I worked for Best Buy during the transition from commissioned to hourly, and not only did the knowledge evaporate from the store, but so did the will to actually care about the customer.

As for people complaining above about a salesperson not wanting to show a customer certain other brands. I can understand it. I had a lot of people who came in demanding to see an RCA because they only bought American Made TVs because they wanted quality etc. I, as an hourly person, had no problem telling them that they were smoking crack.

I had one lady who wrote my name down on the sales slip. A year later when she had problems w/ the TV and it was just out of warranty, she insisted that I sold her the TV. I responded perfectly honestly, "Ma'am, if you bought an RCA TV it was because you demanded it, not because I wanted to sell it to you."

She dropped the TV off outside the store w/ a sign that said "Shit from Best Buy!" on it. After she left I wheeled it into the store so Security could watch it. She didn't come back, so I had it repaired and used it for 2 years in my college dorm room.

Call it anecdotal, but I knew which floor models didn't hold up to customer use/abuse. I knew which models had remotes that broke easily. I knew which models had a higher than average percentage of faulty power supplies.

I actually cared about this information, because I didn't want to sell people crap. But as an hourly sales person? If you were even remotely a jerk to me I'd ignore you.

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You seem to have missed the part about keeping employees for a long time. If the customer walks away happy with their purchase, they will be back. If the customer feels gouged, then they won't.

Real commission sales people tend to understand that creating not only store loyalty, but salesperson loyalty is key to their paycheck.

If you return the item because you feel ripped off, then they lose that money out of their next paycheck.

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