Rumor: Best Buy in Hot Water for Selling Phones Too Cheaply?
Rumor: Best Buy in Hot Water for Selling Phones Too Cheaply?
Posted 12/16/2010 at 4:09pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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If you wander into your local Best Buy store hoping to walk out with Motorola Droid 2 Global, or Droid Pro, you could be in for disappointment. According to Engadget, Verizon is mightily displeased that Best Buy knocked to two-year contract price of the Droid 2 Global and Droid Pro down to $100 and $50 respectively. This reportedly violated an agreement the company had with Verizon.
All the units of these two phones are being pulled from shelves now, and Verizon won't even activate them even if you could get Best Buy to sell you one. If you ask Best Buy, this is being called a "recall". How civil. We can understand Verizon's desire to keep the price on new phones higher, but they rake in more money from the two-year agreement than they ever would from the upfront price. So what if Verizon stores miss a few sales? Something seems fishy here. Anyone care to guess at just what is going on?
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tehLazyNinja
December 18, 2010 at 2:13am
So BB undercut you on your old phone? Too bad. You'll make nearly 1200 dollars from each customer for a year's worth of monthly fees. You would bitch-slap an unsuspecting customer with a similar amount for going over on the lesser data plan when they were simply trying to save money. Of course it's up to the customer to know how much data they used -- you're not going to make that something easy to figure out.
These kinds of deals are what drives business. VZW should know this. More Droids in the market means more profit for them. The full cost of the phone is roughly 25% that of average monthly fees for the customer. Even if the phones are buy one get one free, they still make tons off the plan fees and the accessories.
TechLarry
December 17, 2010 at 11:47am
Greedy freakin Verizon. Man I just can't stand that company.
While we're out it, MAP pricing should be deemed illegal too. It's nothign more than organized price fixing.
mesiah
December 16, 2010 at 11:23pm
MPC, all of your regular readers are jumping ship because of the spam. I know you have said you have a fix in the works, but its been months now. Like others, I am done with this site until you get a handle on the situation.
chipmunkofdoom2
December 17, 2010 at 4:28am
Honestly, I did see a reduction in the spam.. yesterday. Whatever spam filter was put in they probably have a way around already.
blkpanthr
December 17, 2010 at 7:36am
yeah, yesterday morning, and wednesday morning spam was low. Afternoon is picked back up again.
Its really annoying when you see 29 comments and get excited about a good conversation going, and then its all spam.
Blekthor
December 16, 2010 at 7:09pm
I would have thought that forcing them to sell at a particular $$$ would come under the heading of:
1)restraint of trade (aren't we supposed to be able to sell things for whatever we want to?)
or
2) price fixing
someuid
December 17, 2010 at 9:14am
Where the heck is the DoJ?
Oh yeah, they're suing AZ for having the same law on the books as the federal government.
Thanks, DoJ, for looking out for us!
ChaosChild
December 16, 2010 at 6:38pm
My guess is that this is to control perception of the phones. iPhones are stupidly expensive anyway you buy them and it adds to their "hip factor". Verizon probably wants to prevent people from seeing the Droid as a cheap knock off by keeping the prices higher.
I'm really enjoying my new Galaxy S that I got last month (droids aren't sold by any carriers in canada) even with the constant questioning of why I didn't get an iPhone.
whathuhitwasntme
December 16, 2010 at 6:16pm
for the love of god
somebody nuke these spamming asshats off the www
I actually wanted to read replies to this interesting topic and go figure
all it has is spammers
whitneymr
December 16, 2010 at 5:47pm
"Anyone care to guess at just what is going on?" I think more than a few state AG's will say what's going on is price fixing.
Blekthor
December 16, 2010 at 7:07pm
Unfortunately, I already have Sprint. Screwed up billing, deadspots, lost rebates. Yep, gotta love em'
athlon11
December 16, 2010 at 5:48pm
If I wanted a useless network then I would, but I prefer to stay with a network that actually works.
blkpanthr
December 17, 2010 at 7:32am
Ive been with sprint since the 90s, and ive never had a single problem.
No network issues, no dropped calls, no billing errors, no issues with customer care...I honestly scratch my head when people say they stink...
The only issue ive ever had with them was in the beginning, they were last to get new tech. That is no longer the case.
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