Best Buy GCU is being Discontinued?

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Xellos2099 said:
The thing is hhgreg fail because they focus on appliances. I mean really, how often do any of us go shop for appliance
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They sold electronics too, but you aren't wrong. It's difficult for a store of that size to focus on selling appliances and electronics when that market is dominated by places like Best Buy, Lowes, Home Depot, and Menards. Also, no one enjoys buying new appliances, no matter how many screens they throw on them!

 
I mean, in a sense, for games and movie you do not wait till they are broken to buy a new one.  For high electronic and appliances, the only time you buy them is usually when they broke, which can take anywhere between 5-15 years

 
jrr6415sun said:
just because they're not losing money now doesn't mean you should screw them. Just be happy they gave you deals in the past. I buy from whatever store is cheapest. I have no loyalty to one store over another, and I'm not going to hate a store just because they want to stop losses.
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Who said I was doing it to screw them? The only reason I shopped there in the last few years was BECAUSE of GCU. Now that it's gone, I have no reason to even pay attention to Best Buy. I didn't buy much from them before GCU and I won't now. MAYBE I will at Black Friday or something, but otherwise, they never have good deals anyway. I'm not doing it to "screw them," though I am pissed at them for dropping this program, especially with no warning or replacement of any kind. When I said "screw them" I meant screw them for treating customers this way. They didn't even have the decency to send a letter or an email about it. They just quietly dropped it and only said anything because of the backlash. If this is how Best Buy wants to treat its customers, then as I said before, they can die a slow death. But I'm not "not" shopping there to hurt them. I'm not shopping there now because I no longer have a reason to. That's all. Besides, it's really none of your business how I shop or how I feel about companies. I respect your position on the matter, please do the same for me.

 
These types of subscription-based discount programs rely on the model that the vast majority of people getting aggregate discounts that’s below the price of membership. It’s pretty much simple arithmetic and it just didn’t work. You people clearly weren’t picking up enough candy and full priced movies while you were checking out to display any kind of downstream impact.
 
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The people saying best buy is dying a slow death or in a death spiral...that is based on what exactly? When Hubert took over, best buy stock was what, 16 bucks a share? Now it's almost 80. By most measures they're killing it. Now you can make the reasonable case the market as a whole is overvalued but then so are their competitors.

I don't normally pay attention to this stuff and was just curious how people are coming to these conclusions. It doesn't seem to me they need loss leaders and gimmicks like GCU to "get people in the door" anymore based on their recent history financials.

I love GCU and am good into 2020 but the reality is we are no longer in a brutal recession, the economy is rolling, and one would expect that good deals from retailers(the ones that aren't already circling the drain from incurring too much debt during the recession) in general are gonna be in short supply for the foreseeable future. This is the time to tackle those backlogs I think
 
if only cheapy could get his hand on the infinity gauntlet. he'll undo bestbuy's GCU change with a snap of his finger and will save all us CAG minions from the impending day1 starvation plague.

 
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Man, this really stinks. First, BB closed the store that was relatively close to my house (25 minutes) so I had to start going to the next closest store which is over an hour away. Now this?

Oh well. It was a great service and I certainly got a lot out of it. I am surprised they are churning out profits given that they are beginning to get rid of so many departments - music, games, etc. I guess it helps that electronics are complete and total trash and they can sell you a new HDTV every other year.

As others have said, I have no reason to go there anymore. I am sure they will lose a lot of consumers but some number cruncher thinks the benefits outweigh the loss of game sales. It's bizarre to see how quickly things are going downhill for the consumer. Companies are now just blatantly instituting an anti-consumer focused mentality - raising membership fees, getting rid of memberships, and/or circle-jerking their customers to no end.

 
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So is anyone else still having problems with the site not showing the 20% off still?  My Membership is good through 2019 so that shouldn't be an issue.  I have a 10% off coupon for my Bday that ends on 5-31 so I was hoping to pick up Battle Chasers.  Sadly I cannot pick it up in store though or I would just run up there and get it.

 
wratih9 said:
So is anyone else still having problems with the site not showing the 20% off still? My Membership is good through 2019 so that shouldn't be an issue. I have a 10% off coupon for my Bday that ends on 5-31 so I was hoping to pick up Battle Chasers. Sadly I cannot pick it up in store though or I would just run up there and get it.
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just tried, works fine with me

 
Davivascaino said:
just tried, works fine with me
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Does it show the discount before checkout like normal? I wonder if it's simply not letting me double stack the discount and defaults to the B-day coupon.

