Lots of Best Buy stuff to talk about. One big thing I’ve noticed about Best Buy is that when it comes to many items they aren’t really, truly the best buy. Wal-Mart is just one place which blows them away price-wise in our local area. Perhaps in other regions they do have the best buy, but not where we are located (Seattle/Tacoma area). And online retailers, even after adding tax, shipping and handling usually put them to shame. Alas, we’re paying for that retail convenience.

Here is just one very recent example: the Star Trek Original Series was on sale in our local Best Buy store for $104.99 but at the local Fred Meyer store it was going for $99.99 (regular price, not a sale or special). Online at Amazon for those willing to wait an extra couple days it is $84 + tax and shipping/handling. While waiting in line along the wall I noticed that they have a price guarantee of meeting any competitor’s price (on most but not all items) and then giving you 10% of the difference as long as you have proof and that the other offer is not some special or sale. We didn’t have proof but we told the cashier about it and she quickly whipped out this book for us to sign — no other questions asked — and changed the register price to $99.99. I guess if we had had proof of the competing store price then we would have gotten another 50 cents or so off. I guess it pays to read the writing on the wall!

I couldn’t help thinking then or now how many customers don’t take advantage of this Best Buy price guarantee deal. I’m going to be putting my camera phone to good use now by taking pictures of the prices from competing stores before shopping at Best Buy. We are in their Reward Zone club also, which is another wise thing for those who shop at Best Buy and spend over $300 a year there (not really worth it, otherwise).

I notice from looking at their website that they don’t advertise this club very well, but in the stores they sure do. You can find the cards at the front of every register. I looked around on a few messageboards and the feedback on the program seemed to be that many people forget to give the cashier their Reward Zone card. I sure don’t! That’s like free money back and if you do a little legwork with pricing you can get lower prices than anywhere. They will track your purchases and give you store credit back which equates to like $5 for every $150 spent.

I just logged into the Reward Zone to see how many points we’ve racked up since 8/31/2003 when we originally signed up and yowsa (see above), I wasn’t even aware how much our DVD and other electronic purchases there have added up over the last year. Wonder if we make their good customer list dropping an average of $500/month?

Lastly, Best Buy is making a committment towards RFID by 2007.

eweek.com:

Best Buy has gone public with its RFID plans, pledging to move all of its major suppliers to start delivering RFID-compliant tags for all product cases and pallets by Jan. 2, 2006. The deadline for those suppliers to support all product cases and pallets is May 2007.

Looking towards the Babys ‘R Us line as a possible profitable alternative, NPR is reporting that Toys ‘R Us is thinking about selling it’s retail toy business. People purchase baby stuff year round but toy sales really only peak in the 4th quarter during holiday season.

In a bid to shore up its stock value amid tough competition from big-box discounters such as Wal-Mart, Toys “R” Us says it could sell off its toy store business.

They say they are being hurt by the discounters like Wal-Mart and Target but I think they are also being hurt by online sales. The last few times we’ve gone shopping at our local Toys ‘R Us it was a morgue with more sales people milling about than customers.

They have a pretty good new (and older) video game selection and their prices aren’t too bad, but yes you can get most titles cheaper elsewhere. I must admit that when I’m thinking of buying a new video game I don’t think of going to Toys ‘R Us. Most of our retail purchases are made at Best Buy which has a Rewards club. Maybe Toys ‘R Us should toy with some sort of incentive club like Best Buy.

Chris Pirillo discovered that when he went to cancel his AMEX credit cards they offered him a $180 credit to stay ($150 on his business account and $30 on his personal account). I would imagine credit card companies are taking a hit just like many other businesses, but this kind of thing will just have people calling up to cancel every couple months. My advice is to keep your credit card debt as low as possible, because it is much like they want to get you overextended and paying the monthly minimum. Good for the consumers! Credit cards are pretty much a necessary evil these days, unfortunately. AOL will try to give you free months if/when you cancel, they are another place that really doesn’t want to see you go.

On June 5, 2003 eBay fired off a letter to Google to stop allowing searchers to use “ebay” and other trademarked names in their Google Adwords campaigns.

In other news, Google is facing heavyweight challenges from other search engines. It’s sort of poetic justice for them because they were ignored for so long by the “big” search engines. Perhaps this is a lesson in never underestimating competition. Always strive to improve and excel at business. Never stand still.

And I concur with Jeremy the Google Page Rank is still broken. Time for somebody to put a fresh quarter or two in the machine.