Apparently plenty of Best Buy shoppers like Sprint’s Samsung Instinct. In a recent press release, Best Buy said that since its June 19th launch, the Instinct has become “the retailer’s best selling handset in the past two years.” Best Buy has also been pushing a service called “Walk Out Working,” which basically entails having your phone set up for you before you leave the store – e-mail, web access, GPS setup, etc. – the program’s apparently been quite well received. It’s available only for new Instinct purchases and will be going until the end of August. → Read More
Borders is back online after a long hiatus, and its looking to take on Amazon for the online book buying marketplace. But its got an uphill battle, with retail giant Amazon firmly in first place. Besides being huge, Amazon has features Borders can’t match, such as the Kindle eBook reader and in-book online searching. But Borders isn’t counting on high-tech to challenge Amazon, it’s instead turning to a rather time tested method of selling books: the bookstore. The new retail presence is designed to evoke the feeling of browsing a bookstore, something many bookworms spend their weekends doing. It’s too early to tell if the strategy will work, but if there’s one thing many people dislike about Amazon its the actual shopping experience. Sure, if you know what you want it’s a great way to get a deal, but if you’re unsure it’s a hassle. We’re all for any alternative, let’s hope it works like it’s supposed to. → Read More
From the hordes of rabid Mac fans to the cheering employees to the famous musicians and professional athletes, here are fifty photos from today’s Apple Store opening. → Read More
Looks like Best Buy’s got a pretty massive boner for Carphone Warehouse, as it’s just increased its ownership share from 2.9% to 50%, according to IDG News Service. Best Buy has agreed to invest an additional $2.1 billion in the European retailer, likely by the end of August. Carphone Warehouse will be opening stores here in the states this year and Best Buy is planning to open its first store in the UK in 2009. It appears that these kind of partnerships will be Best Buy’s main method of gaining access to foreign markets, as it’s also recently formed similar alliances with Future Shop in Canada and Jiangsu Five Star Appliance in China. → Read More
Working in retail is hard work, especially in the electronics field, but sometimes your interactions with people on a daily basis lead to new relationships. I worked at a big box retailer for about three years and got many dates out of it, though it wasn’t appropriate at all. The key is, though, to know when it’s OK and when it’s not OK to ask a customer on a date, and how to go about it. This man in Florida worked at a Sprint retail store. A woman came in to exchange her Nextel phone for a Sprint phone. Awhile later, the man started sending her flirty text messages, even though she’s married. She told him she wasn’t interested. Then he sent more texts. And more. And then a picture message of his face. And then, he sent her nudies. She’s suing him and Sprint now, and rightly so. The moral of the story is that while it’s OK to ask a customer out on a date, it’s improper to start sending her tons of gross naked pics if she says no. I hope we’ve all learned here. → Read More
[photopress:hagglebbcc.jpg,full,center] The economy isn’t doing so hot and Manchester United seems to be marching toward its second consecutive title. We’re all doomed, in other words. But hey, did you know that you can get $20 off a pair of speakers on Sixth Avenue? The Times has a piece today exploring the issue of haggling in the year 2008. It seems the terrible economy, coupled with the Internet, gives consumers the ability to walk into a Best Buy or Circuit City or local boutique and negotiate the price of any number of items. This happy fellow convinced an electronics store in New York to knock more than $1,000 of the price of a 46-inch Sony TV. You lucky devil! → Read More
Now this is interesting ineed. Due apparently to the high demand of the MacBook Air, Apple has put together a special page on its retail website where you can check your local availability without having to call or visit the Apple store. It’s not live now, but it appears as if it will be later tonight. Is Apple actually selling enough Airs to warrant this new service, or is it some secret trick into making us this it is? MacBook Air’s availability page [Apple.com] → Read More
[photopress:gshd.jpg,full,center] GameStop will stop accepting all HD DVD trade-ins later today. It’ll stop accepting the 360′s HD DVD player for trade-ins, too. Story. This past Christmas I traded in unopened HD DVDs that I had received throughout the year and traded them into Best Buy, getting some store credit in the process. Good thing I did that when I did because with the death of the format comes the death of scams like mine. Oh well, I still have a few Blu-rays I can hawk. GameStop begins halting HD DVD movie trade-ins [QJ.net] → Read More