Thanks

Edit: Nevermind, that was the case. I removed the B-day coupon and the other showed up. I guess I'll have to use the coupon on something else.

 
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Sigma said:
GCU was originally $120 for 2 years and even then it was a steal. I probably buy around 50 or so new games annually, give or take, and absolutely saved hundreds of dollars a year by having GCU. The thing with video games though is that they don't have much of a profit margin to begin with, usually around $12-$15 which Best Buy was eating with GCU and that's with new releases at full MSRP. When a game goes on sale they are already taking a loss on it and an additional 20% off when a large bulk of your sales are to GCU members I can imagine they were just taking a bath on a lot of video game sales.

Even after my GCU expires I will continue to buy games at Best Buy, but it won't be nearly as often and I definitely don't see myself spending thousands of dollars each year at Best Buy on video games. Gamestop is very close to my house so if I am going to buy a game without a discount I will do it there for the convenience and to get the 20% off I will stick with Amazon once GCU expires on me.
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The price changed from $120 to $60 to $30. I first hopped on board when it was $60. The change from $120 to $60 didn't surprise me but the $60 to $30 change did.

 
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DickDangus said:
3-5 years ago I'd run around posting things like "physical is objectively better so I'll never go all digital" and now I'm 100% digital with my gaming. And maybe physical still is objectively better in some cases, but I just don't care anymore. About anything!
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Same except I've had to break down on titles that have no physical release. Things like Salt and Sanctuary (which I 'think' got a physical release eventually?) were just too good to pass up but for the rest of game releases, I've stuck to physical 100%. For me it works fine because I stick to a game until I finish it and move on, but I can see why a lot of people would want it since disc swapping could start to suck.

 
I’ve never worked retail so don’t kill me if my questions make no sense.

I’ve heard that book stores eventually send copies of books that didn’t sell back to the publisher and it costs them nothing. Wouldn’t video games be able to work under the same model, so that there’s no real loss to Best Buy (other then store space) if a game didn’t sell? Why do they have to keep slashing MSRP on games, books don’t do that.

Of course borders folded and B&N is basically a Starbucks now, so I guess that model doesn’t work so great in the amazon world either.
 
voormis said:
As others have said, I have no reason to go there anymore. I am sure they will lose a lot of consumers but some number cruncher thinks the benefits outweigh the loss of game sales. It's bizarre to see how quickly things are going downhill for the consumer. Companies are now just blatantly instituting an anti-consumer focused mentality - raising membership fees, getting rid of memberships, and/or circle-jerking their customers to no end.
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That's quite a knee-jerk reaction to them simply halting new memberships to an old program. GCU is the best gaming deal in history. By all accounts, the company is doing well too, so there should be a replacement program up and running in time. There are three major players in the console industry all competing for our dollars, and there are a handful of retail giants that do the same thing. Competition drives sales and consumer-friendly policies. Video games have never been cheaper. We have bundles and digital sales all the time. There are insane black Friday discounts and amazon clearances. New releases also haven't gone up from $60 retail price in a dozen years. They should cost $76-85 by now just from inflation. Games are cheap as hell now, and there's never been a better time to be a video game buying consumer.

 
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Starcrest said:
I’ve never worked retail so don’t kill me if my questions make no sense.
I’ve heard that book stores eventually send copies of books that didn’t sell back to the publisher and it costs them nothing. Wouldn’t video games be able to work under the same model, so that there’s no real loss to Best Buy (other then store space) if a game didn’t sell? Why do they have to keep slashing MSRP on games, books don’t do that.
Of course borders folded and B&N is basically a Starbucks now, so I guess that model doesn’t work so great in the amazon world either.
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I'm not sure if it's the same for games, but when est buy announced they were discontinuing CD's this coming year, there was also speculation that Target was thinking the same, but were trying to rearrange their ordering first. As of then, they assumed inventory risk by ordering and paying for all physical CD's up front, but Target was trying to get it to where they would only pay upon actual sales numbers.

Not sure if anything came of it (we'll see if target discontinues CD's anytime soon), or if similar policies could be enacted for games.
 
Nothing371 said:
That's quite a knee-jerk reaction to them simply halting new memberships to an old program. GCU is the best gaming deal in history. By all accounts, the company is doing well too, so there should be a replacement program up and running in time. There are three major players in the console industry all competing for our dollars, and there are a handful of retail giants that do the same thing. Competition drives sales and consumer-friendly policies. Video games have never been cheaper. We have bundles and digital sales all the time. There are insane black Friday discounts and amazon clearances. New releases also haven't gone up from $60 retail price in a dozen years. They should cost $76-85 by now just from inflation. Games are cheap as hell now, and there's never been a better time to be a video game buying consumer.
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Well said. I don't know if Best Buy will bother revisiting GCU anytime soon though, if that were their plan then I would imagine they would just raise the price of GCU, which I personally don't think should have ever gotten to $30 price it was at.

