Best Buy Has Lost a Customer... At Least for Their Media Section.

I once worked for Best Buy from November to January 2007-08 in their media section. As of yet, that was my favorite place of employment. Being a movies and video game expert, I greatly enjoyed giving people advice on what movies and games to buy and not buy as well as recommending hidden gems that many people would frequently overlook. However, I also learned of the many ways Best Buy, and pretty much every electronics retailer, rips people off. As an employee, I received an employee discount where I would be able to purchase items at the same price Best Buy purchased them for - essentially Best Buy makes no profit off of employee purchases, hence why they encourage moderate employee discount usage. As an example of highway robbery, and why you should always do the research beforehand, in December 2007, Best Buy sold 6 foot long Rocketfish HDMI cables for somewhere around $60. I purchased 3 of those for $4 each. If that isn't highway robbery, I don't know what is. Nevertheless, I remained a loyal Best Buy customer when it came to purchasing movies, computer hardware, and PC games because they have the best selection on all of the above outside of Fry's - the nearest of which is in Canoga Park.

Earlier this week, I had an experience that has forever changed my opinion on shopping there. Dragonball Z Kai Part Three was released last week, but I neglected to purchase it then because I actually forgot what the actual release date was. I went in on DVDuesday (a term coined by Sarah Lane, formerly of Tech TV then briefly G4), a day Best Buy generally has fresh supply of recent releases. I was disappointed that they only had the DVD version of DBZK Part 3 rather than the Blu-Ray because there is really little point in buying the DVD version of a show specifically remastered for HD viewing. I fetched for a Media employee and was disgusted at the handling of the situation.

"All Action, No Filler!" is a bit of false advertising, but DBZ Kai is unbelievably fantastic compared to the original, especially the new, far more accurate English dub.

The employee, who I purposely picked because he looked like an otaku, responded he wasn't sure if DBZ Kai Part 3 had come out yet, but I whipped out the DVD copy I had found. He was definitely surprised to see that it existed and just as curious as me as to why the Blu-Ray was not on the shelves. He looked in the system and Best Buy apparently had zero copies, but we were both even more shocked to learn that Best Buy's official website did not even list the Blu-Ray version on its website! This really pissed me off because Funimation has an exclusivity deal with Best Buy to make it the only physical store one can buy DBZ Kai from, other than online retailers Amazon.com, Rightstuff.com, and the Funimation store.

I went home and immediately jumped to Amazon where I discovered that of course they had the Blu-Ray in stock. I not only managed to get it with free 2-day shipping with some free trial Amazon was offering, but I bought it for the same price Best Buy was selling the DVD for! I ordered the Blu-Ray on Tuesday afternoon and I woke up Thursday morning to find the package at my doorstep.

Needless to say, I am never buying movies from Best Buy ever again and neither should you.