The latest fad in Internet customer service is to promise super fast delivery of any order placed online for in-store pickup, or you get some money back as compensation.

Best Buy, Sears and Circuit City all offer the guarantee, but the details vary greatly.

Best Buy

Store Pickup Guarantee
Ready at the counter or $10 off your order.
Order at BestBuy.com® and we’ll have it ready in 1 minute after you present your confirmation email or you get $10 off. (5 minutes for larger items)

*MOUSE PRINT:

Choose BestBuy.com Store Pickup and wait for your email confirming the pickup is ready. Present your confirmation email or a valid order number to the Customer Specialist at the BestBuy.com pickup counter, and in 1 minute we¿ll have your order prepared for pickup. Larger items, such as Major Appliances, Furniture and TVs over 20″, require up to 5 minutes. If we fail to meet our promise, we’ll credit your order up to $10. One minute starts after you have presented your photo ID, purchasing credit card and your confirmation email or valid order number to us, and when Best Buy enters your order number into our computer system. Best Buy will track the time, which will end when you have the product in your possession. Wait time in line and the time to print your receipt not included. All credits will go back to the credit card or Gift Card used on the purchase. Orders less than $10 will be credited up to the amount of the purchase. Eligible only for customers who present their confirmation email or a valid order number at the counter. Orders where non-physical credit cards are used as payment (including but not limited to virtual or one-time use credit cards) are excluded from the guarantee. See a Customer Specialist for details.

Sears

*MOUSE PRINT: None!

Circuit City

*MOUSE PRINT:  See frequently asked questions

Circuit City’s ambiguous policy is the most confusing because it may really offer nothing to the shopper unless they cannot find your item at all. Say you order on Saturday evening, and go to the store Monday to pick it up. Clearly 24 minutes have long since come and gone based on the time on your email confirmation. You go up to the counter, hand in your paperwork, and then what?  Should the item be handed to you instantly because it is still on the conveyer belt since Saturday?  More likely, it is going to come down the conveyer after a few minutes, or you will be asked to go to the large item pickup area, where again you will wait while they fetch your item. Does that qualify for compensation under the guarantee?  The store will probably deny your request.

In short, each chain has a very different policy and you might expect a bit of fight in some cases to get them to part with the money or gift card if they don’t comply with their guarantee.

Finally, don’t forget to take your stopwatch!

A number of retailers upped the ante this past Black Friday by posting “secret” items on their websites for purchase in-store. They were secret because they were not in the printed flier, and you had to know to visit their site to get the details.

Wal-mart advertised secret items for sale on Friday and Saturday, such as these:

One item that will always draw crowds is a cheap laptop, and at $388, many people will likely turn out. When you click on the “branded” laptop, it tells you it could be a Dell, HP, or Toshiba. Wal-mart must want to keep you guessing as if brand doesn’t matter. So you get to the store at 4 a.m. hoping to score some kind of computer, but it wasn’t to be your day. Why did you lose out?  You didn’t read the fine print:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Minimum of ONE computer per store???  Come on (in both senses of the phrase).

Well, maybe you would do better on one of the cheaper items, like the newly released DVDs for $12. Surely they will have a bunch of those.

*MOUSE PRINT:  Nope, they say they might only have one.

They were more generous on clothing items, and on Saturday’s secret sale, they actually had a minimum of two PS3s, Dyson vacuums, and a Kodak printer.

There was one other noteworthy disclosure in the ad:

*MOUSE PRINT:

 

If you can’t read that, it says “limit 1 per household”. Given that they might only have one item in a category, they could just as well have said “limit 1 household per item.”