I for one will continue to shop at Best Buy. My GCU is up on November 11th and I will continue to use it until then but after it expires I will just get my new day one release games from Amazon or Gamestop. I will still buy games at Best Buy during sales and when I have Reward Zone points to burn.



 
RabbiHick said:
I'm not sure if it's the same for games, but when est buy announced they were discontinuing CD's this coming year, there was also speculation that Target was thinking the same, but were trying to rearrange their ordering first. As of then, they assumed inventory risk by ordering and paying for all physical CD's up front, but Target was trying to get it to where they would only pay upon actual sales numbers.

Not sure if anything came of it (we'll see if target discontinues CD's anytime soon), or if similar policies could be enacted for games.
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My Dad loves buying CDs and complains about how Best Buy is doing away with them all the time. Music CDs are long dead and a lot of newer cars don't even have CD players in them. Anyone buying physical music nowadays is buying vinyl, but for the most part, a lot of us are using services like Spotify or Amazon Music Unlimited. Outside of vinyl as well CDs have never held much value outside collectors. When I worked for a store called Disc Replay we did away with CDs when I worked there and before we did we couldn't even give them away when we were selling most of them for $2-$3 each if not less.

Video games are in a much different situation. While digital sales are increasing everyday, physical sales aren't bad and I believe most people still buy physical over digital. Video games also hold a much higher resell value for a longer period of time and are more collectible than CDs.

Eventually, one day, we will probably see physical video game sales end and everything will be digital, but I don't think that day is anytime soon. It'll take the console manufacturers to release consoles without disc drives to really kill off physical video games.

 
Starcrest said:
I’ve never worked retail so don’t kill me if my questions make no sense.

I’ve heard that book stores eventually send copies of books that didn’t sell back to the publisher and it costs them nothing. Wouldn’t video games be able to work under the same model, so that there’s no real loss to Best Buy (other then store space) if a game didn’t sell? Why do they have to keep slashing MSRP on games, books don’t do that.

Of course borders folded and B&N is basically a Starbucks now, so I guess that model doesn’t work so great in the amazon world either.
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It's a different methodology for sales is the most likely answer, and I doubt it costs the book store "nothing". In all likelihood it's probably more like... Book store purchases X number of copies of a book up front and puts them on sale. Eventually they decide that 5 copies will never sell, and so they destroy and return to publisher (this is an important distinction - Any friend of mine who worked for a book store, they had to remove the front or back cover of the book/magazine/whatever before return) and are given a credit towards future orders rather than a refund. That book/magazine/whatever is then recycled by the publisher in bulk, for which I'm sure they get a credit/tax break/whatever.

There's likely much less of an avenue for Best Buy/Target/Amazon/Etc to return unsold copies for any kind of credit, because at that point what is the publisher/distributor supposed to do with those copies? Re-sell them at a lower cost to other retailers? What's the incentive there? They could just as well refuse to accept the return and keep the money they already received from the retailer, who then has to sell the product at a loss or otherwise trash it (for instance I know Target "donates" a lot of items to Goodwill - which they can then write off for taxes)

 
lionheart059 said:
It's a different methodology for sales is the most likely answer, and I doubt it costs the book store "nothing". In all likelihood it's probably more like... Book store purchases X number of copies of a book up front and puts them on sale. Eventually they decide that 5 copies will never sell, and so they destroy and return to publisher (this is an important distinction - Any friend of mine who worked for a book store, they had to remove the front or back cover of the book/magazine/whatever before return) and are given a credit towards future orders rather than a refund. That book/magazine/whatever is then recycled by the publisher in bulk, for which I'm sure they get a credit/tax break/whatever.

There's likely much less of an avenue for Best Buy/Target/Amazon/Etc to return unsold copies for any kind of credit, because at that point what is the publisher/distributor supposed to do with those copies? Re-sell them at a lower cost to other retailers? What's the incentive there? They could just as well refuse to accept the return and keep the money they already received from the retailer, who then has to sell the product at a loss or otherwise trash it (for instance I know Target "donates" a lot of items to Goodwill - which they can then write off for taxes)
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Video games are purchased by the retailer and are considered "sold" by the publisher at that point. After that point, it's up to the retailer to sell the product. They, of course, have the suggested MSRP for these games and with Nintendo in order to run a sale or discount it has to be approved by Nintendo. I don't believe Sony or MS is that strict and for the most part let the retailers do whatever they want to sell the product.

