Posted on 03/29/2012 8:39:03 AM PDT by nuconvert
Best Buy Co reported weaker-than-expected sales for the key holiday quarter, prompting the world's largest electronics chain to close 50 U.S. stores and cut 400 jobs in corporate and support areas.
-excerpt-
Best Buy is now trying to focus on its smaller format stores. It will close 50 U.S. big-box stores and open 100 Best Buy small-format, stand-alone stores in the current fiscal 2013.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
More and more people are buying electronics online.
And I buy my MacBooks at the Apple Store...if I need it fixed, I get it back in two days....at BB, they’d ship it off somewhere and you won’t get it back for at least a week.
Plus, who doesn’t already have a flat screen TV by now?
“...More and more people are buying electronics online.”
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Fewer people are spending money. People have less money with higher taxes, obscene gas prices, inflating food prices, increased medical costs, and on and on.....
I have heard Bet Buy repeatedly referred to as the showroom for Amazon.com
They are a dinosaur in a world where even Amazon will probably be a dinosaur in ten years.
At last, they have a clue that it might help sales, if the salespeople knew something about the products.
Best Buy is selling on-line as well as in stores, but frankly, in my own opinion, by way of the items I have been looking for, Best Buy’s sales are down because their bargains, in-store or on-line, have not been bargain enough for me.
Now, maybe it is their costs, their too extensive bricks-and-mortar costs that are constraining how low they can set their prices. If so, then yes, they need to shed some bricks-and-mortar.
The Best Buy near me is largely empty floor space now anyhow.
They got rid of most of their video games and CD/DVD stock.
Their main function anymore is to have Geek Squad guys there to tell you “it will cost $22,000 to fix your computer. So why not just buy a new one from us?”
This may be a good time to get a good deal on electronics. Someone told me that the prices marked can be negotiated down with the saleperson or the manager at some retail stores. Now that Best Buy is on the ropes, they may be willing to give markdowns on some of their items.
I do almost all my buying on Amazon. Or on line with vendors in New York.
Nothing surprising here when you have a combination of a slumping economy and an aging business model.
You can still get good deals at the store, but online shopping is dominating these kinds of businesses. TigerDirect had it figured out early on and relies heavily on their website as opposed to the stores.
I remember when my son got a part-time job at a Radio Shack, he was amazed to see people (mostly older people) walk into a store to buy things that could be had for almost half that price at online outlets like Tom's Hardware, NewEgg, Amazon, etc.
A few years back, I saw the handwriting on the wall for these brick-and-mortar outlets when customers started walking into these stores with iPhones. They'd check out the merchandise in the store, see what they wanted, and then they'd walk out of the store keying in their order on the iPhone.
I had a Blu-ray player that I bought at Best Buy that stopped working. Took it to Best Buy, and they shipped it to Panasonic. Took a bout a month. I'd already bought another player by the time it came back.
Best Buy’s sales are hurt because Best Buy, in general, is an overpriced, rude, miserable store.
For example, one day my windows 7 laptop decided to blow up after a windows update (Yay windows update!) so I took it to them to wipe the hard drive and reload windows because I was too lazy and hated windows to much to do it on my own. They wanted to charge me $250 for something that simple and told me it would take 1-2 weeks!
Needless to say, I found another guy who did it for $120 and turn around was 1 day.
Screw Best Buy.
They haven’t been able to compete with Walmart on price for years but figured they could hang in there with better customer service. About the time that plan was tanking, they had to take on Amazon, Costco and Sam’s Club and fell even further behind in the price wars. Add the recession when price became the ONLY factor and they were down for the ten count (although they’re trying to convince themselves is a standing 8 count).
You can only expect retail stores to lower their prices so much to compete with Amazon and other e-tailers. The remaining difference has to be made up in the experience.
Take Micro Center, my favorite DIY computer hardware store. The people who work there actually know what the hell they’re talking about! While buying parts for my latest build, the guy I talked with recommended a different kind of thermal paste and explained why it was more effective than what I typically use. I bought a tube, applied it, and sure enough, it did what he said.
Now contrast that with Best Buy. I once called aside one of their Geek Squad agents to ask if a certain power supply they were selling had one or multiple 12v rails. The guy had no clue what I was talking about.
More recently, I asked a local BB if they carried the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in-store. He said that they had the AT&T and Verizon Wireless versions. AT&T doesn’t sell the Galaxy Nexus; he’d gotten it confused with 2010’s Nexus model, the Nexus S.
Ain’t that the truth. Who upgrades their big screen TVs every couple of years?
I agree with you about Micro Center. I discovered it a while back and am ultra impressed by the knowledge of the sales staff and selection of products, all at pretty much bargain prices, some lower than Amazon.
All big ticket prices are negotiable, in any brick and mortar store. If you pay sticker, you're overpaying.
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