Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

skooma512 posted:

Best Buys PC games section is literally mostly game codes now that I think of it

My store has literally five games, two of which are MMO expansions, two are big AAA fall releases, and the third is a dead game that will never sell but I guess they have the space so why not.

The spot for gift cards and codes for varying online games and vendors has several times more space dedicated to it.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2018 22:07

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:04

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

Paradoxish posted:

Wasn't this from before they went to their absurdly popular all day breakfast menu? Plus, I don't think bc's point was really that McDonald's can't fail ever.

I'm kinda shocked that worked, but then again I haven't really eaten breakfast at McDonald's in like over a decade. I just remember subpar pancakes and weird eggs from the few times I went as a kid. The sausage biscuits were alright, but nothing I'd be thrilled to hear was being offered all-day.

# ¿ May 6, 2018 06:12

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

BarbarianElephant posted:

Playing sport *is* better than watching sports. I don't really like either, but at least actually playing sports gets your blood pumping. Watching other people get fit is about as much point as watching someone else eat a salad.

And yet watching sports is nonetheless a billion-dollar industry, so the point still stands. To the point where sportswatching is so ingrained in our culture that people have been using it as a medium for protest. So, regardless of how much more fun playing sports/video games are, watching them be played isn�t really that strange.

Although I admit I don�t �get� twitch when YouTube can provide curated content that just shows off the weird or skilled moments. I imagine for a lot of people streams are just background noise.

Pants Donkey fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Jul 9, 2018

# ¿ Jul 9, 2018 05:50

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

JustJeff88 posted:

I'm not surprised when this happens anywhere, not just Best Buy. The staff, and these days often the management as well, are paid sub-living wages with few to no benefits and minimal to no commissions/incentives, so why are they going to care if you get an "undeserved" discount? Companies don't pay their employees enough to show them that they matter, so the employees work like they don't matter. You reap what you sow.

It all depends on the manager. Prices matches require their approval, and some just assume the employee checked it and sign off on it without question. This is especially true if it�s busy or they�re personally busy and want to get back to whatever they were doing. Others will double check without fail.

And price-matching has a tracked metric, so if a store is getting too high then everyone is forced to be anal about it for however many weeks. And it�s also individually tracked per employee, so try not to be too much of a dick about it if a regular associate tells you no.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2018 07:19

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

Liquid Communism posted:

Amazon is terrible for two important points. Firstly, deciding if something is going to be too small/fragile for a kid. Secondly, avoiding even shoddier knockoffs.

Aren�t toy reviews a huge YouTube thing right now? Or is that more because kids wanna see toys and less parents researching?

# ¿ Jul 30, 2018 03:19

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

Wait, I thought it was toy reviews. Is it just...unboxing videos of toys?

# ¿ Jul 30, 2018 05:37

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

JustJeff88 posted:

I am utterly convinced that, if there were massive retail strikes (like there should be) in the US and/or the UK, that public opinion would totally be against the workers and that the corps would be easily able to undermine them in the media. People have been conditioned to look down on service staff and that they deserve the miserable wages that they are paid despite the fact that they are absolutely necessary to the function of an economy. People would be inconvenienced by picket lines and longer waits or even no service at all and would blame the workers despite them obviously being the exploited party.

There is nothing that capitalists fear more than the proles working together in numbers; good thing for them that people are too stupid, petty and selfish to do so.

It's also worth noting that people living on the scraps provided by jobs like Walmart probably can't afford to stay out of work for a protracted period, even if subsidized by the union.. Meanwhile, Walmart has shown that they will kill short-term profits if it means putting a union's head on a pike as a warning to their serfdom. If Walmart doesn't just outright go scorched earth and closed down the offending store, they can easily outlast their workers in a strike situation.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2018 17:45

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

I remember needing work shoes, and since I�d been out of work for a few months I was still behind on bills. So my only choice was like a $20 pair of Walmart shoes that lasted me six months, and they only looked decent for maybe half of that duration.

I know it�s Cracked and all, but that old article on how capitalism is designed to keep you poor was dead-on.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2019 07:32

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:

Bestbuy on the otherhand has been turning around their operations because of their new CEO. a former hotel mogul, they pivoted towards service over all to retain customers.

Expect Best Buy to be in trouble in the next few years or so, as they've decided the ship has been righted and they're going back to MAKE NUMBER BIG. Also, Joly is out as of last June, but I'm not going to entirely lay the issues at his successor's feet since the wheels were turning well before she stepped up. So they're starting to cut costs by loving over employees, and we know how that goes. Morale is at an all-time low; it's crazy.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2019 01:28

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

This summer alone they have:

-Cut all supervisor positions. These are basically the department leaders that report to a larger manager that oversees multiple departments. Gone. This means manager are far more overworked, but more on that in a second.

-Killed a bunch of VPL positions. These are positions whose pay is covered by whichever brand the position is for, so a Samsung person in Home Theater deals exclusively deals with Samsung TVs. These aren't being directly cut so much as companies are withdrawing support since managers absolutely do not respect the rules set for VPLs. The agreement is that you're supposed to focus on selling their poo poo, so no closing, no going to frontlanes when the lines get back-up, and no hopping over to other departments. While poo poo happens and sometimes you have to bend the rules, the positions were always just treated as normal employees and it was normally a fight to avoid closing. At one point last year they even forced Best Buy to hide our sales numbers so we'd loving focus on selling what they paid us to sell, instead of having employees jumping elsewhere to hit goals. Oh and frequently your sales goals were the same as someone else in your department but without any limitations on what could be sold. So companies have slowly said "gently caress it, we out" and dissolved those spots. Only places where you are 100% going to be in your department all day still have VPLs, mainly Mobile Phones and Home Theater.