I think part of the reason we have all seen a decline in clearance games at places like Target and Best Buy is partially due to how much money these retailers are losing when they sell a game that they likely paid around $42 for $10. I have noticed with Target in particular that they rarely have games on clearance anymore and when they do the price is usually around $20 or $10 for a game that retails for $20.

 
Sigma said:
Video games are purchased by the retailer and are considered "sold" by the publisher at that point. After that point, it's up to the retailer to sell the product. They, of course, have the suggested MSRP for these games and with Nintendo in order to run a sale or discount it has to be approved by Nintendo. I don't believe Sony or MS is that strict and for the most part let the retailers do whatever they want to sell the product.

I think part of the reason we have all seen a decline in clearance games at places like Target and Best Buy is partially due to how much money these retailers are losing when they sell a game that they likely paid around $42 for $10. I have noticed with Target in particular that they rarely have games on clearance anymore and when they do the price is usually around $20 or $10 for a game that retails for $20.
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Not exactly. Publishers and distributors still provide retailers with credit when there is an MSRP drop. There are also times where a distributor will provide courtesy credit if a particular game sells terribly for whatever reason. It's a two-way business after all and if retailers get stuck with a lot of extra stock, they will reduce orders of other product and distributors are constantly looking for creative ways to avoid that. I think the reason you are seeing less clearance is simply that the mid-range of the video game market has largely disappeared in the past few years and everything is now either a AAA major release or a budget release or remaster.

 
bojay1997 said:
Not exactly. Publishers and distributors still provide retailers with credit when there is an MSRP drop. There are also times where a distributor will provide courtesy credit if a particular game sells terribly for whatever reason. It's a two-way business after all and if retailers get stuck with a lot of extra stock, they will reduce orders of other product and distributors are constantly looking for creative ways to avoid that. I think the reason you are seeing less clearance is simply that the mid-range of the video game market has largely disappeared in the past few years and everything is now either a AAA major release or a budget release or remaster.
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This is true and I realize that the retailer doesn't always get stuck with the product. I remember a story from years ago though when State of Emergency came out on PS2 and it bombed. I remember hearing about a smaller store getting stuck with dozens of copies of the game and basically had to take a bath when they weren't selling even at half price.

As far as the clearance stuff goes I am sure the lack of mid-range games certainly has a lot to do with it, but even without those releases being as prevalent there are a ton of remasters this generation and IMO those are what has taken the place of the mid-range releases. These are also typically the games I find in Target's clearance section. I think the last clearance game I got at Target was Bullet Storm for example.

 
I'm dunno man.   Anytime there is a retailer-wide sale on a particular game I know that the publisher is reimbursing that discount.   Same thing when there is a price drop across the board.  If retailers had to foot the bill for price drops then stores simply wouldn't drop the price.  It would be like the Toys r Us game section at every retailer where games just sit there.  Clearance is likely like you said, however. 

 
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Sigma said:
Video games are purchased by the retailer and are considered "sold" by the publisher at that point. After that point, it's up to the retailer to sell the product. They, of course, have the suggested MSRP for these games and with Nintendo in order to run a sale or discount it has to be approved by Nintendo. I don't believe Sony or MS is that strict and for the most part let the retailers do whatever they want to sell the product.

I think part of the reason we have all seen a decline in clearance games at places like Target and Best Buy is partially due to how much money these retailers are losing when they sell a game that they likely paid around $42 for $10. I have noticed with Target in particular that they rarely have games on clearance anymore and when they do the price is usually around $20 or $10 for a game that retails for $20.
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I mean, yeah. That's basically what I was saying - The publisher has no reason to accept any kind of return on a video game because they have already been paid for said product, the responsibility for moving it lies with the retailer. They may then sell it, donate it, or otherwise rid themselves of the inventory at their discretion if it's not selling. The same isn't necessarily true for books, which is what had been asked.

 
I know for a fact that Best Buys highest shrink area in most stores is gaming. Maybe that, on top of everything else you guys have said, could have also played a factor.

Stupid thieves. 

 
elarcadia said:
I know for a fact that Best Buys highest shrink area in most stores is gaming. Maybe that, on top of everything else you guys have said, could have also played a factor.

