I Bought a Gaming PC at Best Buy… Am I Dumb?

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We were pleasantly surprised in 2016, and again in 2020, but can we still get a decent Gaming PC by wandering into a Best Buy and taking whatever the sales rep recommends? Our secret shopper finds out!

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova

Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
0:55 The Rules
1:31 Weirdest Advice Ever
2:28 What we got
3:53 The catch
5:14 His biggest mistake
6:06 What if we spec our own?
6:51 What if we build our own?
8:48 Who wins?
10:18 Outro

[matthewgarber]

I had A+ service at best buy last month when I walked in asking for specific model. The sales rep said they were “out of stock”. I showed the website that said 2 were available for pickup. He then rolled his eyes and said they are probably in the back. He stared at me for a couple seconds before I followed up with “could I get one of those”. He was clearly annoyed that he had to go to the back but 10 minutes later he came back with the computer.

[MrFastFox]

Best Buy worker here, and honestly I can attest to a lot of these problems here. Starting with customer service, at least at the time of writing, my store and many others are severely short staffed, so it can take up to 20 minutes for an individual to get help. Not surprising when you have 15+ customers and one or two sales reps in the same department. Plus if we need to walk to get product for a customer, it's almost guaranteed that someone else will stop us on the way.

As for training, there is none lmao. For each department we receive very, very basic training. Think along the lines of "the cpu is the brain of the computer. Someone who does professional work may need a faster one than someone who just checks email". We don't get any training regarding any specific products or their use cases. No one gets knowledge on the different features of computers, how they are tailored to different users with different needs, how different CPUs affect performance and heat output, why the cheap plastic POS computer with a mechanical HDD and a 15 year old design isn't a good purchase just because it has an i7, etc.
In my store there are really only 4 guys who are really knowledgeable on computers. One of them isn't very honest and just sells whatever makes the customer shut up, along with spending too much time and effor selling BestBuy services. The other guy is part time and gets very easily annoyed by customers. I'm part time as well, leaving only one full time guy and one part time guy for the whole store who actually know about computers and are willing to genuinely help.

And yes, we do have a lot of pressure to sell stuff like extended warranties and our Total tech subscription. Personally, I offer it, but if the customer says no, then they said no and I won't pressure them.

[ballien]

I feel like the employee telling them to try other stores was actually their way of saying "We don't have anything good that you can buy today in your price point." That's pretty much confirmed by them saying to buy a more expensive one and 'hope' it goes on sale, they might have checked RSS and saw something he couldn't outright say, and to order one on back-order. It seems like they tried to get the best option for you, but with your criteria it didn't work.

[MoA-Reload...]

Worked 9yrs in a Sony Centre and while it wasn't the best job in the world by any stretch of the imagination, it wasn't bad. Sony's sales philosophy was match the customer to the product and if they want extended warranty, there it is but don't ram it down their throats 🙂

I lasted all of 4 months in Currys PC World before I walked out! They honestly do not care what you buy or if it's actually a good fit for you and your budget as long as you buy the warranty and take it on BNPL! Largest single sale I had in there was worth just over £20k. It was an old customer of mine from Sony days and he owns a couple of hotels. He drove over 100 miles to come to me. I got 2 written warnings for that sale. Same day it happened I was pulled because I should have passed him to the business team... even though he'd only deal with me and the manager knew this because the customer specifically told him this when the manager tried to butt in during the sale. The next day pulled into the office again for the 2nd warning and this time it was because I didn't sell warranties with the over 20 TV's the dude bought along with cables, mounts and stands. I walked the next week and my customer cancelled the order and got his money back before they could deliver 😂

[AA-ixes]

That tip about the return window was legit! "Hope it goes on sale" is code phrase for "I checked RSS and a couple other back end tools and this is definitely going on sale soon, but I don't want to risk my job by telling you that so I'm going to toe the line by letting you know about our price matching".

I look for deals like that all the time. Usually you can get a pretty good come up if you know the sales patterns.

[BakersTuts]

_But you know who isn’t dumb? Our sponsor!_

[NoorSkullz]

I remember going into PC World (our best buy kinda) and looking at the prebuilts and some guy prob a kids dad looked confused while looking all the gaming PCs and i decided to help him which resulted in an hour of helping random people to the point the manager asked if I wanted a job there kinda wish I said yes at the time but he praised me in helping the customers because he honestly said "i have no clue about computers" and said he gets anxiety and people ask him for help and tbh i understand that the average person won't know much unless they learned it themselves even the store reps.

[cheetahfurry]

I needed a PC during the shortage last year when my PC was dying. I ended up getting a Ibuypower with a ryzen 3600, B550 board, 2060 RTX, and an SSD. I upgraded 100 into it for 2 more fans, a 980 1 tb M2, and 16 gb more of memory for a total of $1050. At the time nothing was even close to that price and even though it was a gen older video card it was going for 2/3 the price of the whole PC. They did a good job and I have been very happy.

