Best Buy

Just wanted to make a quick write up here for anyone potentially interested in working at Best Buy, as I've seen a number of recent posts asking if it's a decent place to work and what the job is like. I started working at Best Buy during my final year of college after having spent some time working at Staples and other retail jobs in the years prior. Initially, the reason why I took the job was because the pay was decent enough for part time and, important inclusion here, I figured my retail experience might be slightly better at a store where I was at least somewhat passionate about what was being sold.

As someone who has long had an interest in computers and video game consoles it was my thinking that my experience with and enjoyment of the products being sold would at least partially make up for the typical downsides of working retail; however, in truth, it didn't actually work out that way. Obviously I cannot speak for what it's like at every store, but, speaking from my own experience, I wanna make two things clear to anyone interested in working at BB. First of all, the company is not doing well, and, secondly, your job at best buy is NOT to sell electronics, it's to sell credit cards and memberships. Obviously that first point matters quite a bit for anyone looking for long term employment, however, in my case it was the second with really bothered me.

For reference, I was working sales in computers specifically for 90 percent of my time with the company, and even then it never felt like my primary job was to sell computers or help customers with their computer issues. The majority of the time you will experience one of three types of interactions: the customer will be informed enough to already know what they want and will simply tell you to grab it, everything will be too expensive for anyone to want to buy them, or they'll have no understanding of computers whatsoever and their use case will be simple enough that you (assuming that you're not scamming them) will simply recommend they buy whatever the most affordable option is for them. This was disappointing to an extent, sure, but it's really just typical retail nonsense. What really ruined the experience for me was the fact that management truly didn't care about selling our products or testing the knowledge of myself and my fellow employees of said products in the slightest, all they gave a shit about were credit cards and memberships.

The only thing that matters to best buy management as well as corporate is your attachment rate for memberships and card apps, as well as the raw number that you can get within a day, and often times it DOES NOT FEEL GOOD to sell these memberships either. Of course there are times when it genuinely makes sense or is beneficial to offer one or both of these services to a customer, but, I'll be frank, the majority of your sales of these services will feel scummy in one way or another.

Most of the customers you will sell memberships to will be elderly and will almost certainly forget not to renew these services, even if they no longer want them, which, of course, is exactly what best buy wants, or truthfully won't shop at the store often enough to actually reap the benefits of them. Additionally, when it comes to the card, the majority of your sales will occur in cases where the customer is either young or financially struggling or both. In these cases, it isn't particularly difficult to imagine getting a credit card being a poor decision for them financially, but it's your job to make that happen regardless, and you'll be criticized or have your hours cut if you don't. Furthermore, you WILL see at least ONE of your fellow employees regularly use... disingenuous sales strategies when selling those services.

I've watched fellow employees lie about about the fact that the total membership doesn't provide as long of a warranty as Applecare does unless it is consistently renewed, and even then it's only up to two years, I've heard fellow employees use language such as "you'll be using our money instead of your money when you sign up for the card," and I've seen fellow employees push the card on individuals who clearly mention the fact that they're struggling and don't think that getting the card will be a good idea for them, and these are all things that they will be praised for by management.

At the end of the day, while the pay is decent and the workload isn't terrible compared to other retail stores, I do want to stress just two things above all else: if you want to work at best buy then expect to be working as a credit card salesman rather than a computer salesman, and if you want to feel as though you are genuinely benefitting your customers or providing a positive service for them then this probably isn't the job for you, at least not if you simultaneously want your metrics to be up to par.

TLDR: best buy is more concerned with selling memberships and credit cards than it is computers, and you will often be expected to take advantage of customers who or are vulnerable in one way or another in order to sell them, and you WILL see other employees doing so