revenue with a product cost of $59.50 for a profit of $29.50 before O&O costs. If you had never showed up in the first place? They would have sold a copy of MW for $59 with a cost of $29.50 for a profit of $29.50 before O&O costs. So I don't think you can claim that the company will make more money than they would have if you had not gone in, they did not gain or lose unless you count whether or not they incurred any extra cost to do this transaction with you.

Maybe it has increased your loyalty to BB, and maybe it increased their revenue but I don't think it increased their profit.

[Edit: After reconsidering this because of how the numbers worked, I realized that the reason that the two latter scenarios had the same profit is because the difference in product cost between the two items is exactly the amount that you paid to BB, which is $30. So my example is not conculsive. I would need to know what the real cost is to be able to tell if BB is better off for you visiting or not. But, maybe I went around in one circle too many... someone else want to take a stab at it?]

[jtace]

You were honest that you didn't buy it and they took it anyways. I say, SCORE!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

[Myshkin]

Heh can you tell that I am bored today? BTW I am down in Springfield, Josh. I can almost see your house from here... :wave:

[KyzrSoze]

Heh can you tell that I am bored today?

Yes, I think I can.:D

Maybe in a few weeks when my head is clear I will be able to reread your tax return-like posts and uncover the truth about exactly how much I have swindled from my victim.;)

For now I will be content that I will be treating them better than they treated me back in '98 when I had to pay a restocking fee to return my faulty Sony DVD player for the third time.:D

[jtace]

hehe - yeah I'm in Davenport Iowa right now, right on the IL border. :)

[Myshkin]

Ahhh so do you live up there now? I just realized that I have not heard any new information about where you are living and what you are doing since you moved back up there, and that was to Peoria, right?

I wasn't even actually working in Springfield, I was in Taylorville but since there were no hotels there I drove down every day. As I have been fighting off some sort of illness the last couple of weeks, I was not pleased this morning to walk out into that slushy, windy but not very severe storm. It delayed my flight coming home by 2 hours from St Louis (waiting in line to get de-iced) so upon arriving home I felt a bit miserable. Thank God Austin should be in the 70's the next few days.

Anyway, even if you are up in Davenport I could still see your house, what with Illinois being so darn flat. ;)

You know, I didn't think about it before but I just realized that I have been up in that general area a lot over the last two months. Madison WI, Grand Rapids MI, Detroit MI, and now Taylorville. Before November I don't think I had ever been to WI, MI or IL except passing through.

Kyzr: (Channeling :spidey: ) Down with all the greedy Capitalist pigs! Living like parasites off the sweat of us common workers! Nickel-and-dime us while stabbing us in the back, the dirty bastards deserve to be swindled out of everything they own!! We are many, they are few!!!! (/ :spidey: ) Ahhh thanks for the idea Justin, that felt refreshing.

:Peace:

[jtace]

Yeah Davenport is only 1.5 hours from Peoria so it's still spitting distance. :) Good luck with your flight mate.

[FIATLOVE]

Great deal, and very nice service by BB! -^


The product is easy to resell Mysh, some companies knows what service is about.. ;)
As long the product is a popular item (easy to sell) and it's listed in the given shops catalogues, the only loss BB will have is "todays" loss of not selling this item in the first place. Wich is pennies. ;-) I guess the serviceminded person at BB took a look at the last months salestats for MW.
But, the lucky customer will remember this, and (as already happend) some more people will hear about this splendid serviceminded attitude of BB. ;)

Only in this forum BB already got more goodwill reputation cus of this story than a million dollar advertisement can make.
Or, a ad is only bragging and empty words, service is showing how good they really are, REAL DEAL :)

I would not be afraid of buying via BB after this, because I'm now pretty sure that if I want to change the product into something else I'm pretty sure they will help me with that..

