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Current or former BestBuy employees out there?

J

Joerg

Member
So im starting at BB soon and I just was curious about a few things. Well first I am a tech freak so is the discount all it is cracked up to be? Ive heard cost plus 5 is the standard, but what are some examples like customer pays 400 for a tv and employee pays 300 or what?

Also I am a sprint customer and I have heard everything from no discount at all to full sprint employee plans starting at like 15 bucks. I am guessing the truth is somewhere in the middle but what is it?

Finally is it really as bad of a place to work as everyone says? I just kind of want to know for my own benefit what i am getting into. I am a college student, they claim to be starting me in PC sales at 8 and hour. Just curious.

thanks in advance, and if you have horror stories try not to scare me to much becuase the pay is better than most places around here. IE currently doing IT for the university at 6.75 an hour! they have me running a user database of some 90 people doing website design on the side for them at below 7 an hour. How messed up is that!
 
Worked there 1992-1999 (PC Sales- Inventory/Shipping/Receiving). Yes employee discount is cost + 5%. I heard it's not the same place/working environment since the 90's. Started from $7 and left the place making $10/hr.

They're more on sales margings than customer service (10 foot rulle/CARE).

A must read. Best Buy Sux
 
I've worked there before and I hated it. The discount is ok for accessories (Cables, Dynex stuff etc.) but sucks for computers and laptops. I dunno about TV discounts, I stopped working there before LCD/DLP/Plasma became so common. You also get a discount on extended warranty plans (whatever that is worth to you). I hated it because too many people that work there are career retail workers or on their way to being one. A lot of people were cool if you got to know them but some were pretty petty folks. The part that I hated the most was the morning pep talks.
 
Friend of mine got a Sharp Aquos for $500 after talking to management. Forget which size though. Think the 26"
 
I worked in PCHO sales from 2002-2005. If you really really like sales and pushing customers to get acessories, service plans, in-home networking, broadband service, Geek Squad setup, Netflix subscription, etc. then it can be o.k. Hopefully you'll have a good staff and your manager will be cool.

The good thing is that if you are going to school full time and are working full time you can get tuition assistance from Best Buy, so be sure you ask about it.

The worst part for me was working late on weekends and early Sunday morning trainings. 🙁
 
apparently they aggressively push their employees to add on sales to customers actual wanted item...you know..monster cable type stuff to increase store profits. so basically you sell your soul ripping people off, and the worst part is you don't even get a comission from what i know. thats pretty sad. as a customer i can understand if a commissioned sales person tries to sell me expensive stuff i don't need, but just a minimum wage slave? sad
 
i love working at best buy. sprint discounts start at 15 i believe and 20% off cingular. discount on product is cost + 5%. you dont get a discount on laptops/desktops because they are normally sold below cost.
 
Yeah I work in Geek Squad right now. It's ok, and I really do like my job. However, they are not to willing at my store to work with hours and such... I am a full time college student too.

I love the discount. It is kinda nice to save a few bucks off cd's and movies, and really cool to see a $40 Dynex cable ring up at $1.65. Anything that is an accessory will be marked up a lot, actual products aren't marked up too much. Tv's get a nice discount... usualy $200-$600 depending how much it is to begin with and brand.

The only thing I hate are the morning meetings. They suck, and for someone that is in services there are a lot of things I have no clue what they are talking about, especially with all the acronyms, which I am sure you will get to learn. CARE+ is the big one, wait until you have to take e-learnings on them 😛.

Which department are you working in? If you are into computers you should really try for a job in the Geek Squad, because it pays a lot more compared to the floor.... I mean I'm making $11.70 an hour, which is unheard of for a college student.
 
The managment seems great at the store I am at, I havent started yet but i know a couple of the people and they are all pretty young and seem like they know how to have a good time. I wanted Geek Squad but I dont have the availability for it just yet. Im hoping over the summer I can move to Geek Squad. 11.70 is nice but I was making 11.75 as a junior in highschool so college has been like a huge drop for me, and its sad that i am acctually happy about 8.50 now.

Ive read all the horror stories from BB employees and from what i can see i think it is a per store basis. I am not a big sales guy, I tend to try and get people the best deals, but im sure with the right amount of training (brain washing) Best Buy can get me into the Screw the customer mind set, that is as long as they dont screw me first.

Does anyone know what kind of discount there would be on Cameras? I kind of want a new SLR, but im anxious to see if it would be worth it to wait on my employee discount or just pick one up online.
 
I worked in a service center for about half a year back in 1999-2000, so I'm not sure how applicable my experiences would be to the retail store. However, I enjoyed my time there; my co-workers were great, management wasn't too harsh or unrealistic, and the discount was nice (depending on what I was buying). I believe the discount on cameras would be fairly nice, but I could be wrong...I seem to remember TVs as being among the least-discounted products.

