Best Buy prices items differently in-store and online. This is something I’ve covered in the past.

Unfortunately, many consumer advocates don’t like this notion. Well, I personally think they’re wrong in this regard. There’s good reason, too. Online, you can’t use in-store coupons and discounts… Best Buy especially uses 10% off coupons aggressively to spark sales. And, on top of that, the stores often will pricematch their web site without any concern. You can even pit one store against the other and get extremely high savings.

Awhile back however, the terminals in-store (the ones which replicate BestBuy.com, but with in-store pricing), did not mention that there was a disparity. Now, however, they do. When you go to an in-store terminal, every page has anchored on it, in big, yellow-and-black bold writing “These are in-store prices, which are not the same as online pricing. Ask a sales associate if you have any questions.”

When consumer advocates don’t even read big-print writing, I get aggravated. So, the next time you hear someone start complaining about Best Buy’s in-store terminals, you might want to pay closer attention to what they’re saying. I realize Best Buy is the target of consumer advocates (and in the past, rightly so), but this is just giving consumer advocacy a bad name.

Hopefully Best Buy will get their PR people out and about (that’s my primary complaint with them about this), and challenge the FUD. Consumers should do the smart thing, know the prices, check them out online, then go in-store and make a purchasing decision.