Of course if the product is very costy and special ordered I would not think this way, but with penny-items I did the same the 10 years I did work in retail-store. And it did pay off regarding great reputation (and raise in yearly economic results at about 50% each year)
Ohh I almost forgot, the shop could not afford to buy expensive ad's to compete with the large chain-shops the first years after establishing, so reputation and rumors was all we could use to tease new customers.

How the customer acts when visiting (or calling) is the only important thing regarding how the customer will be answered, so being honest is not a bad idea.

BB sends me a signal that they are doing GREAT, they will not have any problems selling this MW cd further to another customer and they don't see it as a big thing even if they didn't sold it in the first place.
And they don't bother giving the new customer some fine service.

I have many times "bought" (exchanged) popular items with customers that I did not sell in my shop. The orange expedition-jacket in avatar is one, that was like sent from above :)

BB will maybe not be the only place to buy stuff in the future, but next time meeting a difficult onlineshop, I maybe think about this story.


:Peace:

[chris]

Well, I did also get equally a good deal, Sony home theatre in a box system, quite an expensive set of speakers and decoder/processor for less than half-price!

Why bother with rip-off top of the line Logitech speakers or similar when you this Sony system worth double the price costs less. :cool: Needless to say, I'm very, very happy. :) Man these speakers sound good. Look good too.

Now I just have to get the AU$160 stands for the rear speakers.

[KyzrSoze]

Well, I did also get equally a good deal, Sony home theatre in a box system, quite an expensive set of speakers and decoder/processor for less than half-price!

Very cool! What model system is it?

[chris]

It's a Sony WEGA Home Theatre HT-K25, marked at AU$1000, purchased for less than 500. :cool: The speakers are very compact as well - but they do sound fantastic.

[KyzrSoze]

@chris

Nice sound setup. I invested a bit of money in surround sound a few years ago. I did it because I knew that when we had kids my wife and I would be limited in our ability to get to the movies for a few years. I wanted to have a quality setup at home so that a rented DVD would give a similar experience to a trip to the theater. Money well spent in my imo.

Funny, you also inspired my to get out my old Onkyo receiver and JBL HLS 810 speakers and hook them to my computer. I just bought NFS Most Wanted and the sound is great! Thanks for the inspiration.:)

[chris]

I totally agree. :)

Nothing better than home-cinema. Just as good as the movies, and none of the over-priced extras typical of the theatres. :)

Now all we need are for the big releases to go straight to DVD and we'll be set. :D

It's even better for me because my screen is 16:9 widescreen format (Apple Cinema Display), so DVD's are just fantastic to watch on it. And it has superb contrast and brightness so the visual quality is superb. The other unexpected benefit with it is that when turned on, the light on the front of it turns OFF (good thinking Apple). :)

[Chaul]

But they are already switching to the next format(s)... The first BluRay and HDDVD drives and discs will be coming out before summer. Will of course cost big $$) at first. So, DVD's won't be going away for quite a few years. :p

I've been planning to update my "home theater" with a new wide screen TV or projector but that will have to wait at least until the current one gives.. (hah, that won't take long)

[KyzrSoze]

The screen is the weak link in my system as well.:)

I still have a 32" non flat screen TV, somewhat because of my cheapness, and partially because I still have a cabinet that I built to house it 5 years ago. A 35" would fit, but its really time to scrap the cabinet and go with the flat panel wall mounted unit. Well at least from a technical standpoint it's time, from a financial standpoint - not really.:D

The rest of my system is still pretty good though. I have a Sony STR-DE945 surround sound receiver, JBL HLS 610front speakers, JBL N-Center center channel speaker, JBL flush wall mount rear speakers, and a JBL 250 watt 12" subwoofer.

I do not have a dedicated media room so I really wanted to have a stealth sytem that did not visually dominate the main room of the house. The HLS 610s are on the side bookshelves, the center channel fits into the TV cabinet on a shelf above the TV, the rear speakers are flush mounted in the wall on each side of the fireplace, and the subwoofer is hidden under a table in the corner of the room. All of the speaker wire is inside the walls, so the sytem is essentially invisible.