[SoCalRedbird]

I visited a local Best Buy store here in Southern California this afternoon. All things considered, I left fairly discouraged when it comes to Blackberry products and marketing.

A couple of thoughts:

1) Apple and Android are clearly the darlings. Both had full wall displays and loads of accessories that dominated the mobile phone section.

2) Blackberry didn't even get its own section. The 9900 and another were thrown in with the "other" phones. No posters. No fanfare. They weren't even powered up. The only accessories I found was Invisishield protectors.

3) Is Best Buy or RIM to blame for the Blackberry neglect?

4) Is my experience the exception, or has Blackberry sunk to irrelevance at all other Best Buy stores too?

[Economist101]

3) Is Best Buy or RIM to blame for the Blackberry neglect?

Best Buy is certainly to blame for the BlackBerry neglect at Best Buy, though Best Buy only neglects BlackBerry because the products aren't selling.

[drummer_god]

best buy owns futureshop in canada. i asked about the playbook, and the sales person actually told me not to get one, they're crap. i told him i have 2 and was looking to buy a 3rd, so clearly i disagree. he said he gets 2 returned every day. i doubt that. just a store looking to push the products that give them the biggest profit margin.

so, if i were a newbie to tablets, i would have been steered away from the playbook.
thats a big problem.

[[email protected]]

He said he gets 2 returned every day. i doubt that. just a store looking to push the products that give them the biggest profit margin.

Probably an exaggeration of sorts, but I my local Radio Shack did say they had a fair share of returns after the holiday seaon ended.

I purchased 3 off of Craigslist list. 2 said they were X-Mas gifts and they already had another tablet.

Case by case thing I guess.

[CairnsRock]

Best Buy and their kind, sell whats hot. Even sell is not a good word, they make available whats hot.
If a 100 people come in and ask for an iPhone/iPad vs 3 or 4 for BB/PB, they develop a comfort level with IPad and have many more in stock.
So they "sell" whats in their stockroom.

[fernandez21]

My best buy has one end cap with the blackberry logo and a live torch 9850 for sprint on display along with a dummy torch 9810 for AT&T, and in their smartphone section the dummy 9810 is raised with a blackberry logo over it.

[REDISETTER]

The Best Buy where I live doesn't even have a Playbook out on display. They don't have any Blackberry phones for Verizon for sale at the Best Buy. The only Blackberry they have for sale is the Blackberry Torch for AT&T service, not even a 9900. When they did have a Playbook on sale it usually wasn't on and running. The Best Buy mobile store in the mall across the street took the Playbook off display and they don't have the newer Blackberry Phones for sale either.

Last night, I was in a metro area and stopped by the Best Buy in one of the bigger suburbs and they didn't have any Blackberry's for cell service. They did have a Playbook out, but unfortunately I couldn't use it because it was frozen up.

As someone who likes Apple products and has an iPhone, I still like Blackberry and think the Playbook is a great little table and prefer it's size to the IPAD. I have considered switching to a 9930, but am hesitant because I don't really think Blackberry is even getting a fair chance from retailers to market their products. They are partly to blame for the "behind the times" products and bad marketing, but obviously the retailers haven't even give their products a chance. People look at you crazy when you talk Blackberry. I hope they succeed as it will be bad for us as consumers if we only have Apple or Android. I would like to see Blackberry and Windows Phone succeed as it will mean more innovative products for us consumers.

[kassdog]

Iwouldnt completely say best buy is to blame. A lot of companies in best buy pay best buy to have x amount of floor space.

[drummer_god]

they develop a comfort level with IPad and have many more in stock.
So they "sell" whats in their stockroom.

well, my local future shop has lots of playbooks in stock, but don't have one on display. how can they sell them when they are not on display, and when a customer asks about them, the sales rep says not to buy one??

so much for selling "what's in their stockroom".

[pantlesspenguin]

After the PB launched in April I went to Best Buy several times to look at the PB, but I didn't know how to work it because of the bezel swipes! It was always stuck in a game or app that I didn't know how to get out of. I became frustrated and walked away. I bet that happened to hundreds of others, and it makes me wonder if the PB would have sold more units if there had been an instruction sheet off to the side, or even that piece of plastic that demonstrates the gestures left on the model unit.

Kind of off topic, but still relevant, there was also the public misconception that you needed a BB handset to make the PB work. A couple months ago I was having difficulty connecting my PB to my phone's WiFi hotspot. I took everything into T-Mobile. I explained my issue, and the guy in the next kiosk actually leaned over and said that I was having trouble because I also needed to have a BlackBerry device to access data on the PB. I shook my head and told him this was false, and he insisted he was right and I had purchased a paperweight. The guy who was helping me ended up connecting the PB to his personal phone's WiFi hotspot and imagine the other dude's face when we were able to surf the net on it with ease.

The concept of bridging is neat for those in the know, but it just confuses the masses from an advertising standpoint, and those people will hop onto other products that they readily understand.

[VanCity778]

best buy owns futureshop in canada. i asked about the playbook, and the sales person actually told me not to get one, they're crap.

Same thing happened to me when i bought my 9810 at Rogers. When ever i get told not to buy something that i clearly want to buy, i feel like grabbing that little puke by the throat and make him come back down to Earth. Just know your role and get me the product.

