Best Buy profits surge 52% in twisted CompUSA schadenfreude

Like a boot to CompUSA's hemorrhaging gut, Best Buy just announced a 52-percent jump in third quarter profits. The nation's consumer electronics giant received a favorable bump in sales due to a calendar fluke which plopped an extra week of post-Thanksgiving shopping in Q3. Gains that will likely be given back in the shorter Q4 holiday season. Still, with international sales (Canada and China) up 32%, Best Buy is looking solid to close the year ahead of analyst expectations. That should translate to more Geek Squad jobs for whatever that's worth.

[opus @ Dec 19th 2007 8:34AM]

Gotta love the Geek Squad...saved my life a few times.

[Speddy @ Dec 19th 2007 8:40AM]

Really? That was you in those shower phone-cam pix? And the files they copied and posted to a bittorrent were yours as well? And you actually paid someone $259 to remove spyware?

[jus10 @ Dec 19th 2007 8:42AM]

*look of pure incredulity, shock and horror*

“Keep my machines away from that man.”

[Ghen @ Dec 19th 2007 8:46AM]

I fix alot of geek squad networking issues. They really only know how to google error codes, which you could have done but oh well.

[llamastorm @ Dec 19th 2007 9:09AM]

There's also the big Geek Squad piracy find from a while back. Apparently they were using the same "repair" software on all of their computers and never paid for any of it.

Ironic, yes?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/13/1958231&from=rss

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/05/geek_squad_caug.html

[tom @ Dec 19th 2007 9:11AM]

those Geek Squad in my area are idiots. They know nothing! which piss me off, they refuse to answer any general question without asking "do you have extended warranty?" If not, bring it to manufacturer.

I love price matching against bestbuy when you see the CSR's face when they are getting owned

[Jon Doe @ Dec 19th 2007 10:31AM]

I wish people would STFU about the geek squad. They have a crap load of employees. Obviously you are going to have a few stinkers. By and large though the have some pretty good techs. The camera phone and data theft issues are isolated issues. Hell you can have that shit happen anytime you have someone come to your house. Case in point I had a friend who had her laptop stolen when someone came out to her house to replace her water heater. Does that mean the entire company is for shit? No.
Geek Squad does what it does pretty well. If they should be criticized about anything it should be for not weeding out the people who don't have a damn clue

[marcus @ Dec 19th 2007 2:00PM]

It wouldn't bother me if BB went belly-up, there are better choices out there.

BTW, I love the anti-BB sentiment going on in the thread right now.

Engadget: Come for the toys, stay for the comments!

[Kamokazi @ Dec 19th 2007 8:37AM]

Why couldn't Best Buy have shut down instead of CompUSA? Lesser of two evils IMHO.

[Speddy @ Dec 19th 2007 8:40AM]

Amen brother. Amen.

[Jon Doe @ Dec 19th 2007 10:32AM]

Ummm NO.

[Tommy @ Dec 19th 2007 8:41AM]

Sweet. Those 2.85 shares I got suckered into buying through their Employee Stock Purchase plan during my 1 year employment there just made me a whole $.40. Maybe next time the check they mail for dividends will be worth more than the stamp.

[good PR @ Dec 19th 2007 8:40AM]

Hey I'm getting an internship through Best Buy, hopefully I can get a job afterwards with this good news :)

[kevjohn @ Dec 19th 2007 9:24AM]

Such big dreams. Keep shooting for the stars!

[Jon Doe @ Dec 19th 2007 10:33AM]

@ kevjohn

Umm you do realize he might be talking their corp campus in Bloomington, MN right? I'd give my left nut to work there.

[DeathFromAbove @ Dec 19th 2007 12:28PM]

So you're getting coffee for the guy that restocks the Halo 3 display?

[jd @ Dec 19th 2007 8:40AM]

what's wrong with circuit city? it does exactly the same thing best buy does just smaller company, right?

[Josef @ Dec 19th 2007 8:42AM]

This is because CompUSA's idea of a "liquidiation sale" is 'Everything up to 20%' off. They can't even liquidate cheaper than newegg.

[Jonathan Keim @ Dec 19th 2007 8:43AM]

Going to make BestBuy's 2008 figure suck.

Better get margin on my account so I can short them sometime in Oct. :-)

[llamastorm @ Dec 19th 2007 9:06AM]

I've been boycotting best buy and largely using Amazon.

Let's see... there's the continuous "expanded warranty" fraud, losing rebates, being rather argumentative on returns, overpriced CDs, uninformed personnel, limited computer gear inventory, and jacking up the prices of simple things like ethernet cables to $30...

What's not to love?

Not only does using online merchants save gas, I can find a $15 ethernet cable for $8. Try doing that at Best Buy...

[Rynth @ Dec 19th 2007 9:29AM]

What? I don't know where you shop, but I can buy a 15 Metre (Yes, thats how its spelt over here) ethernet cable for 99p (roughly $1.98).

