Yep, the store-within-a-stores have made a ton of money for BBY since they revamped their cell phone depts a few years ago, the plan all along has been to move into malls & strip malls next.
I think the only thing that would really slow their climb would be if 3rd party stores & carrier stores also dropped mail-in rebates, but until then BBY has a huge advantage over mall kiosks and the such.
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if there were no mail in rebates across the board, best buy and radio shack wouldn't sell nearly the phones they do.
another obstacle they will face is getting into malls. there are private dealers in most, if not all, of the malls they would want to go in to.
i hope best buy picks up radioshack for way too much money and they fail at the wireless side of their business. just hopeful thinking.
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Well honestly it's an unfair competitive advantage and somebody should sue the balls off of both of them.
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How is this an unfair advantage? No one is forcing carriers to have MIR's. It is strickly in place to allow the carriers to sit on interest made off of the initial payment.
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If MIR's did not exsist then a large number of private dealers would suffer. The revenue from MIR's stays with the store you purchase from. The equipment manufactuers and carriers repay the amount in the form of a rebate.
With the change to Rebate Debit cards, people are getting their rebate back in as little as 9 days.
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Rebate Debit cards are useless. Can't use them in half the places you would use a card. Can't use them as a credit card at the gas pump -- have to go in to the clerk. Can't use them online since they cannot be verified. Etc.
Just give me my either instant rebate or send me a damn check where I decide what to do with it.
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GizmoApr 19, 2010, 1:51 PM
So take the rebate card to your bank and say that you want to get the cash off of that for the exact amount of the card.
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Why don't you do that and tell me what happens?
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First of all it sounds like none of you have ever worked in the cell phone world or have only bought one or two phones. As a manager of a retail store I can clear some things up. First the reason why phones are cheaper at retailers is because they recieve kick backs from carriers ie sprint/att/tmobile/verizon. MIR are put down from the carriers because if you look at that card they gave you it has sprints name on it or att name on it...therefore it has nothing to do with radioshack or bestbuy. When you walk into a retail store you know the people that have an idea and it starts with the phone they have on their side. If they have a cheap flip phone and are trying to sell the hd2 I wouldnt trust them at all.
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9 days? Well then it certainly would be pointless for a company to offer MIRs....don't you think? Alot of paperwork and overhead just to reimberse money in such a short time.
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trust me, these companies dont do much to benefit private dealers. having no MIR would result in the phones costing the dealer less. private dealers make no money on the MIR. we actually pay for the MIR upfront, then we get the payment from the customer on the device, then the customer gets the MIR back. The wireless companies dont lose anything on the MIRs because dealers pay for them up front.
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