[drummer_god]

perhaps we should write these stores and let them know how unknowledgeable their reps are and how we don't plan to do business at their stores anymore.
can't hurt, right?

i just emailed them this:

i was recently at my local futureshop at hyde park in London to make a dvd purchase.
while at customer service making the purchase, I enquired about the blackberry playbook, since I could see there were a few in stock, but none on display.
immediately the sales rep told me not to buy one, because they are crap. this is quite shocking to me, as i have 2 and they are far from being crap.
this store, and probably many others, are doing customers a great disservice not only not showcasing them, but really are not knowledegeable on the product and also insulting and mis-informing potential customers.
please stop pulling the wool over customers eyes by trying to sell them inferior tablets simply because they provide larger profit margins to your store.
after seeing this practice first hand, i will now doubt anything a futureshop sales rep tells me about a product and try to steer clear from buying at this particullar store again.

[kill_9]

Probably an exaggeration of sorts, but I my local Radio Shack did say they had a fair share of returns after the holiday seaon ended.

Likely due to the buyers thinking the BlackBerry PlayBook is another Android-running tablet. Consumers are idiots. Circuses and bread keep them happy and stupid.

[pantlesspenguin]

Likely due to the buyers thinking the BlackBerry PlayBook is another Android-running tablet. Consumers are idiots. Circuses and bread keep them happy and stupid.

Oh you know someone has gone up to someone that's using a pb and said "What kind of iPad is that???" Or, the person buying the pb as a gift was getting it for someone who wanted an iPad and thought that all tablets were "iPads."

[BBneophile]

I think this sentiment is fairly universal.....I believe it's due to the "lack of whizzbang" features, and the general consensus of beng low tech..Sprint Employees are no different...They all push the iPhone 4S as the latest and best phone. Even though it soon will be obsolete with the arrival of the 5.

[[email protected]]

I think this sentiment is fairly universal.....I believe it's due to the "lack of whizzbang" features, and the general consensus of beng low tech..Sprint Employees are no different...They all push the iPhone 4S as the latest and best phone. Even though it soon will be obsolete with the arrival of the 5.

Sprint needs to move phones. That said, I use Sprint. Never had a rep push a product on me. And with the notoriously slow web speeds on their iPhones, I usually here them speaking to other customers about Samsung phones,

[drummer_god]

here is a snippet of the email reply i received from futureshop:
-----------
Thank you for contacting Future Shop and notifying us of your concerns. We definitely apologize for your experience in one of our stores. If you would like, we can file a feedback form that goes directly the store management in regards to an issue, in this case, your experience with a store emplyee and their comments.
-------------
seems like a generic reply, as they then request more info from me, which i already provided in my original email.

[Morty2264]

I would think that this is Best Buy's fault as far as marketing goes, and not RIM's. It's ironic, because in Canada, Best Buy's website has the BlackBerry logo at the bottom of the page under its "Featured Brands" section. It's too bad that you had that happen. When I first got my BlackBerry, I knew nothing of other smartphones; so if I had gone to Best Buy and they hadn't even had many BlackBerrys out there and had pushed another phone in my face, I would've been very discouraged and confused. They should at least put up some posters and more displays.

[swyost]

I visited a local Best Buy store here in Southern California this afternoon. All things considered, I left fairly discouraged when it comes to Blackberry products and marketing.

A couple of thoughts:

1) Apple and Android are clearly the darlings. Both had full wall displays and loads of accessories that dominated the mobile phone section.

2) Blackberry didn't even get its own section. The 9900 and another were thrown in with the "other" phones. No posters. No fanfare. They weren't even powered up. The only accessories I found was Invisishield protectors.

3) Is Best Buy or RIM to blame for the Blackberry neglect?

4) Is my experience the exception, or has Blackberry sunk to irrelevance at all other Best Buy stores too?

Apple and other manufacturers pay for that priority placement. If RIM doesn't do that then they will get lumped in with the other phones, etc.. RIMs side shelf position is not because of retailer bias or conspiracy. It is because 1) they don't pay for anything better; 2) the products do not sell as well; and 3) RIM still seems to think its products are the status products that people will seek out. Blame RIM on all counts. Retailers are in the business to make money, not to give a leg up to a struggling product line.

[go1ndr]

Ok, here's my story! I live in So CA as well, and at Christmas time I went into the following stores with no luck: Office Depot/Staples/Frys/Best Buy. Staples and Frys had a PB out but neither of them worked nor did the employees have any idea on how they worked or why they wouldn't. Without being able to touch one and see how they react, it's hard to fork out the money for one--That said, being a loyal BB owner, I inquired to everyone, if they were a good buy and the most common issue I heard was that you couldn't even get email on them! Not true of course for webmail but for actual pop3 or push accounts it seems to be true. Regardless, even though both my wife and I are BB owners and love them (business people) I bought her a Kindle Fire because it was everywhere, half the price and fully downloadable through the Android store. That said, if even one sales person had been able to show me how to work a PB, I'm certain I would have bought one and never looked at other tablets. I will say that the Kindle Fire is an amazing tablet, so much so that I may buy one for myself as well. The attitude toward BB in general is just not good in the States.