What Did I Tell You About Best Buy Pricing?

It looks like Best Buy made another major pricing boo boo today according to a Gather.com story...and almost on the very item I was hoping for in my post a couple of weeks ago about the Palm Pre incident. The best part is that they did way better than I expected, and offered a $3k+ Samsung 52in LCD TV for $9.99. If I wasn't on vacation I would have been all over it...but, alas, it would have been a total waste of my time, since in this case the retailer determined it wasn't going to honor the price. Apparently they've wised up and now put a disclaimer in all their ads that they can rescind any offer at any time...to paraphrase Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force, "a retailer has to know its limitations."

Pre-mature Price Drop Causes A Tempest In A Teapot

It turns out that the $99 Palm Pre pricing at Best Buy, that was getting buzzed about all weekend, was the result of an error in a print advertisement according the VentureBeat and WSJ's Digits Blog. Perhaps the most notable thing about this mishap (the price was supposed to be $199) is that it didn't create a run on stores for the device. Sales nationwide over the weekend were pretty decent...but no one was reporting lines around the block. It'll be interesting to see how Palm, Best Buy & Sprint approach pricing on the device going forward (my guess, $99 is the price in no time). Two things are clear, the Pre has a lukewarm hype-profile more like BlackBerry than iPhone, and more importantly, Best Buy's response to this incident demonstrates that their ads regularly feature major pricing f-ups...so I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a sweet $399 Samsung 55" LED.