I'd try shopping around a bit more if I were you.

[bbb3108 @ Dec 19th 2007 12:33PM]

This is no joke, almost all major chains in USA that sell computer equipment jack up the cable prices. It's partially a reaction to the low profit margins on more expensive computer equipment, like monitors and CPUs.

You can still buy a spool of 100 yards of Cat5 cable for $80 bucks (off the web), but then you need the crimpers and all that. So other than building them yourself or ordering off the internet at a place like cables4less.com, getting them in stores is a rip-off! But sometimes necessary.

[Sean @ Dec 19th 2007 9:08AM]

Best Buy's prices are almost as bad as their service. I'll grant that quality of employees must vary from place to place, but they tout this Geek Squad as being superior and I've yet to fins anyone in one of their stores who can competently answer questions that fall outside of their training material speeches.

[Bizam! @ Dec 19th 2007 9:15AM]

Ok, you've all got to admit that CompUSA has mostly out-of-date hardware and an extremely limited selection at that. Not to mention the fact that they never have any idea what you're talking about if you've got a question.

If you need to pick up a random connector or cable, yeah it's fine, but Best Buy just has them legitimately beat.

[Bob P. @ Dec 19th 2007 9:27AM]

I'd never buy computer hardware from either of the two. I buy all computer hardware online. newegg is easily one of the best. Not always the cheapest, but has the best price/service ratio. pricewatch.com rocks.

I bought a bunch of stuff from Compusa when it went out of business here. Even on the final days when their stuff was marked down 60-70% I was still finding items that you could get on the web cheaper. Did get some good deals though. Bought 5 Autocad LT's for $270 and turned around and sold them on ebay for $700

[Jason @ Dec 19th 2007 9:29AM]

I posted this elsewhere recently, but I will repeat it here. Yes, most big box retailers jack up the prices on accessories. However, that is how they keep the cost of the core items down, profit margins on TV's, laptops and PC's are razor thin, and relying on that profit margin would result in the companies not being viable in the long term.

Face it, if you want cheap core items, then they have to make up the operating costs and show a profit to the shareholders somewhere. People like us, yes we will shop online and around for items like cables, and accessories, but I will continue to use big box stores for core items, like my TV, and then go get whatever else I need (HDMI cables, S3 Tivo etc) elsewhere.

[Tommy @ Dec 19th 2007 10:10AM]

Being a former part time employee of Best Buy, I was allowed to get the great Best Buy Employee Discount, which was cost plus 5%. The managers actually trained me using that as a measure for which items had more margin. TV's are actually not razor thin margins as a whole. The ones on sale are probably close to cost, but if you buy one at the "every day 'low' price" its probably 20-25% margin for Best Buy. I bought a Sony TV in 2004 when I worked there for about 25% off the customer price.

Computers Best Buy makes very little on (Maybe 10%), and they make nothing on Gaming consoles (The hardware price is fixed by Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc.) but they make 25-30% on software games and even more on accessories.

You'll probably always be able to get a better price online for anything at the store, but for some smaller items including cables, it might just be easier to pay the $20 and get it right away then to pay $8, plus $5 for shipping and wait a week.

[Sporkinum @ Dec 19th 2007 9:30AM]

I prefer the Nerd Herd. They have those cool little electric Toyotas they drive around in.

[Andrew @ Jan 1st 2008 2:01AM]

+1

[riggs @ Dec 19th 2007 9:36AM]

best buy does NOT have beatiful looking girls like the one in the pic. :(

[riggs @ Dec 19th 2007 9:36AM]

beautiful* :( :(

[cabul @ Dec 19th 2007 9:57AM]

I spend much of my time fixing Geek Squad mistakes too. It is actually a fairly lucrative business. The only downside is that being a small company, it takes longer for people to hear about us. The upside is that once they do, we get swamped and the only way we lose them is if Best Buy gives them a $1000 gift card to woo them away....

[Tony C @ Dec 19th 2007 10:35AM]

Wow. I did *not* know that Best Buy owned SpeakEasy -- they bought them out back in April of this year!

[John B @ Dec 19th 2007 10:48AM]

Okay, what the hell is with all of the Best Buy hatred? Mention BB on Engadget and you can feel the venom seeping out of the monitor.

I don't know about anyone else, but Best Buy is a-OK in my book. I will not purchase accessories there unless I absolutely have to because of their outrageous markups, but when it comes to software, games, and home electronics I've had no problems.

A few months ago I purchased a new refrigerator from BB. It was delivered right on time. The truck was scheduled between 4 PM and 6 PM, and they arrived at no later than 4:05 PM. I didn't sign anything until it was installed, turned on, and everything seemed to be working. No problems at all.

