So I have a Best Buy gift card and I never shop there. I use them as a showroom for Amazon more than anything else, honestly. Can I use the BB GC to buy an Amazon GC? Amazon says that you can buy one at BB.

Any ideas?

1/28/2012 4:37:55 PM

either call and ask if they have amazon gift cards or go look and see if they have amazon gift cards

1/28/2012 4:39:25 PM

yes you can

1/28/2012 4:59:23 PM

i too use best buy as my amazon.com showroom

1/28/2012 5:46:31 PM

No, I don't think you can use gift cards to buy other gift cards, it probably says that on the back of the gift card.

1/28/2012 6:14:00 PM

Quote :

"Fuck yo dreams!"

- Sean Combs

1/28/2012 6:17:32 PM

always wondered if i bought a 25 dollar shell giftcard and a banana, could i use a 25 dollar food lion gift card to pay for it and then the debit card for the rest

[Edited on January 28, 2012 at 6:22 PM. Reason : -]

1/28/2012 6:21:40 PM

If you can that would have helped me. I just ended up keeping an eye on a few things on the BB website. Once they hit a sale that took the item down to the amazon price I just used the BB card.

1/28/2012 6:59:04 PM

If you have $25 to food lion, why not just buy some groceries?

1/29/2012 2:26:14 AM

its a long story but to make it short...takes 5000 points to get $25 gc to food lion, walmart, few other places

it was 8000 points for $25 shell gas card which is what I wanted. Food lion, walmart, etc sell $25 dollar GCs. and there you have it

1/29/2012 2:28:45 AM

I have 3 $100 Amazon GC's.

Might be willing to trade if you can't buy GC's with GC's

1/29/2012 2:30:00 AM

^

I might be willing to just buy your Amazon GCs...

1/29/2012 9:13:00 AM

i used an apple store gc to buy an itunes gc once so...maybe?

good luck

1/29/2012 9:17:21 AM

Bought the Amazon GC at Best Buy tonight. Confirmed that I can buy anything at Amazon with it.

Win.

1/30/2012 10:05:43 PM

http://moneyland.time.com/2012/01/24/target-doesnt-want-to-be-a-showroom-for-the-stuff-you-buy-for-less-at-amazon/

Quote :

"The retail term “showrooming” got a lot of attention in early December, when Amazon offered special discounts encouraging shoppers to use brick-and-mortar stores merely as showrooms, allowing consumers to scope out items in person before ultimately buying them at cheaper prices from Amazon.com. For obvious reasons, physical retailers want to put an end to showrooming."

So realistically, Target will get laptops that have designs on the lids, or the TV will have 4 HDMI ports instead of 3, or the XBOX360 games will come with an exclusive cosmetic upgrade for your in-game character.. and shit will still be 10%+ more in store.

I don't think this is near as big of a problem as some retailers are making it out be. It's nice to be able to see and touch the product, but for most it's not a deal-breaker. If a tablet is $399 on Amazon and $479 at BestBuy.com, and they want it, they're going to order it from Amazon whether any local retailer has it on display or not.

Most of the electronic-buying public are idiots. While those of us who know the difference between a dual core and quad core processor only need a spec sheet, and not a physical display, the rest of the shoppers are more concerned with size and whatever attract-mode software the computer is running. In short, the majority of shoppers think a laptop is a laptop, and that the Acer 14" laptop at Walmart with an AMD dual core processor and 2GB of RAM will let them play World of Warcraft at an acceptable speed because their friend has a laptop so they know it can be played on laptops.

I really felt bad for some of the kids over the holiday season whose parents ordered laptops from me with similar specs. They wanted to get their kid(s) a laptop so that they wouldn't be hogging their desktop. Every time that I would try to explain that they needed a better processor, more RAM, at least a 7200rpm hard drive, and a video card, they'd ask me how much it costs. Once I said roughly $700-800 they would quickly tell me that they weren't spending that much and that I didn't know what I was talking about. One guy even said to his wife, "these fucking salesmen are always trying to sell the higher priced shit. there's no fucking difference between any of these laptops." Not surprisingly, we had a lot of returns on low-end, budget computers because "it won't run World of Warcraft."

Serving as a showroom for online retailers or not, Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc. should be making a killing off of what they are selling. If they aren't then they should check their business model instead of blaming online retailers for their poor sales numbers.

TL;DR = People are idiots, Savvy consumers shop online, majority of public buys pieces of shit from big retailers

[Edited on January 31, 2012 at 1:55 AM. Reason : When is a door not a door? When it's Adore. Smashing Pumpkins #1.]

1/31/2012 1:50:36 AM

The ones at BB are usually tagged as "Kindle" gift cards. However the small print says they can be used for anything on amazon, not just kindle books/apps.

Also, price match FTW. Yes, sometimes it's annoying that the model number is different for the in-store version and you're SOL. But if they're the same, it's nice to take what you're buying home that day for the amazon etc. price.

1/31/2012 11:28:38 AM

unless that pricematching includes tax, no thanks

1/31/2012 11:53:48 AM

Quote :

"For obvious reasons, physical retailers want to put an end to showrooming."

There's an easy way to do that, price match + a small percentage. If there's a difference of a dollar or two I don't typically care and will buy it at the store, but more often than not the exact same item is on amazon for at least $10 cheaper with free shipping.

They must not be that concerned with showrooming, I've seen those places take hard stances on not price matching stuff that's on their own website. The in-store pickup is also lame, order something online for the sale price, select in-store pickup... you can just walk right in and pick up your item with a printed receipt/confirmation number, right? I mean there's only 30 of them on the shelf. Nope, often in-store pickup means they'll ship the item to the store for you to pick up which kills off the "I want it now" incentive which is really the only thing they've got going for them. That whole issue would go away if the sales online were the same as the ones in the store.

1/31/2012 1:10:51 PM

They aren't concerned and I'd say they are slightly oblivious. I've given BB and the like a chance on coming close to Amazon prices but they refuse.

When a TV is $1,000 less on Amazon, who the fuck would actually purchase from BB? I recently saw a CNBC segment talking about Best Buy and this showrooming phenomenon. Basically the BB head-honchos said people would pay more for the outstanding customer service. I think this proves the point that they are living on another planet.

1/31/2012 1:31:02 PM

Quote :

"BB head-honchos said people would pay more for the outstanding customer service."

They are correct. People will pay more for outstanding customer service, to a point.

They're living on another planet if they think their customer service is anything even approaching mediocre.

Amazon is markedly cheaper AND has amazing customer service.

That kind of arrogance is why Circuit City went belly up. Best Buy will follow suit if they continue on the same path.

1/31/2012 1:35:49 PM

^

yea I think they are out of their minds if they consider BB customer service as outstanding. Amazon has it figured out.

1/31/2012 1:36:59 PM