As for the Sprint deal, no idea on that. I have a friend who worked for Office Max (or was it Office Depot?) for a few years, and I know he ended up with that ~$15/month employee plan. Not sure if that generalizes or still applies to BB employees, though.
 
I worked there for about 15 months quitting October 2005. It's not that bad of a place to work, but location, management, customers, store size can all make a difference in how your store is. Not all stores have a Magnolia Home Theater section. Those that do only give discounts on Magnolia products to those working in that section, but the pay for that area is also much higher. As far as discount on Sprint I don't know. I know Cingular was 20% if you're not in the department or if you work in wireless you can get the plan that's $20/month for 1000 anytime, 1000 night weekend minutes w/unlimited texting. And Verizon has a website you can access that gives you 20% off your monthly plan and the phones are cheaper when you get a plan too. The discount is better on some items than others. Sometimes it's virtually or actually nothing. Sometimes the discount is quite nice. I think car audio equipment tended to be the best discount.

I personally enjoyed working there, I just got a better job. But the people I worked with were all really cool.

Remember, they like you to talk to customers and be friendly, but not waste time. The idea being that a customer is more likely to purchase something recommended by someone they trust than from a salesperson. So as long as you're making sales and pushing service plans, they're happy.
 
I've been there for about 7 months, and I hate it now. Management is unexplainably bad, and it's a struggle for me to get through the day with not wanting to walk out now.
 
Originally posted by: Joerg
The managment seems great at the store I am at, I havent started yet but i know a couple of the people and they are all pretty young and seem like they know how to have a good time. I wanted Geek Squad but I dont have the availability for it just yet. Im hoping over the summer I can move to Geek Squad. 11.70 is nice but I was making 11.75 as a junior in highschool so college has been like a huge drop for me, and its sad that i am acctually happy about 8.50 now.

Ive read all the horror stories from BB employees and from what i can see i think it is a per store basis. I am not a big sales guy, I tend to try and get people the best deals, but im sure with the right amount of training (brain washing) Best Buy can get me into the Screw the customer mind set, that is as long as they dont screw me first.

Does anyone know what kind of discount there would be on Cameras? I kind of want a new SLR, but im anxious to see if it would be worth it to wait on my employee discount or just pick one up online.
Click to expand...

I dunno about SLR's, but I got my Canon SD630 for $200 when it was MSRP $250...not sure what it was online.
 
it all depends on the management at your store, i'm lucky and i've loved working where i'm at, though i know other stores where the management is like nazis.
 
Well thanks guys, i guess my last question is how do you logon to bestbuy as an employee? Or can that even be done, ive heard rumors about an intranet in the stores, but i wanst sure if you could logon to like Bestbuy.com or whatever.
 
Working at Best Buy is just like working at any other retail store. They push you to sell the PSP's, but those are really easy to sell actually. I was good enough at selling them that I could be completely honest with some people and tell them I didn't think it was worth it for their particular needs, and still have the department at it's desired goals. I worked in digital imaging.

As far as the discount goes, it is pretty good. Many of the televisions can be had for over 50% off. I remember a Samsung DLP that was going for $2400 or so was about $1100 with the discount. Also, you'll get a huge discount on things like car audio as well, but practically nothing on computers, new dvd's, games etc.

For an average part-time job, it's probably better than most.

Oh, and when I was at the store you just press like, "CTRL ZZ" and it brought up a special thing I could sign onto.
 
Cool thanks for the info, ive heard of the CTRL ZZ trick, but wasnt sure if it was true. Well thanks again for all the info guys, i really appreciate it. Hopefully things will turn out pretty well.
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
apparently they aggressively push their employees to add on sales to customers actual wanted item...you know..monster cable type stuff to increase store profits. so basically you sell your soul ripping people off, and the worst part is you don't even get a comission from what i know. thats pretty sad. as a customer i can understand if a commissioned sales person tries to sell me expensive stuff i don't need, but just a minimum wage slave? sad
Click to expand...
I couldn't do that. When I worked at Walmart, it became the only Walmart in the area where you could go for good computer advice at 2am. 🙂 But if we didn't have what they needed, or if what we had was way more expensive than it should have been, I'd let them know that there were alternatives online, such as Newegg. I pained me to see someone buying computer hardware for prices that were close to those when the hardware originally came out.
Want a new videocard? Hm, $112 at Walmart, or $75 at Newegg. Yeah, that's a fairly substantial difference, and people at Walmart are generally wanting to save money.
Or another example - Radeon X1950 CrossFire Edition. $495 at Walmart. Newegg's priciest X1950 is $420, or as cheap as $360.

Point is, I'd suck at sales of stuff that customers don't really need. Do it only if you don't mind taking lots of showers, because you might feel really dirty all the time.



Oh, and BTW, no, management didn't ever know about my little sales pitches. There aren't many of them around during nightshift. 😉
Hey, I was giving true customer service - the customer was first, even if it wasn't really entirely in the store's benefit. But that would be selfish now, wouldn't it? 😀
 
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