[aka1234]

I wonder how much of Best Buy's success can be attributed to using 'emotional intelligence' to 'build relationships' with gullible people and sell $1,000+ HDMI cables to them. Does it happen a lot? Probably not. But selling one of those a week will likely pay for at least one salesperson's wage for that week.

I haven't shopped for myself at a Best Buy and years (and the last time I did, it was for CD/DVDs). And the salespeople trying to 'build relationships' with me are just awful. But that's likely because I'm a misanthrope.

I know what I'm getting into when I go to Best Buy. I'm going to go help a friend buy an overpriced laptop because they want my help since I'm an 'IT guy' and they want to shop at Best Buy for some reason.

[Gamon]

Best Buy employees don't get commission. When I worked there 5 years ago, management encouraged us to add services to bulk up numbers, but employees never really cared because it never comes back to hurt them if they don't.

For those cables, I doubt you could find an employee that would recommend them to a customer. For accessories, the focus was more on the count attached to an order. Cheap HDMI cables were usually the recommendation because it would add something to the order and customers were more likely to get them over the $100 cables. Those overpriced cables are sold because there is always some customer that only wants to buy the best of the best and Best Buy is glad to help them with that.

So you are likely to get some salesman pressure, but it's not what people think it is. The pushing usually comes when you are checking out and they offer the protection plans. But again, if you tell them no, that's usually the last you will hear of it because it doesn't really mean much to an employee if they don't attach it.

You will find a crazy employee every so often that thinks acting like a car salesman will make them management's favorite person, but I think you could find those people at most jobs.

[aka1234]

I didn't mean to imply Best Buy employees get commission. I only called them salespeople to distinguish the people who roam the tech aisles rather than work the register, Geek Squad, etc.

Anecdotally, I've definitely more than one employee try to steer me to the overpriced cables when I was just looking for a quick HDMI cable. I typically just ask them if the decently-priced cable fits into the HDMI spec. By that time they usually figure out it's not worth the time to try and upsell and move on.