[TheGalgamore]

I worked at Best Buy for most of 2018. Reps are *barely* trained - I got lucky because im already active in this space, but my coworkers had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. The only thing we were ever told is ALWAYS try to sell them the most expensive model first. It doesn't matter what they tell you they want or need, your metrics are what matters. I quit on the spot during black friday after getting yelled at for selling a budget laptop for basic word processing to a mother who stated that was *exactly* what she wanted.

moral of the story, ignore every single Best Buy rep that tries to speak to you ;)

[buttonfox]

I made the mistake of wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants in best buy and was confused why people kept asking me questions. I thought they were all just friendly and I looks like I knew stuff....I think I helped more than the actual emplyees

[BlackOut]

I went to Best Buy like a week ago and there were barely any staff in the store. The normal registers weren’t even open so everyone had to be checked out in customer service. Felt like a business on its death bed.

[Jeff_in_D]

I used to work in sales at Best Buy and that “come back for the sale price” thing is almost 100% legit (I knew someone who would occasionally stretch the truth but that’s a major outlier). The point is to lock a transaction that day, while you’re in the store, but knowing an upcoming sale price is happening, they’ll easily backprice it for you. The employee gets the benefit of making a hefty sale, but doesn’t get dinged down the line (when the sale price match happens) as a refund normally would. This is often only recommended when a product-specific sale is coming up within a week or two.

[samoksner]

Linus referring to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve F1 track in Montreal as "Vancouver's" might be the thing that gets him canceled after all. 'Twas a good run while it lasted lol

[NemessXx]

Working tech in retail is so incredibly toxic. Selling a machine without a warranty will give you a "talking to" from your manager to figure out what you did wrong with your sales pitch. Sell too many devices without a warranty and youll be moved off the sales floor onto register or other department.
Most of the time when it becomes clear a customer is not interested in a warranty the sales person will try to deter you into purchasing a machine at a different store, ignore you hoping youll get fed up and leave or try to make you believe they dont have the model youre looking for/the machine you want wont meet your needs.

The reason the salesman wanted her to purchase it and return it later for a better deal is because the return will come off of his sales, and as long as he isnt the one to do the repurchase next time, the repurchase wont count against him.

[Bo-bbkv]

There's nothing wrong with getting a prebuild, aslong as it gives you the option to work on and swap parts in the future. There's alot of pretty decent prebuilds that just need a little more memory

[amunago]

Best buy worker here, since amazon is taking a lot of the sales no days people think they can have their cake and eat it too. The store is not the thriving place it once was, if you need help don't expect someone to walk up to you, go to a register and ask. Not enough employees anymore to swarm you like back in the 2000s.

[GamerErman]

Only time I've gotten a gaming prebuilt from Best Buy I ordered it from their website and picked it up at a store. I would've built my own computer but it was so much cheaper to get a prebuilt with a 3080 (or any other good GPU) at the time and was the easiest way to avoid paying scalpers.

[dimitrigourgouris]

When I worked at best buy, we were trained to do these EXACT things. Get people credit cards, get people warranties, get people total tech support. The expected "basket" (or items we should add on to the original sale) was 10-20% of the item sale.

[chancefreely]

I think I’m lucky. I bought a prebuilt from Best Buy in the summer that was pretty similar to those Acer PCs with a 3060 in them. Mine looks great, performs great, and I only got it for around 1200 dollars. At the time, the gpu I got with it was going for 800, so it was the best bang for my buck at the time. I’ve had no regrets, but I also understand that my purchase was very circumstantial.

[rickyking]

Many of the other comments with their experiences working at Best Buy resonate with my experience there, too. The sales team I joined when I worked at the Computers department (before they made everyone "Sales Specialists" as opposed to being trained for specific departments) was very solid. Most of us were knowledgeable with specs, there was usually 3-5 of us scheduled at all times, and we were coordinated with managing customers. Despite that, I was not given in person training about the actual computers that we sell, but rather the credit card and services we sell.

The training in the product came in the form of e-learnings, and after having to do 15-20 e-learnings in a given day, anyone would eventually just rush through it so they can get on the sales floor, thinking they'll just learn about that from our leaders. Obviously, that didn't really happen, but in our area, we were luckier to have many customers that didn't have complex needs and wouldn't need much questioning to wing it and find a product they liked. For the more complex customers, my team was knowledgeable enough over time to learn what to ask and what to recommend.

Nowadays, I work at Geek Squad, and the stark difference in our sales team is unnerving. I've seen old people (65+) check in a $1600 laptop for us to setup, and we learn that they wanted us to "transfer their facebook, their emails, and their banking". I've seen $400 laptops checked in and they want us to get steam installed during the setup process and ask us if their device is "good enough to play the new COD". And most of the time, these are clients that were sold this from our sales team only minutes prior.

Overall, the quality of Best Buy has degraded significantly over the years from all their downsizing, outsourcing, and focus to their online market. They cut most departments down and no longer have people dedicated to a single department. Where you would used to see 3-4 people in blue shirts at our Home Theatre, now you'd be lucky to see 1 person who's available to help you. It's been an issue for over a year, and it seems like no change is coming anytime soon.

TL:DR- Don't go to Best Buy without doing your own research. Don't expect help within 5 minutes of entering a department. If you know what you want, order it for pickup. Don't get mad at the employees, they are barely more knowledgeable than you and likely spread thin.