[Am-info] Best Buy drops Mac titles?

[Mitch Stone]

--- From a message sent by Paul Rickard on 1/2/00 6:50 PM ---

>stevecoh@mcs.com
>
>>Over New Year's Eve I was speaking with a friend who told me that he
>>tried to buy as Christmas presents, software for the Macintoshes in his
>>house.  (They are an all-Mac household.)  As he has done before, he went
>>up to the nearby Best Buy and tried to browse the shelves.  There was no
>>longer a Mac section nor could he find any Mac titles.  So he asked a
>>salesman who told him words to the effect of "Yeah, we cut a deal with
>>Microsoft so we had to get rid of the Mac section."
>
>     BestBuy dropped Apple products, but not because of Microsoft. Apple 
>made them buy the machines in packs of five colors, one of each, but BB 
>could only sell the blue ones - the other four colors weighed down their 
>inventory. Apple tried to make a deal wherein they sold a 6-pack with 2 
>blues and one each of the others, but BestBuy didn't go for it.
>     Apple has since then (apparently) changed that policy, since Sears 
>only sells blue and red iMacs - which is why I bought my Lime machine 
>from ClubMac. I got a better deal from them anyway, extra RAM tossed in 
>for less than the base machine at Sears, even after shipping.

You can buy any color iMac you like from Sears, and from any other Apple 
dealer AFAIK, though Sears treats some as special orders. Best Buy could 
never claim an inability to sell colors other than blue, because they 
stopped selling the iMac before the multiple colors machines even arrived 
on the scene. In fact, I could never find an iMac for sale in a BB store 
even when they were supposedly still selling them, back the last quarter 
of '98. In any event, Best Buy refused to take multiple color iMacs when 
all of the other dealers were being required to take all five colors. BB 
demanded, but did not get, special treatment. 

BTW, here's a Best Buy customer story published on the web back in 
February. It seems to weird to be true, but I suspect it is.

====

Just thought I'd let you know - I just had what could probably be deemed
one of the worst Best Buy experiences ever.
This last weekend the local Best Buy stores had a 'Preferred' shopper sale
(people on their mailing list got coupons).  My wife and I decided to head
to the closest Best Buy to our home - one that we have never been to
before.  On the way there I had made some comments to her about what has
been happening nation wide with Best Buy and CompUSA and their poor
handling of Apple retailing - so we decided to enter the store separately
and have her attempt to purchase an iMac.
Once we were both in the store I watched what happened - we compared notes
afterwards.  Here is a quick synopsis:
1) She looked for the Apple section - but there was NONE.
2) She asked a clerk for assistance with purchasing an iMac.  The clerk
told her to wait.
3) I followed the clerk to the repair area - there the clerk made some 
rude
remarks about my wife to another clerk (regarding her height and gender)
and said she wanted to {snicker} buy a Mac.  The second clerk snickered as
well and asked what he told her, he said 'to wait' - so the second clerk
said 'good, lets see how long she waits till she gets smart and buys a PC
instead'
4) At this point I asked a different clerk where the Mac software was.  He
took me to the software section and said, 'We don't have much Mac software
because there is really no software available for the Mac.' and then
proceeded to imitate (poorly I might add) Steve Martin as the weight
guesser in 'The Jerk' - obviously he had done it many times before - as he
showed me the 3 mac titles they had.  Then he started to berate the
Macintosh and me for owning one - he told me that I should get with the
21st century and sell the Mac and get a PC - and for proof, just look at
all the PC stuff they carry.  Then I unzipped my jacket revealing one of 
my
plethora of Mac T-Shirts and his eyes bugged and he said - jeez, you're 
one
of those Mac weirdo's aren't you, you're just here to pester us.  Then he
walked away from me.
5) Meanwhile, my wife had been waiting for quite some time so she asked to
see the manager - some guy appeared after another 10 minutes and told her
that they don't have any Macs in stock and that he had no idea if they 
were
ever going to get any more.  I was on my way back towards the computer
section when I saw one of the first two clerks take the only thing in the
store that had a mac on it, a standing sign with two sides, and turned the
sign around so the picture of the iMac was facing the wall.  This sign was
right in the cattle shoot entry way of the store by the way.
6) I walked up to my wife and asked her how it was going - then the clerk
that thought he was Steve Martin walked up to the 'manager' and said that 
I
was harassing him.  We were both asked to leave the store on the spot or
security would be called.
7) My jaw hit the floor and I practically exploded - I couldn't believe
what I was hearing.  Without raising my voice I said that we were here as
'preferred' customers and that we were interested in purchasing mac
products and that we were being treated extremely poorly.  The manager 
told
us that we were just fanatics looking to make Best Buy look bad - I told
him that we were here to PURCHASE items from their store. An argument
ensued between the staff and myself at which point a cop/rent-a-cop
appeared.  We were escorted to the exit and told that if we came back in 
we
would be arrested.
Now, mind you, we were there to BUY stuff - we never 'tricked' anyone,
never did anything other than ask for information - but upon me opening my
jacket revealing the 'Expect the Impossible' T-Shirt' - the impossible
started happening.
Not only will I never grace Best Buy with my presence again, I am 
SERIOUSLY
starting to get upset with Apple and, dare I say it, might actually start
looking at PC's.  Hell, I least I won't have to face jail time for trying
to buy PC stuff.

====

Mitch Stone
mstone@vc.net