There are reports that the MacBook Air was to go on sale at Apple stores across the country today or tomorrow. A quick trip to our local store saw no such MacBooks, and after asking a couple of acting managers when we’d be able to play with them in a retail setting, I was told at least a week. Now, this runs contrary to some rumors floating around, specifically from Boy Genius, who has it on good authority that the Air’s are in the stores, they’re just waiting for the pre-destined alignment of stars to pull the trigger. We’re not sure what’s going on, But at the Stevenote, exactly 14 days ago, Steve said we’d be seeing them “in a couple weeks”. We’re waiting, sir, and we wait patiently. → Read More
[photopress:i_killed_my_treo.jpg,full,center] In the last three weeks, I’ve been to seven airports. CES, Macworld, and other travels have sent me all over the place. One thing I always check out when I run across them are airport Palm stores. See, I’m a Palm believer. They started the handheld and smartphone revolutions, we owe them a lot. And I think they have a few bright products on the horizon. I don’t stop by the stores for the hardware, I stop by to see people getting interested in smartphones. But this little travel tradition of mine might soon come to an end, as word is Palm will be shuttering 26 of its airport stores as it prepares to pay out quite a bit of money to Treo 600 and 650 owners as part of a class-action suit it settled not long ago. The final hearing is set for May 2. Many of these handsets had manufacturing problems, and those that required more than one repair are eligible for a rebate or credit. If things go as anticipated, registered owners of Treo 600s will receive $75, whle 650 owners will receive a $50 credit towards the purchase of any new Treo smartphone. Class action settlement has Palm pulling plugs [BGR] → Read More
I was recently at Fry’s buying, I don’t know, something. They had a stack of hard-to-find Wiis right up front, a great big pallet. I thought about grabbing one, then realized it cost $329. Knowing that the retail price of a Wii is $250, I asked what was up, and an anxious employee told me the Wiis were only available in bundles that included three additional controllers and nunchucks, a game, and some pretty useless stuff. He said it was over $400 worth of merchandise, to which I said, “I live alone. Just me. I just want a Wii.” And he said I couldn’t have one. I thought this to be dishonest and a lousy way to make a buck, and now it seems our favorite corporate goon ever, Reggie Fils-Aime, agrees. While Nintendo doesn’t have a way of stopping them — retailers can re-package, or make “kits”, with anything they want to — he made it clear that Nintendo does not approve of the practice. We’re for the idea of Nintendo withholding shipments of Wiis to these nefarious villians, and we’re hoping they get reallocated to more scrupulous retailers. Reggie: Retailers have been told we are not fans of forced Wii bundles [MaxCon] → Read More
I see you’re buying a scanner. Would you like a USB cable or some salmon? → Read More
Samsung will no longer sell TVs and other similar consumer products in Japan. That seems weird, but it’s true. It’s going to focus solely on business products now, thanks to poor profitability in the retail sector. Last year, Samsung’s retail sales accounted for less than 1% of its total sales in Japan. That’s a lot of noise for a little profit. Samsung Stops Consumer Sales in Japan [AOL News] → Read More
Back in high school, I worked at a Banana Republic part-time. One of the most common problems was running out of a certain article of clothing and having to direct customers to other stores, which in turn lost us business, which in turn meant less hours to work. Dillard’s is looking to change all that though (or at least the whole running out of stock thing) by testing out a new RFID pilot program in stores this month. Certain styles of clothing will have a special RFID tag that contains garment and inventory information. When the clothes are purchased, the tags are removed and the store’s inventory system is automatically updated to reflect the purchase. This way, Dillard’s can keep better track of its inventory and always have what customers want, thus resulting in improved sales and more revenue. No word on which locations will be participating in the pilot. Dillard’s to begin RFID pilot program [RD Design] → Read More
