Best Buy oversight causes online order cancellations

December 23, 2011 By Jeff Hughes

Best Buy bites off more than it can handle, cancels online orders from Thanksgiving sales glut.

It seems like Best Buy may have grinched some of its customers right before the holidays. The company has announced that it has not been able to keep up with the shopping demand and won’t be fulfilling some customers’ orders.

“Due to overwhelming demond of hot product offerings on BestBuy.com druing the November and December time period, we have encountered a situation that has affected redemption of some of our customers’ online orders,” the electronics retailer stated earlier this week. “We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and we have notified the affected customers.”

Best Buy hasn’t released real information on how many customers were affected, or which items happened to be out of stock, but the company does say that apparently only one percent of orders were affected. The WSJ points out that electronics retailer was not prepared for the onslaught of online customers over Thanksgiving weekend. Customers recently received notices that their orders had been canceled.

Best Buy’s online forums have been swamped with an army of angry customers complaining in response to the mishandling of their orders. Some customers felt cheated and scammed, some cried fraud while others claimed they would take their business to Amazon in the future. As far as rectifying beyond the stated apology, some customers have reportedly received giftcards as well as their promised orders; however this doesn’t seem like the company’s across-the-board response yet.

Though the Wall Street Journal points out that this snafu may not have hurt Best Buy’s holiday sales this year, it may be detrimental to Best Buy’s campaign to chase after Amazon. The electronics retailer has been ramping up its online offerings and cutting back on its big box stores in order to compete better with online retailers.

Showing 4 comments

Felipe Adams at 3:07am 25th December 2011 Give customers a good service and you will have them forever.
Tyler Caron at 6:26am 24th December 2011 ONcE YOU'VE READ THE FIRST WORD OF THIS YOU CANT GET OUT. READ ON OR DIE TONIGHT AT 10:35 P.M .9 years ago a person named Jerry got dared to sleep in a house that was belived haunted.The ... next day his friends waited for him out side the house.... ..... ..... ..... They had to go inside and search for him. They went through every room exept the attic.He wasn't supposed to sleep there. He was supposed to sleep in the living room they went into the attic. They saw Jerry's corpse and they just left because they were scared. But that night they all died because of their friend. He killed them all for making him sleep in that house If you don't send this to 11 comments you will die tonight by Jerry. Example 1: A man named Stewart Read this and didn't believe it. He shut off his computer and went through his day. That night while he was in bed he heard something outside of his door. He got up to look. And now he's dead. Example 2: A Girl named Haley Read this in the morning and she got scared but she didn't send it. She wanted to know i She went to school (She was only 13 years old) and that night she died. If you don't post this on 11 comments tonight Jerry
Damon Schmitt at 6:21am 24th December 2011 It took them a month, to finally pull this just a couple days before XMAS? Pathetic.
TechFreak at 8:59pm 23rd December 2011 I have not been impressed with Best Buy lately. They are canceling orders and doing so wayyy too late - people could have bought that product while they waited for Best Buy.Best Buy is also doing a ton of bait and switching, and lost leader tactics which to be frank, I just don't have the patience for.Amazon has my vote for now. And for PC products, Newegg.