I recently purchased a 47" LCD TV from BB. The guy that I spoke with was very knowledgeable and took a good half-hour of time with me to go over DLP, LCD, plasma, projectors, lamp replacement, myths of each of the different types of displays -- this guy knew his stuff. The delivery truck was there within 10 minutes of the start of its window and as before nothing was signed until it was up, the components were connected, and a DVD was thrown in to make sure that all was well. Again, no problems at all.

Also, I got not one but TWO price matches with that TV after I bought it, which ended up with a total refund of $300.

Will I ever use Geek Squad? F**k, no. Will I ever buy PCs, hard drives, or other outrageously priced components from then? Absolutely not unless it's an emergency. Otherwise, NewEgg all the way. Am I pissed about raising the Reward Zone rewards from 200 points to 500 points for $10? Hell, yes. Best Buy is not perfect in any way. They definitely have their flaws.

But my experience with the three stores that I regularly go to have been great. Either I'm just really lucky in that arena or the BB hatred I see on Engadget is just knee-jerk reactionism. And, no, I'm a Solaris consultant by profession, not a Best Buy employee, thankyouverymuch.

[Nicole @ Dec 19th 2007 12:30PM]

Thank you for taking the time to mention some GOOD experiences. I used to work for BBY, and left on good terms only because of personal reasons. By the way, it is easily one of the best retail companies in the country to work for, and believe it or not, there is room for advancement and great benefits.

Guess what? They have hundreds of thousands of employees. Certainly some of them are going to be waste of life--the same is true in any big company, look around at your co-workers. And certainly there is a mark-up on some items, like accessories and whatnot. How else do you expect them to stay in business? And believe it or not, they provide a great service for lots of people--not everyone is as tech-savvy as the readers here, will you please consider that for them, going to a place where they can get (*usually*, like i said, always a few bad eggs) helpful people to get them what they need. Other people are WILLING to pay more for good service and convenience, believe it or not. Not everyone is going to be computer-literate enough to shop around for the lowest price and not end up with a peice of shit computer or TV, for example. I still send my dad to BBY so they can help him find what he needs and help him out since I moved away and can't spend hours doing it anymore--they're paid to do that.

Yes, we all understand that most people at this website have very little use for Best Buy. But that doesn't mean that it's a terrible company and isn't any use to anyone, or that there aren't good people who work there. A company is there to do best by its employees, its customers, AND ITS STOCKHOLDERS, which means it needs to make a profit to survive. Give them a break, unless you have a business model that is going to do better than the at what they excel at, in which case, go do it. Best of luck to you.

[Bombaclaat @ Dec 19th 2007 2:34PM]

Nicole, Yes there may be a few bad eggs, but what has the company done to change its image? Nothing. Outrageous prices and bad service. Give me a break, cause i am trying to get value/price for my money. Do that and I will keep coming back. (I have spent over $7000 at newegg.)

[Nicole @ Dec 19th 2007 3:37PM]

Bombaclaat,
Thing is, as far as I can tell, this "image" is really only that pervasive among customers who do shop around online and already know what they're looking at and talking about, and the relatively small customers who have, regrettably, have bad experiences with customer service. As far as those (and bestbuysux.com types), do you know how many times I had customers who wanted some sort of insane exception to the rules, like returning a TV they bought three years ago without any sign of a receipt in our computer system, rant and rave and yell about how terrible we are, and then come shopping the next week. What has Best Buy done to improve its image? You should have seen the changes they made after the privacy issues came up. Ask the thousands of community organizations that have received volunteer time and money from Best Buy. Ask United Way about one of its biggest contributors. Ask the employees that enjoy their jobs, and the part time college kids who actually are eligible for profit sharing and a great 401K program that kicks in immediately. Best Buy has a customer feedback website you can access from the info on the bottem of your receipt---the managers regularly call back the customers who register complaints to try and resolve the issue. You can't make everyone happy.

Listen, I don't think Best Buy is the best thing ever, and I AGREE that most people on this website wouldn't benefit from shopping there. But I really don't think you give them enough credit for providing a service to customers who need it, AND turning a respectable profit for their shareholders at the same time. Balancing those goals is not that easy. For a large corporation, I think they do a good job of at least attempting to do so.

[Jonathan-DBOSS @ Dec 19th 2007 10:56AM]

Leechers...
(RIP COMPUSA)

[Maddnyss @ Dec 19th 2007 2:32PM]

Maaaaan. F__K the GEEK SQUAD. They are RIP-OFF ARTISTS. They don't know shit! NEVER go to them. They will steal your money and not fix a thing. Most of them have no clue whats going on inside computer. BE WARNED!!!

[michaelportent @ Dec 19th 2007 12:21PM]

Best Buy is the WalMart of Electronics, simply put. For some things, like CD-Rs or little Flash Drives, that I believe I should be able to acquire cheaply, I'll think about shopping there. Most everything else, I'll take my business elsewhere (namely, online).

