Comments on: Best Buy Is Losing Its Edge

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:32:00 +0000

Best Buy is an amaing company with amazing employee’s. Every BBY I shop at I get personalized service. I go to Wal-Mart and Target and get nothing. I don’t even get a how are you?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:32:00 +0000

Best Buy is an amaing company with amazing employee’s. Every BBY I shop at I get personalized service. I go to Wal-Mart and Target and get nothing. I don’t even get a how are you?

By: Jim Chalil

Jim Chalil — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:26:00 +0000

wow, so accurate and right on!

By: Ande3916

Ande3916 — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:03:00 +0000

We at Best Buy look forward to proving you wrong Miss Flora.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 22:34:00 +0000

I’ve worked for some great people during my time at Best Buy, but as a floor-level associate, the only thing I saw consistently was cut corners. Less managers, less supervision, less overhead: the store became an exercise in min-maxing expenditures and cutting labor. Boosting money for labor brought about huge increases in revenue, but a depreciated margin. Which side did we go with? Keep labor budgets tight at the sacrifice of loyalty. Best Buy is a company of innovation, but getting the right ideas in place seems to be a challenge. The Customer Associate program, introduced a few years ago, was a disaster. The CA program robbed labor dollars from specialty departments, meaning what was meant to be an increase in customer engagement ended up creating a team of associates that were little more than ‘warm bodies’ that were sent to whatever department needed assistance. I had an opportunity to visit the store next to HQ and sample the abandoned Super Gerbil projects that they not only failed to iterate on, but also failed to mop up. It’s those ‘innovative’ ideas that are pushed forward, rather than ones that could embolden Best Buy in an era where generalization at retail isn’t an option – unless you’re Walmart or Target. In an era where retail space is precious, why waste your efforts going in a million different directions? Get a good grip on something and run with it.

There are some great people working at the Corporate office, but when your interaction with customers is inserting raw data into a PowerPoint slide, you know something’s wrong. Some of the best and brightest minds are recruited by the mothership, but how many worked in a store? Shockingly few. Of those, how many recently? Again, shockingly low. As the company gets bigger and bigger, this will prove to be a greater liability.

The company’s far from doomed, but there are plenty of red flags to warrant an investigation. Best Buy has prided itself on being pro-active in its innovation, but their built-in bureaucracies are slowly choking it out.

By: Ed Schurr

Ed Schurr — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:30:00 +0000

As a former 12 year employee of Best Buy, I found this article extremely interesting. I had been in tough times before with BBY; in fact, during one period, not even knowing if the company could meet its payroll. One thing is certain, however. Since leaving the company seven years ago, I have not worked for or with a more superb group of employees, both in line level and senior management positions, who are more than capable of doing whatever it takes to get the company per plan. Yes, all retailers have taken it on the chin during our “recession.” Best Buy has weathered it better than most. Assuredly, all companies make mistakes, be it expansion, product line, etc. One thing I always admired about BBY, however, is that they are not afraid to try…..to try new markets….new concepts. I can remember one time when I was a district service manager and Brad Anderson and Dick Schulze visited one of our meetings. He asked the group if we had any feedback for him. I asked him that I felt our company was great at innovating, but not sustaining. In part, he agreed. Innovation is the key to success. I don’t think you could ever fault BBY for not being innovative. They will succeed. Why? Because of the dedicated, professional, and hard working employees they have around the world. Because, of all the jobs I have had since, I have never worked for a company that had more heart than BBY. Management is one thing…..leadership is another and there are a ton of leaders are Best Buy.

By: Flora Delaney

Flora Delaney — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:14:00 +0000

N: Your criticisms seem well founded: indeed Best Buy has faltered in its attempts to organically grow a new brand. As you point out, their partnership with Carphone Warehouse in the UK and purchase of Geek Squad and FIve Star in China are the only successful new business endeavors they have had. They were flying high when their customers were largely uneducated about technology and competitors (like WalMart, Target, Costco and Amazon) were afraid to enter the technology market. In today’s “Connected World” Best Buy looks to have a largely undifferentiated assortment, so-so pricing and has developed a reputation for overselling its service plans. More customers check into their favorite social media sites to research purchases and tech-savvy opinion leaders too often point customers away from Best Buy.

A $50B retailer is nothing to sneeze at. It is possible for them to adapt and succeed, but change will be painful – in the stores and the bloated corporate office. Your suggestions for utilizing social media in a more authentic way, trust relationship management to happen closer to customers and changing store formats and labor models are a start. Unfortunately, I see no reason to believe that Best Buy will hear your suggestions in the short term. Unless Wall Street and other significant investors (are you listening, Dick?) step in, BBY will continue to flounder in the seasons ahead.
Flora Delaney
http://www.floradelaney.com/

By: Stravonski

Stravonski — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 14:51:00 +0000

I live in the Phoenix area and yesterday when my younger son was looking to buy a new computer, we checked BestBuy.com to see what was there. I was quite annoyed that Best Buy doesn’t provide real specs for computer. I want to know what processor is in the computer without having to go to another site to look up the model because Best Buy is too lazy to properly post the specs on the item page (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+Inspiron+Desktop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i3+Processor+/+4GB+Memory+/+1TB+Hard+Drive/1677209.p?id=1218278292663&skuId=1677209). Also, when we found one that was suitable, it wasn’t available in any of the Best Buy stores in Phoenix, we would have to order it online.

In the end, we built our own on New Egg, got a better system for less money, and will get it faster than had we ordered from Best Buy and then have to drive to the store to pick it up. I was a regular Best Buy customer in Colorado, but with Fry’s Electronics and NewEgg.com, the big blue box has become superfluous.