Best Buy’s strat for PS3/Wii launch leaked?

There’s nothing crazier than waiting for something that you really want to have. And so far, the wait for the PS3 and the Wii launch is proving to be as crazy as it gets. People racing against each other to have their pre-orders online, people actually camping out of stores for reservations, and some more people just ready to live outside retail shops for several days if only for the hope that they’d be able to grab a unit first before stocks run out.

But to every story, there’s two sides to it. And amidst all this consumer-talk, we can’t help but wonder, what of the story of the retail shops who have these customers waiting outside their doors?

Over at Kotaku, their Best Buy mole revealed to them that they (the shop employees) are actually to follow a set of guidelines in dealing with the PS3 and Wii launch. Aptly called the “Wii/PS3 playbook”, this material supposedly contains information and protocols, such as the opening hours of the store, the rule on not divulging how many units are actually in the store to querying customers, and even keeping the store’s lights on all night for the customers camping out to not be in total darkness.

Apart from this, it also states in the play book that employees can purchase their own units, as long as it is outside of their official work time, and that they’d be lining up for it, just like everyone else. But, they are not allowed to resell any console that they bought. Now that seems reasonable and fair enough.

The bad part of this is that the Wii kiosks that Best Buy will be getting are the non-interactive ones. So, we suppose it’s just gonna be one of them stalls where the console and accessories are on display, but you can’t really touch them. As for the don’t-tell-them-how-many-we’ve-got policy, they say the rationale behind that is to “prevent customer disappoints.” We don’t know about you. But, we think it’s even more frustrating to find out at the last minute that there’s no more console left for us after lining up for days.

Anyway, they’re also not supposed to tell when they’ll be getting new stocks. Wow, this is really a race to the finish.

Via kotaku

There’s nothing crazier than waiting for something that you really want to have. And so far, the wait for the PS3 and the Wii launch is proving to be as crazy as it gets. People racing against each other to have their pre-orders online, people actually camping out of stores for reservations, and some more people just ready to live outside retail shops for several days if only for the hope that they’d be able to grab a unit first before stocks run out.

But to every story, there’s two sides to it. And amidst all this consumer-talk, we can’t help but wonder, what of the story of the retail shops who have these customers waiting outside their doors?

Over at Kotaku, their Best Buy mole revealed to them that they (the shop employees) are actually to follow a set of guidelines in dealing with the PS3 and Wii launch. Aptly called the “Wii/PS3 playbook”, this material supposedly contains information and protocols, such as the opening hours of the store, the rule on not divulging how many units are actually in the store to querying customers, and even keeping the store’s lights on all night for the customers camping out to not be in total darkness.

Apart from this, it also states in the play book that employees can purchase their own units, as long as it is outside of their official work time, and that they’d be lining up for it, just like everyone else. But, they are not allowed to resell any console that they bought. Now that seems reasonable and fair enough.

The bad part of this is that the Wii kiosks that Best Buy will be getting are the non-interactive ones. So, we suppose it’s just gonna be one of them stalls where the console and accessories are on display, but you can’t really touch them. As for the don’t-tell-them-how-many-we’ve-got policy, they say the rationale behind that is to “prevent customer disappoints.” We don’t know about you. But, we think it’s even more frustrating to find out at the last minute that there’s no more console left for us after lining up for days.

Anyway, they’re also not supposed to tell when they’ll be getting new stocks. Wow, this is really a race to the finish.

Via kotaku