Frankly though, their latest debacle for me was selling me out from under my copy of Bioshock - a game that I had been looking forward to for months and was a birthday present from my wife. I'm, at least, never buying games there again.

[Loban @ Dec 19th 2007 12:26PM]

I only buy in a brick and mortar store if I have to. For most electronics, it's online shopping for me.

And geek squad is rather useless to me. I can fix my own computer thank you. I don't need geek squad to screw it up for me.

[Killakai @ Dec 19th 2007 1:11PM]

I bought my first creative zen micro at best buy and purchased the warranty. When it died, I walked into bestbuy and walked out with a newer device (microphoto), with more memory, more features, at a cheaper price and still had enough to buy the warranty again. Then, when that died, I bought the still cheaper, zen v plus, flash based player, plus a new warranty again, and some money left ovr to get a case for my camera. I originally spent a little over 200 bucks, and almost 3 years later, I'm still doing good off of that same purchase. With Bestbuy I spent the best $200 dollars of my life (if you exclude the strip club in atlanta).

BUt of course people here are more computer savvy and can get things cheaper, but I wouldn't buy a flat screen over the internet, some things you want to walk into a store to purchase.

[PhysicalEd @ Dec 19th 2007 12:55PM]

Well, I don't know how CompUSA expected to compete by closing most of their stores in the first place. They closed every store in the Boston area (not a big computer market at all I'm sure), while Best Buy opened new stores recently. So CompUSA goes out of business and Best Buy grows, just what one would expect.

Thank heavens we still have MicroCenter for our "gotta have it now" computer needs. I'll cry if they ever close...

[jeicrash @ Dec 19th 2007 1:21PM]

Yipee, nothing like half witted "geek-wanna-be" getting paid minimum wage, messing up other peoples computers and making someone else huge bucks.

Geek Squad is a joke. And the best buy stores in my area look like they where thrown together in 10 minutes, you can't even get their carts through the isles...alwel.

[toyotaboy @ Dec 19th 2007 1:37PM]

Hmm.. compusa closes half it's stores, profits are down 50%. Compusa goes bankrupt, best buy's sales increase 50% (I'll be circuit city's sales are also up 50%). Who's the genius that releases these statistics?

[Mark Leach @ Dec 19th 2007 2:11PM]

Why the fuck did you mention that shit hole known as canada?

[Bombaclaat @ Dec 19th 2007 2:26PM]

Best buy's thanksgiving sales was shite. It was all marketing and people caught up in the hype of the season. For example, they had a bluetooth headset for $14.00 and it was being sold at newegg for $5.00. People check the web before you buy something there. (use your mobile or the in store demo computers to do it).

[Bombaclaat @ Dec 19th 2007 2:36PM]

In soviet Russia the BEST, BUY's you.

[Mr. Peabody @ Dec 20th 2007 12:30AM]

Ha, the funny thing is.. obviously.. people who get Geek Squad service to their house don't know how to even turn on their computers. Think about this... Customer A ruins computer by deleting important system files, Geek Squad worker B restores computer and warns Customer A to not delete any files that he shouldn't, Customer A then goes a week without doing so, but then the second week comes around and he deleted an important Windows system file. Customer A then proceeds to complain that Geek Squad did not fix their computer and gets pissed off. Customer A then calls Working-From-Home-"Technician" to do the same exact thing that Geek Squad B did. Working-From-Home-"Technician" logs into Engadget.com and mocks Best Buy's Geek Squad for not fixing the problem that was actually fixed but Customer A was too ignorant not to cause again.

I actually work in the computer section at Best Buy, and obviously people who come into Best Buy to buy computers don't really know about computers, even if they say they do. I just snicker and continue to show them what we sell and offer. Best Buy is obviously not catering to "tech" nerds like people who post here on Engadget. Best Buy is there to service Grandma's, Grandpa's, working parents who don't want to even think about going online to order a part. They come in because it is convenient.

Complaints about pricing in Best Buy for computer components falls on deaf ears. That's why we don't carry obscure cabling or components in the stores. And btw, Geek Squad workers don't make minimum wage, they are actually decently paid for what they do. 16 dollars an hour is about average for a Geek Squad worker.

Geek Squad is there for Best Buy to develop a relationship for lifetime customers, not to answer the most obscure questions somebody can possibly come up with. Even in the computer department I get calls like "Hey man, my computer is not turnin on. I don't know why." I say "Well sir, go ahead and bring your computer in so we can take a look at it. You could have a bad hard drive, a faulty powersupply, motherboard could have gone out. There is no way for me to tell over the phone." He responds "Well can't I talk to someone who would know?"

That's the type of customer Best Buy is there for.

[Galley @ Dec 20th 2007 9:41AM]

It must've been all those accessories they sell for higher than MSRP.