Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

The perceived inaccuracy of online depictions of in-store inventory may be at the heart of a new excuse that one Best Buy employee is apparently using to avoid having to hunt up products, according to this wonderful report from Consumerist, a Consumer Reports-owned site with a nice dose of attitude. Seems that a consumer went to Best Buy to purchase a deeply-discounted hard drive after the site said the item was in stock. The shelf was empty, so he asked an employee to help him find it.

“He informed me that they were all out of stock and that the Web site takes about 6 hours to update the inventory, and that that was the reason for the discrepancy,” the customer said, according to the story. “I didn’t trust him, however, so when I got home I logged back onto the Best Buy site and ordered the HDD for in-store pick-up at the same location and about a half an hour later, there was a message in my inbox letting me know that my order was ready to be picked up” and he indeed drove to the store and was given the hard-disk. Added the story’s author: “You have to admit, however, that his ‘the Web site is wrong’ line did effectively get you to go away, albeit temporarily, which we can only assume was its intended function.”