Hardly the 'Best'!
Written: Dec 29 '01
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Pardon me while I rant! Today, I completed what will very likely be my last shopping experience with BestBuy.com. And I really, really need to vent!
A few days before Christmas, I realized that I had forgotten to pick up a gift for some special folks. I had absolutely no desire to go hunting at the mall or any of the other local stores, so I turned to the web. My goal was to find a source of a specific video game that would guarantee Christmas delivery. Eventually, I ended up at BestBuy.com.
Though I had never ordered from BestBuy.com before, I had shopped at their "brick and mortar" stores before. The site, like the Best Buy stores, carries a wide variety of videos, games, electronics, and appliances. I was familiar with the name, and though I've never felt that they run their checkout lines very efficiently, I have purchased enough from the local stores to have some level of comfort with the service.
What really made me use BestBuy.com was that they have a service that allows the user to order through the web site and avoid the shipping charges by picking the order up at a local store. The way it is supposed to work is that the order is transmitted from the web site, and the order is filled from the stock of the local store. Turn-around time on the order is advertised to be 24 hours.
Note that I said "advertised"! But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Shopping at BestBuy.com
In many respects, BestBuy.com is similar to hundreds of other online stores. Users locate products by either browsing for them for by searching for them. However, in my case, the search returned everything except the game that I wanted. Undeterred, I browsed to the 'Video Games' category and drilled down until I found what I wanted.
Here's where the shopping experience is a little different. The user can add the product to a categorized 'ThinkAbout' list or add it to the cart. The information is saved for 30 days, after which it is removed. While the concept of the 'ThinkAbout' list is nice, I knew that I wanted the product right away, I added it to my cart.
When I got to the checkout process, I should have known that this would not be a terrific experience. First I had to create an account. Then, I had to log in (even though I had JUST created the account). Next, the user is given the option of selecting Ground, Second Day, or Next Day shipping or the user may select to pick up the order at a local store. To do that, the user must create a list of stores that are viable options. And once that is completed, the user must log in yet again to complete the checkout process.
This turns out to be the way things work with BestBuy.com. Every change between secure and non-secure operations requires the user to log back in again. If I weren't on such a short timetable, I would have bailed on the site altogether!
Shortly after checking out, I received a confirmation email from the site. According to the email, I would receive a pick-up confirmation within 24 hours. Since the web site can supposedly check the inventory of the store in question, I knew within some degree of reason that the desired item was going to be in my hot little hands before the next evening. This was great because I knew that I would be leaving the Chicago area about 36 hours after placing the order.
Pick-up?
So I waited. And waited. And waited. The confirmation finally came... after I left town for the holiday weekend! I was not amused. I became even less impressed when I received an email saying that I was overdue to pick up my order. I emailed customer service with the order number and explained that I was out of town. Initially, I received a canned auto-response. About 24 hours later, I received a response from a live person indicating that the order would be held for me until after I returned.
Today, I went to the Best Buy location to pick up the order. The confirmation that I had received had indicated that only I could pick up the order because the personnel at the store would need to see the credit card with which the order was placed, a photo ID, and a copy of the confirmation message. When I got to the store, I showed the information to the door attendant as directed. He, in turn, sent me to another line.
Here is where the "pick-up" concept meets the shoddy Best Buy store management, and it shows why web sites that offer this service are only as good as their brick and mortar counterparts. The line to which I was directed was labeled something like "financing and pick-ups". Yep... "financing". The place where people fill out tons of information that must be referenced and cross-referenced and checked and re-checked. The place where a wait on a good day might be a ten minutes, if you're lucky!
It was my unfortunate displeasure to end up in a line that was "only" three customers deep, but each customer had some sort of hairy problem that stretched things out much longer than they should have been. Again, I waited and waited, listened to my daughter whine a bit about being tired of standing, and watched my husband go through the regular checkout lanes with a game that he had found on the racks of the store. Five minutes after he was done, I was still waiting, and there didn't seem to be any evidence of an attendant for our line anywhere!
Finally, I was too disgusted to put up with it any longer. So I called the customer service number printed on my confirmation receipt and began bouncing through voice mail menus until I got to the person who could cancel my order.
Of course, just as soon as I got that process initiated, three line attendants showed up. By this time, the folks who were in line between the first person in line and me had become so disgusted that they left the line. So they got to me fairly quickly after that. The attendant took my paperwork (without asking for the photo ID) and said, "I can't process you at this register. We have to go to this other register over there." A few minutes later, she said, "I can't find your information in the computer. I don't understand."
It seems that the one thing that they do efficiently is cancel orders!
Postmortem
Later, I went to BestBuy.com to verify that my order had truly been cancelled. I also went through the site a bit to confirm that my earlier observations about the site were correct before I filed this review. The order had indeed been cancelled. So at least that was correct.
However, I was disturbed to find that BestBuy.com had saved my credit card information on their server. Further, there is no way I can delete that credit card from their system unless I am willing to supply them with another credit card number. This is just unforgivable! I never authorized them to save my information for future orders, and I shouldn't be forced to have my credit card information on their servers! I'm firing off an email to them, along with the URL of this review, and requesting that they remove my account entirely!
Overall
In order for any merchant to survive, that merchant must be able to distinguish itself from the competition. BestBuy.com failed on all counts. Locating the product was a pain. Purchasing the product was hampered by repeated log-ins. The site retains far more information than what I prefer. And I never got the product!
Why would I ever go there again?
Recommended:
No
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About the Author
Location: Lost in Texas
Reviews written: 206
Trusted by: 312 members
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