-Cut Bonuses. Last year, you got a bonus if the store hit monthly rev targets, and the higher over target the store was, the more you stood to gain. Now bonuses are quarterly and demand you hit rev AND profit goals for the whole quarter. So if you fail to hit profit you get poo poo for three months, even if two of those months were great and hitting JUST profit lead to a bonus that was equal to a monthly bonus. Also some departments had double bonus because they had "complex sales", which was kinda bullshit because it's all complex but it's gone now.

-Lot of pay grades drops. These weren't pay drops, but it did mean the maximum pay you could get was suddenly lowered. Better than the people in lower rev bands, who sometimes lost the position entirely.

-Goals insanity. The numbers you had to do were insane. The hourly rev targets I had this year were on-par with the holiday season goal I had just a year ago. This is on top of increasing pressure for the stupid geek squad annual subscription alongside loving credit cards. My department had a subscription goal for 2019 of 10 a month, not one of us hit that until July, and the guy who did that didn't even get the highest score for his monthly review. We were number one in the company for our department.

-Absurd department restructuring. The Networking and Mobile departments got merged with Video Games, Digital Cameras, Toys, Stereos, and I think PC gaming equipment. And now everyone who was in those positions has to train for the rest. Hate doing mobile phones? Too bad. Now you have to memorize the whole process and all the bullshit of each carrier. And close the whole loving thing too. And remember when I said managers are overworked? ONE manager oversees this mess. And without a sup for Mobile Phones, a department that can easily occupy two leaders for an entire day. I hear my old manager dropped down to part time on doctor's orders due to blood pressure. Yes, the job was literally killing him. Fail to meet credit card quotas as the MOD, and you'll get a phone call from the GM screaming for an explanation.

So yeah, the company got itself back together by emphasizing on the one advantage it has over Amazon, and that's shopping experience. Helping old people find charging cables or giving someone an idea of what router is best for their needs makes Best Buy worth it over online, especially when they aggressively price match Amazon and include two-day ship at no extra charge if the order is large enough. But that's going to change when you decide to gently caress over your people just to squeeze enough nickels to keep shareholders happy, and now your shopping experience has gone to poo poo because you're perpetually training employees and can't form the long-term customer relationships you desire because you don't have long-term goddamn employees. The turnover is already crazy.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2019 03:38

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

Companies are myopic as hell and live in the current quarter. They only care about turning things around when there is no other choice, and even then they may continue to try and do stupid poo poo and by then its too late. They�ll care again when they realize ratfucking their employees has made them �Amazon but you�re harangued by overworked college students to get credit cards and $200 subscriptions� at which the cycle continues until the company fails to right the ship in time and becomes another skull on Bezos�s mantle.

Also, Geek Squad is kind of a different beast, and the other reason why Best Buy didn�t totally die off 10 years ago. They are paid better but recently they added iPhone repairs and I hear they were not prepared for the crush of old people.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2019 06:01

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

Pakistani Brad Pitt posted:

Lol, just stay on through the holidays, right?

Nothing says holidays like going into work at 5pm on Thanksgiving.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2019 20:20

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

Pillowpants posted:

So, that sucks but it�s not new. I worked there 04-10 and left right as they decided to restructure just the way you described. Weird that they reversed it.

i�m not saying it�s new, but that the company has recovered from the brink by focusing on customer experience, and now want to pinch pennies by loving with that.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2019 23:45

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

FilthyImp posted:

Amazon is trying this weird integrated service thing where not only can you get people to install your Ring Doorbell and hook up your 85" OLED screen, but also pay people to clean your house.

I'm not really sure if they contract with Taskrabbit or wat but it's an interesting try.

It�s the one advantage retail has. You can go to Best Buy and get your laptop fixed or a radio installed, and hey may as well browse around, right? Since Amazon is already a leader in smart home, may as well jump into that arena too since there�s plenty of retirees that will drop $100 to install their Alexas.

Yes, that is how much it costs to set one up. Seriously. Big margins there.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2019 02:59

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

JustJeff88 posted:

Years ago, I was at a Best Buy where a lady had just bought a computer and also some extra RAM for it. I will actually agree that buying the RAM was a good idea because the computer didn't have much, but they tried to get $60 from her (keep in mind that this was nearly 20 years ago) to install it. This was back when I could occasionally build my own rig, and I was so offended by this ludicrous sum that I offered to do it for her for free. The loving supervisor twat looked at me with so much hate that I honestly thought that he was going to attack me.

We went outside where we set the tower on a bench, popped the cover off and put in the RAM. I told her to call me if she had any trouble, and I never heard from her again. I assume that all was well.

Oh yeah, I got yelled at for helping people set up their Fitbits and Apple Watches.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2019 05:33

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

The amount of people that think free wifi exists is depressing.

I mean, it should be, but so many people asking if a router will give them free internet. Or paying the same monthly fee as you would an ISP to get maybe 10 GB a month on a lovely hotspot.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2019 04:29

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:04

Pants Donkey: Nov 13, 2011

Food waste at walmart is downright criminal. I threw away literal tons of bananas, watermelons, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins because of either extremely limited foresight (duh let�s start to sell Halloween pumpkins in late August) or petty inter-company politics (regional manager gives us a literal ton or so of sweet potatoes...the last week of October so they�re all rotting before Thanksgiving and we have shrink out the rear end, thus making his store look good).

# ¿ Dec 27, 2019 00:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union