Gamasutra posted a news brief regarding Best Buy’s slumping entertainment sales. It seems Best Buy couldn’t maintain sales growth in the middle of a recession. Go figure. Better yet, the company had warned everyone before the holiday shopping season that they wouldn’t be able to handle it anyway.
Have you, Best Buy, ever considered that your business model might be flawed? Unlike a lot of people, I buy my games. I drop serious cash every year to play the assorted crap the game companies toss out to us gamers like rotten meat to a pack of ravenous wolves in the hopes that one of them…one day…one time…will be good. So, when I go into a Best Buy and see a game that’s been out for over a year still being sold at retail I gotta wonder, do they realize the box is covered in dust and sitting with its other ten siblings on the shelve while Fry’s down the street has turned over the same ten or eleven boxes two times over?
Here’s how Fry’s does it: New game comes out? Unless it’s some stupid game everyone wants so bad it’s…well…stupid, it’s discounted the FIRST DAMNED WEEK! And, no, not one of these bullshit 1.25% discounts…we’re talking 30% bitch. I can’t tell you how many times I’d go in there and I’d see it…the little yellow card showing the price of a $49.99 game at $34.99. I’d stop…look around for the hidden camera or the couple of employee dorks sitting in a corner snickering and neither would be there. I’d grab that bitch and get it to the checkout, furtively looking around in case the Feds show up and book out of there like a cheerleader running from a mob of geeks.
Don’t get me wrong, there are other benefits to Best Buy…like the fact that the salespeople actually ask to help you (okay, Fry’s salespeople do take a break from gossiping with each other enough to do that but it’s a rare sight to see), even though they’d rather not. Or…uh…give me a minute here. It’s cleaner?
Oh, and don’t forget Amazon…oh, Amazon, you bright beacon of consumerism. Amazon, where you don’t pay tax, can get it overnight for $3.99 and can get it 30% off. Oh, how I love you. Oh, how I dream to buy from you…at least until you fuck me over.
Suffice it to say, Best Buy is as someone put it “a necessary evil. Necessary since I can go in and physically touch/demo
merchandise.” Have you NOT heard of volume? Fucksake, just discount your games…you know it’ll work. Clear your fucking shelves and order more so you can clear it again…guess what? That’s double-digit growth right there bitch.
’nuff said. Best Buy can try to suck me ’til the ravenous wolves come home but they still can’t suck enough.
Lates Suckers!