Usually, Target is pretty lax with returning shit. You come back three days later with a slightly used toaster oven, no receipt and they’ll give you a full refund. Not the case however, for one 14-year-old girl who received an iPod as a gift. Purchased at one of the retail giant’s stores, the girl went to open her iPod, only to discover the box was filled with rocks. Yes, rocks, making it the worst present you could possibly receive. When the girl went to return the “iPod”, Target gave her hell and told her she could only get store credit back. With her local store out of iPods, they had to drive 20 miles to another location to pick up one. Then, in the actual store, they opened it again, only to find more rocks. Target still would not issue a refund, only store credit, so the girl and her mother had to find another gift. Now I may be a little rusty on my knowledge of return policies, but I’m pretty sure Target is being a huge dick. Finding rocks in more than one iPod box? What the hell. How would you not let someone return that? That’s like finding a dead cat in your box of Apple Jacks and having your local grocery store tell you to shut up and go buy some Cheerios. Rocks found in place of girl’s brand new iPod… twice [Ars Technica] → Read More
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are warring factions, but despite how much I wanted things to be resolved peacefully between the two camps, it’s appearing as if Blu-ray is set to straight-up kill HD-DVD. Not only from Blockbuster’s decision to back Blu-ray as its HD format of the future, but now Target, with its 4,000,000,000 outlets, has opted to sell Blu-ray stand-alone players over HD-DVD for the holiday season. I wanted HD-DVD to win, mostly out of my open disdain for Sony’s proprietary format ideas. That being said, Blu-ray is technically a better format, so in all this is probably a good thing: until the format war is over, many people aren’t going to invest in next-gen disc players. By moving one step closer to a single format, we can start getting our HD on faster, which I’m all about. Target to Promote Blu-Ray DVD Format [Forbes] → Read More
Before you start pinching pennies and buying certified pre-owned Xbox 360s, you might want to take a step back and consider working another two weeks at McDonalds to save up for a new unit. You see, according to a tipster over at Gizmodo, Microsoft is banning Xbox 360 units for life. The problems began when a guy bought a pre-owned 360, only to discover it wouldn’t connect to Xbox Live. After some troubleshooting, he called customer service who then informed him that his 360 was banned for life and that there was nothing they could do. Really lame. Hopefully the guy had enough sense to return it to his place of purchase. If Microsoft is truly banning consoles for life though, the used-Xbox 360 market is going to go to hell in a hand-basket. Gamer Buys Banned Refurbished Xbox 360 [Gizmodo] → Read More
The next time you cruise by the Sony Style store at your local mall, you may find people waiting in line with PS3s, VAIOs, and Walkmen. Don’t be alarmed, as they’re simply there trying out Sony’s new in-store tech support service. Dubbed “Backstage”, this service will be available in NYC and NJ Sony Style stores and certainly resembles Apple’s Genius Bar setup. Owners of Sony electronics can come in for a repair, replacement, or diagnosis if there is a problem with a device. VAIO owners will be able to receive data transfers, upgrades, PC buying advice and much more from employees working at Backstage. Even your out-of-warranty MiniDisc player can be repaired for a price. Sony says that by the end of 2007, 15 stores will have Backstage ready for customers. Sony follows Apple’s lead with in-store support [Electronista] → Read More
Never again do I want to hear people complaining that they couldn’t find a summer job. Seems AT&T is so confident that people will show up for the iPhone in droves, it has taken the liberty of hiring an extra 2,000 employees to prepare for the madness. To make sense of how big the iPhone launch is going to be, here are some hot statistics: 1,800 AT&T retail stores exist and will all be selling the iPhone AT&T sales staff have received a total of 100,000 hours of training to sell the device, with each employee receiving about six hours of individual training AT&T stores will close locally at 4:30 p.m. on that Friday to prepare for the launch, then reopen at 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. that night. I’m going to be laughing all the way home if Apple and AT&T do all this training and preparation, only to find three dudes with fat wallets sitting outside a store on June 29. It’s almost here kids. AT&T hires 2,000 extra workers for iPhone launch [Yahoo! News] → Read More
Though the title is a bit deceiving, it’s also very true. AT&T will be closing down every single one of its retail stores in preparation for the launch of Apple’s iPhone. To stay on track with the target 6pm launch, most stores are said to be closing around 4pm so that employees can get ready, prepare for the rush, and set up adverts in every inch of the store. The close also comes as safety comes into play. AT&T doesn’t want mobs of people waiting inside a store so they can bum-rush the counter when 6pm rolls around. Stores will be setting up rope lines outside to keep a queue in order, which is probably a good idea. Come June 29th, we’ll be sure to get pictures of all the madness for ya! AT&T stores to close, re-open ahead of iPhone [Apple Insider] → Read More
