repackaging/restocking fees

[IDoDis]

Best buy charges a restocking fee of 15%, not $25.

As of yesterday, Best Buy no longer charges a restocking fee except on special orders.

http://www.bby.com/2010/12/17/statement/

 

[bicker]

Strangely, that statement refers folks to the regular Best Buy website... on which there is a holiday return policy, which refers to their standard return policy for restocking fee details, which appears to be unchanged.

 

[Lewisc]

The restocking fee for electronics is now missing from the website but this langauges is there:

Best Buy Discretion

Best Buy reserves the right to deny any return.

Some tests may use a different set of policies. When a different policy is in effect, you will be informed of those differences prior to purchase.

I assume that's a typo and should read some stores.

That suggests some stores (parts of the country) may still have the restocking fee.

People were returning electronic items. BB was selling them with an open box discount. The original customer was sending a relative to repurchase the item from the open box table.

 

[bicker]

I found this:

Restocking Fee

A 25% restocking fee applies to Special Order Products, including appliances, unless you are a Reward Zone Program Premier Silver member, the item is defective, or the fee is prohibited by law.

Here:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Help-To...es/pcmcat204400050025.c?id=pcmcat204400050025

That seems to support the contention that the policy has changed.

 

[Lewisc]

Right, but the section I quoted suggests different stores, probably different parts of the country, could still have a restocking fee.

 

[AmandaNied]

I remember returning a sweater to Express- i had the reciept. I had worn it and I broke out in a rash wherever the sweater had touched my skin. The clerk basically told me I should have been more prepared and brought a different shirt to work because now she has to throw this sweater out because it was worn. She refunded my money, but I can honestly say I have never shopped there again.

 

[SanFranciscan]

Screaming and hollering and pitching a fit with some cashier while you know that you would never go to the executive office, where the policies are made, behaving like that just makes the store employees hope that you mean it when you say that you will never shop there again.

The people who would have us arrested if we entered their executive suites and got irate, really don't care about a customer's personal problems. They want their flunkies to get rid of complainers without losing any of the company's money in the process. They know that disgruntled customers get passed around pretty evenly from business to business.

 

[bicker]

They know that disgruntled customers get passed around pretty evenly from business to business.

Good point. There is a new calculus, in the consumer marketplace, that finally acknowledges and factors-in that not every customer is worth the same, and indeed not every customer is worth having.

The clearest example of this I remember from recent years were the cell phone companies, with regard to customers with older cell phones, who were getting substantially inferior service to start with, just because of the limitations of their cell phone's technology. At one point, the cell phone companies started (all) charging these customers significantly more than they were charging their customers with newer technology cell phones. A double whammy: Inferior service, and higher prices. And that wasn't a mistake. These companies were better off losing those customers, for several reasons.