ooma at Best Buy: Additional Stores

Only months after launching into retail, we’re pleased to announce that ooma™ is currently rolling into an additional 206 Best Buy stores. Along with this roll out, we’ll also be expanding our popular referral program. This means if you’re an existing customer, you can now refer your friends in the New York, Boston, Miami, Orlando, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, Seattle and San Diego areas to buy an ooma system so that you can both reap the rewards. Click here for a list of participating Best Buy stores.

Simply get a friend to buy and activate an ooma system from a select Best Buy store and you and your friend will both get to choose either a $25 Best Buy Gift Card OR $50 worth of international calling. Visit ooma.com/referral for the details. In addition to these referral rewards, your friends will get the joy of calling you and everyone else in the United States for free and experience extremely low international rates that are just pennies per minute.

We thank you for your tremendous support and for being such a great partner as we continue to grow.

Thanks!
Andrew Frame
Founder and CEO

Tags: Best Buy

| 8 Comments | News

8 Comments

1. hillary | September 8, 2008 @ 7:13pm

   i’ve called a few different best buys on your list and none of them have any clue what ooma is. is this a slow roll out, or is there a date when all of these stores will have the system in stock?

   thx.

2. VBob | September 8, 2008 @ 8:21pm

   Hi hillary, by chance do you know roughly in what area were you calling Best Buy stores? All the stores should be stocked by now, but a few may not have placed them on store shelves yet.

   Also sometime in the next one to two weeks employees at new store locations should receive information and training about the product.

   -Bobby

3. Kevin | October 14, 2008 @ 9:42pm

   Over a month after the Best Buy roll out into additional markets, at least in the Baltimore/Washington DC area it seems as though the employees at Best Buy have no idea what ooma is and the overall shopping process there could use a lot of work.

   I’ve actually purchased 2 ooma core systems at my local Best Buy (Owings Mills, MD)- first time, I was surprised to walk in and find the ooma retail boxes- they were not labeled with any price information or any other details on a shelf (to me it looked like a generic overstock area) as I was shopping for a new cordless phone.

   I remembered reading about ooma from the white rabbit beta launch program and wound up researching the pricing on my iPhone from within the store to make the decision to purchase since the employees had no clue.

   Just this past Monday, I returned to pick up another core system for a family member, and couldn’t find them anywhere on the shelves. None of the store employees had any idea what I was talking about after spending several moments having to spell out ooma several times, and describing what it was.

   However, using the in-store kiosks I could see that there were 10 in-stock in that particular store, though even then the employees had no idea where to find them in the store so I wound up having to place an order via their website from the store for in-store pickup where someone was able to finally locate it in the back storage area to complete the sale.

4. VBob | October 15, 2008 @ 10:59am

   Hi Kevin,

   First off, we really appreciate your detailed store feedback.

   Like you found, we ran into a few bumps in our roll out to stores in several areas. As a result, we needed to delay our training programs in these expansion stores. We expect the merchandising problems you mentioned with the price tags and the in-store shelf display should be fixed within the next 1-2 weeks.

   Also within a few weeks, we plan on rolling out training programs to all the Best Buy stores to drive product education and awareness. Our training teams will be sure to visit the stores in the DC/Baltimore areas.

   –Bobby

5. Kevin | October 15, 2008 @ 8:21pm

   FYI- I stopped in another Best Buy store today (Columbia, MD) and at that particular store I saw that ooma was more prominently displayed with several units available on a shelf right above the telephone display models with proper price tags on the shelf.

   Any chance though that there can be actual display models of the ooma equipment put out in these stores? The hardware (hub and scout) actually look very nice with their industrial design (which fits in nicely with the aluminum macs by the way) with the exception of a missing ooma logo anywhere on the device.

6. VBob | October 16, 2008 @ 4:16pm

   Thanks for the store FYI Kevin.

   We don’t have any near-term plans to show off the hardware in store displays. We do plan on demoing the product at in-store events, however. Right now we have in-store Best Buy events planned in the LA and NY areas. We’ll be updating the new events page (linked off our homepage) with more details as they come.

   Thanks!
   Bobby

7. Kevin B - Phoenix | November 10, 2008 @ 9:52am

   Bobby,

   I just purchased an ooma system at Best Buy here in Phoenix. Their website says they have them at all the stores in my area, but your website doesn’t list AZ as a market to buy them in. Also, like the other users said on this posting, the store employees had no idea what it was and it was even hard to find. I thought it would be near the other VoIP stuff, but this was hidden on a shelf below the cordless phones. If I didn’t know what the packaging looked like, they never would have found it for me. I only spotted it because I saw the image of the hub on the box. I couldn’t see the name “ooma” without bending down and really looking for it.

   it’s a great product. I’m going to tell everyone i know about it. i just thought you might like to know about how it was displayed when i found it.

   Thanks,

   Kevin B
   Gilbert, AZ

8. VBob | November 13, 2008 @ 3:54pm

   Hi Kevin B — We’re taking a look at that right now. It looks like some Best Buy stores may have went ahead and ordered the product independently. We’ll try to get the store list updated soon.

   Thanks for sharing your experience!

   -Bobby

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