Interesting - this article blames Amazon, another blamed the iPad squeezing BB's margins. I say the blame lies with the clueless way these stores have been run for years. thehigherlife's anecdote about trying to buy a cable is a good example. Consider the insane irony of the name "Best Buy" in the context of that story.
Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
#12I recently tried to buy a cable from their store the other day. They had the cable on their website for $14 dollars (Amazon had it for $6) and I thought to myself, "Well that's not terrible, I'd rather have it today, it is worth the premium." When I got to the store, the best price for the cable, was $30 and the staff said the $14 cable I wanted was online only (it was not easily apparent from their site). Even after…
Big Lots is a better place to go to get a HDMI cable (and a few other cables as well) than Best Buy. I'm not sure which company this says more about, really. I find the markup on cables at BB to be very frustrating. Why can I get a cable shipped all the way across the country for less than 1/8th the price of a BB cable?
As I understand it, most of BB's profit is from the markup on peripherals.. they make little to no profit on big box items
Edit: GeekSquad and warranties are the other profit makers
Re: Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
#13Plea HN: When you go to Best Buy don't go out and buy from Amazon! "Is Best Buy becoming a showroom for online retailers like Amazon?", well, for most people yes, but what if BB bankrupts, which showroom will you go? I think their plan sounds good, especially the employer compensation bit. BB's worst problem is their clueless employees. Whenever I go there, either I can't find anyone or else I get surprised looks to…
"...what if BB bankrupts, which showroom will you go?"
If there is sufficient consumer demand for it, another solution will show up.
Re: Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
#14Plea HN: When you go to Best Buy don't go out and buy from Amazon! "Is Best Buy becoming a showroom for online retailers like Amazon?", well, for most people yes, but what if BB bankrupts, which showroom will you go? I think their plan sounds good, especially the employer compensation bit. BB's worst problem is their clueless employees. Whenever I go there, either I can't find anyone or else I get surprised looks to…
I wonder how viable it would be for Amazon to have "showroom" retail locations. They wouldn't even need to have stock, just a place to try out a large selection of merchandise.
Re: Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
#15I recently tried to buy a cable from their store the other day. They had the cable on their website for $14 dollars (Amazon had it for $6) and I thought to myself, "Well that's not terrible, I'd rather have it today, it is worth the premium." When I got to the store, the best price for the cable, was $30 and the staff said the $14 cable I wanted was online only (it was not easily apparent from their site). Even after…
Big Lots is a better place to go to get a HDMI cable (and a few other cables as well) than Best Buy. I'm not sure which company this says more about, really. I find the markup on cables at BB to be very frustrating. Why can I get a cable shipped all the way across the country for less than 1/8th the price of a BB cable?
Best Buy's historical strategy has been to make profits from accessories like cables. But they have been doing it wrong in the past 5 years. They should be using these accessories to drive foot traffic.
Best Buy can sell products or services. They obviously cant sell products (for a profit), and their services kind of suck. But they need to do one or the other, and they need to do it great. Amazon and company has them beat on selling products. They need to focus all their energy on selling services.
Best Buy's current strategy is borrowed time. A shame the employees get to suffer through shitty (mis)management like this.
Re: Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
#16This is actually quite sad to me. As much as I complained about Circuit City and Best Buy with their pushy salesmen and incredibly high prices, there's always a benefit to being able to go to a store and see what you're about to buy. You can't tell the build quality of a laptop by reading an Amazon description. You can't tell the picture quality of a screen by the customer reviews. You can't do side-by-side compariso…
When/if Amazon is forced to start collecting sales tax I they'll start selling items locally. They already have a number of distribution centers and I bet people would happily drive out to them to get a product today.
Re: Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
#17Plea HN: When you go to Best Buy don't go out and buy from Amazon! "Is Best Buy becoming a showroom for online retailers like Amazon?", well, for most people yes, but what if BB bankrupts, which showroom will you go? I think their plan sounds good, especially the employer compensation bit. BB's worst problem is their clueless employees. Whenever I go there, either I can't find anyone or else I get surprised looks to…
Who needs a showroom for most tech products? I can view video reviews and unboxing on Youtube and detailed reviews on dozens of sites. I'm finding that I'm buying more and more products without first trying them out in the store.
Re: Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
#18An interesting comment from Reddit:
"Roughly 5-7 years ago Best Buy was competing with another company called.. Circuit City. One of the ways they were making sure they kept market share was whenever Circuit City was putting in a bid to open a store somewhere, Best Buy would bid higher and put a store in that exact same location. This caused Best Buy to open a lot of stores that were close to other Best Buy's (roughly 3-6 miles in some cases), but they just wanted to make sure Circuit City didn't get market share.
Fast forward to now, the leases on those stores ending and Best Buy is not renewing them. The store isn't very profitable as it could be because there is another one not too far down the road.
What that article also fails to mention is Best Buy is also going to open an additional 100 stores, two different types (Mobile stores in malls and community stores in smaller markets). Both of these types of stores are much smaller, cost less to run but typically are very profitable due to cell phone sales.
Am I a Best Buy employee? Obviously yes. Do I speak for the company? Nope. Do I plan on working here the rest of my life? Of course not. Just trying to be a bit more accurate than the chicken little the sky is falling that is mentioned in this article is all."
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/rj92n/the_slow_d...
Re: Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
#19of course they are.
With Best Buy, you have to go get in your car, drive 7 miles to the store, browse for 20 minutes to find what you are looking for, then drive 7 miles back. So on top of $4 you probably spend on gas, you end up wasting an hour of your day just to get something.
With Amazon, you get the itch to get something, do a quick search, add it to the cart, and get it shipped + you can read reviews to find out if the item sucks.
And of course Amazon will tend to have lower prices...and with Prime, you'll have it very quick.
The only thing you'd go to Best Buy for, is if you have an emergency, and need something asap...and there aren't a lot of items that you can't wait a day for to avoid wasting an hour at the store
Re: Best Buy feels Amazon squeeze, to close 50 big-box stores
#20This is actually quite sad to me. As much as I complained about Circuit City and Best Buy with their pushy salesmen and incredibly high prices, there's always a benefit to being able to go to a store and see what you're about to buy. You can't tell the build quality of a laptop by reading an Amazon description. You can't tell the picture quality of a screen by the customer reviews. You can't do side-by-side compariso…
It was a shame when Circuit City went under. However, is there anyone on the planet not affiliated with Best Buy who wouldn't love to see them go bankrupt?
I'm all rose-coloured glasses and nostalgia when it comes to dying brick-and-mortar stores, but let's not pretend that Best Buy isn't a silly place.