The Lying Liars at Best Buy

Now, I am aware of the "limited time offer" concept and was not shocked that Best Buy carried the accessories for but not the actual product with the free accessories offer. But what is the point exactly? Is bait-and-switch the backbone of Best Buy's business?

I wouldn't be surprised. Clark Howard recently mentioned a Business Week article that explains Best Buy is sitting on about $500 million worth of gift cards. Even if you assume that a lot of this gift credit from Christmas will be spend soon, the chain is probably earning over a million dollars a month by holding on to these ersatz profits.

However, the truth lies in Best Buy's own employee procedures. People seeking the deals constantly published in the newspaper are considered theives and devils for costing the store money. Ultimately, they want those people to be brushed off and discouraged from coming back. They do a good job, since Best Buy is frequently empty. The customers they like are early technology adopters or buy appliances and devices regardless of cost.

So my questions is, why buy anything there if it's not really the "best" buy?