Anyone work for Best Buy / Circuit City?

Warder45

I was looking to get a second job on the weekends at one of these two places to pick up some extra cash and take advantage of the employee discount when I start purchasing new electronics in a couple months. So I was hoping someone who worked at one of these places could answer a few questions for me. If you can't post feel free to PM.

1) What is the discount given to employee's? The Consumerist posted Best Buy's but it was a little old and may have changed.

2) What conditions are placed upon using it? Ex. Only one purchase a month or working for 2 or 3 months before using it.

3) Any misc tip's for working there? Experience you've had there?

Thanks

Shade

Why are you asking a question that would require the person answering to risk losing their job?

EclecticGroove

I did a stint as Circuit City for awhile, and I'd rather have my skin peeled off slowly and force fed to me by a mutated Hyena than work there again... That said... I'm not sure what the current employee discount for CC is now.. as they were in the process of "feeling out" new and better ways to shaft it when I was there.


However, tips are easy. It doesn't matter how much you sell, how friendly you are, or how much you know. Learn to sell 2 things and 2 things only if you want management to fawn all over you, accessories and service plans.

Unless both Best Buy and Circuit City have changed a LOT since I've talked to anyone there, those 2 things are all any department will care about (throw in installer service for car audio and home theater stuff as well).

It's a total pain if you aren't into lying to peoples faces or have a natural sales charm that make people eat up worthless extras, and if you can't do those at least passingly, then expect your time there to be filled with many "team player" type talks. Also, I hope your store has a cool manager, mine was a total dick, and made everyone in the stores lives miserable.

This is of course mostly irrelevant if you're working something like the front counter (but still expected to try and pitch service plans and the like), or warehouse (jobs with little or no actual sales interaction).

Scooter

Uh, I don't think the employee discount is top secret information. I mean, I don't know, but if a company would fire someone for telling people it's probably not a good place to work anyways.

whuppins

Shade wrote: »

Why are you asking a question that would require the person answering to risk losing their job?

Are you serious? None of this would endanger someone's job at Best Buy.

Q_Prime

i used to work at best buy, the discount is cost+10%, it's an amazing deal on tv's but shitty on any computer/game equipment. plus they pressure you to buy service plans on everything.

edit: you need to wait 3 months before using it, unless you are seasonal then you get it right away.
edit2: no tips, it was a really pleasant experience, and everyone was really cool. but i worked on geek squad so i mostly got to do my own thing.

holycrapawalrus

If you don't mind losing your soul and working for a heartless, corrupt corporation, then working at Best Buy is great.

Seriously, that place tried to screw me so many times, including trying to charge me for damaged equipment that I never even touched 3 months after I quit.

TrippyDK

edit: you need to wait 3 months before using it, unless you are seasonal then you get it right away.

When I worked at BB in November of last year, it was 30 days. It may have changed recently though.

Q_Prime

if it did then then its 30 days, because i havent worked at bb since nov 2 years ago

Jimmy King

Q_Prime wrote: »

i used to work at best buy, the discount is cost+10%, it's an amazing deal on tv's but shitty on any computer/game equipment. plus they pressure you to buy service plans on everything.

edit: you need to wait 3 months before using it, unless you are seasonal then you get it right away.
edit2: no tips, it was a really pleasant experience, and everyone was really cool. but i worked on geek squad so i mostly got to do my own thing.

Damn, it went up. It was cost + 5% when I worked there. The plus side to the service plans is that most of them are dirt cheap with the employee discount and so frequently worth getting, unless they've changed something there.

Shens

Q_Prime wrote: »

i used to work at best buy, the discount is cost+10%, it's an amazing deal on tv's but shitty on any computer/game equipment. plus they pressure you to buy service plans on everything.

I heard now it was just a generic 10% (throwing this number out there) off sort of deal. It also sounds like it changes quite a bit. When I worked there it was 10% over cost. Which was pretty shitty because I was going to school and working part time, thus had no money to buy anything worthwhile.

Deusfaux

it's still cost + 10% in canada

the higher the markup on the item then (obviously) the better the deal you get.

dvds games consoles music - shitty.

big screen tvs, accessories (cables!), monster products - super awesome plus wow!

Warder45

Thanks for the Info guys. Our best buy is hiring right now, but I'm not sure if it's seasonal or not. I like the idea of getting the discount right up front then working for as long as I feel like vs the 2-3 month waiting game. I've read some really bad stories from geek squad employee's about BestBuy's employee sales numbers and such.

I appreciate the info.