Stupid thieves.
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Stealing from Best Buy must take a lot of balls. They seem to watch every step.
 
Book stores can and do return any books back to the publisher for full cost/credit back. It's a pretty sweet deals for stores, not a great one for publishers (one of many reasons book publishing is a much smaller industry than other media industries).

 
As a BBY Warehouse Employee I can confirm. My manager was pulling down all the cards and threw out all the signage. No real reason given except to push mybby and total tech support as far as I can tell. It's a damn shame really.
 
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This thread hurts to even skim through looking for links of relevant information like the feedback forum @ B.B.com

Y’all know more about running a successful appliance store than NYC lesbian amateur stand up comedians on twitter know about the conflict in Turkey.
 
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Chuck Stank said:
There's a lot of people in this thread that must work at Best Buy HQ with all this deep knowledge of how their business operates.
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Uh, yeah. Actually there are a lot of people here who have worked at Best Buy at one point or another.

I started there in '99 and worked there for a few years. They are still using the same OS on the registers that they installed around '00 and not much else has changed since then either. When I worked there we had meetings before opening and after closing every single day to go over revenues and margin %s for each and every department. This stuff has been going on for decades boyo.

 
Nothing371 said:
Uh, yeah. Actually there are a lot of people here who have worked at Best Buy at one point or another.

I started there in '99 and worked there for a few years. They are still using the same OS on the registers that they installed around '00 and not much else has changed since then either. When I worked there we had meetings before opening and after closing every single day to go over revenues and margin %s for each and every department. This stuff has been going on for decades boyo.
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So working retail somehow reinforces what you or anybody else here says? Lol.
 
DisGonnaBeGood said:
So working retail somehow reinforces what you or anybody else here says? Lol.
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Have you actually worked a retail job recently? You may not believe this, but one of the things many companies are doing now to give employees a sense of ownership in their work and company is to be very candid with them about how the business actually works. Certainly not in the same granular detail that upper management would need to be provided with the information, but enough so that they understand their role in the company. Nothing that the former Best Buy employees have said here has been contradicted by anyone else and is certainly consistent with what others who have worked in other types of businesses have confirmed. I'm really not sure why there is this continuing effort to undermine the credibility of people who are just trying to contribute to the discussion. I'm sorry this doesn't all fall neatly into your conspiracy theory that GCU is making BB massive profits in an of itself and that its end will result in the total collapse of their business.

 
Sigma said:
My Dad loves buying CDs and complains about how Best Buy is doing away with them all the time. Music CDs are long dead and a lot of newer cars don't even have CD players in them. Anyone buying physical music nowadays is buying vinyl, but for the most part, a lot of us are using services like Spotify or Amazon Music Unlimited.
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Regarding the cars, you ain't kidding. My 2012 Civic was approaching its endgame recently, so I started looking at 2018's, and I honestly couldn't believe that the CD player has gone by the wayside. I have bags and bags of CD's and I have no interest in sitting in front of a computer for a month converting it all to usable media.

A lot of it is video game soundtracks which aren't available on the streaming services. I ended up switching brands and getting a 2018 Kia, which still had the CD player. Yes, the CD player was the dealbreaker/clincher. I know that by the time this happens again in 2024 I'll likely be completely out of luck.

I'm only 32 and have no interest in streaming music so I have to believe theres tons of 40+ and baby boomers that have no interest as well. I really couldn't believe cars are ditching them, but what do I know.
 
RabbiHick said:
Regarding the cars, you ain't kidding. My 2012 Civic was approaching its endgame recently, so I started looking at 2018's, and I honestly couldn't believe that the CD player has gone by the wayside. I have bags and bags of CD's and I have no interest in sitting in front of a computer for a month converting it all to usable media.

A lot of it is video game soundtracks which aren't available on the streaming services. I ended up switching brands and getting a 2018 Kia, which still had the CD player. Yes, the CD player was the dealbreaker/clincher. I know that by the time this happens again in 2024 I'll likely be completely out of luck.

I'm only 32 and have no interest in streaming music so I have to believe theres tons of 40+ and baby boomers that have no interest as well. I really couldn't believe cars are ditching them, but what do I know.
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To each their own, but I am 37 yrs old and only stream music at this point (carplay and sonos)... I just trashed my cds and only hold onto my thousands of mp3s for posterity. Besides retro games, we are slowly becoming a digital only house...we hate when the kids get a dvd that requires putting discs in a player lol

 
I honestly just want them to reneg on cancelling GCU to make this entire thread meaningless
 
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