I thought I'd pop into my local Best Buy today. I couldn't find any "open box" items to speak of.
I guess, either:
1) The "big" sale was a few days ago and I missed it.
2) The employees purchased all of the "open box" items up.
3) They stock-piled the "open box items in the back room for a big clearance sale.
Option #3 seems kind of unlikely because why put the items away when you have a chance to sell them off at any given moment when the store is open.
However, I did hop over to Circuit City. They had several folding tables near the front of the store with "open box" merchandise. Most of the items were marked at only about 10% off. However, I did see a Pioneer '711' receiver for $169.99 - which seems like an "OK" deal to me. I then made my rounds over to the DVD player area. They had 2 Panasonic DVD-RV32K DVD players. These normally sell for $119.99 - $20.00 (mail-in rebate.) They were marked at $89.99. I picked on up a month ago for $69.99 after haggling with the salesperson so he would come down another $20.00 since the box was missing and I wouldn't have the capability to submit the $20.00 rebate. My mother-in-law wants a DVD player, so I located the same salesperson and asked about the price. He pulled up my transaction from nearly a month back and let me have a 2nd player at $69.99. This one for my mother-in-law appears as if it was just pulled out of the box and sold as an "open box" item. The remote, cables, batteries, etc. - were still sealed in the accessories box and the casing of the DVD player was pristine - just like the one I picked up for myself. At $69.99, this is a steal of a deal.
If you're not happy with the "open box" price, ask for them to go lower. In most cases, I've been very successful at getting Circuit City to come down on their prices for their "open box" items. I've never tried to get Best Buy to come down in their open box price. However, I did try to get them to price match one of my "open box" DVD players from Circuit City where it was clearly marked on the receipt. Best Buy would not do the price match for me - so their Panasonic "32" open box player sat on the shelf marked down only $10.00 off the original price - and it was missing the power cable.