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back to article Best Buy shuttering 50 stores, laying off staff in $800m cost slash

Months after beating a retreat from the UK struggling retailer Best Buy is to shutter 50 stores in the US as part of a multi-year $800m (£500m) cost reduction programme. The experiment in Blighty which cost Best Buy and its joint venture partner Carphone Warehouse (CPW) £200m ended in January but the after effects were felt in …

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  1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Don't they have the internet at Harvard Business School?

    Big box electronics stores are dead - deader than a parrot that's been run over by a steamroller while pining for the Fiords. Wake up guys, even my gran buys this stuff online!

    Nobody is going to miss Dixons staff, $80 HDMI cables and attempts to sell $100 extended warranties on a MP3 player.

    The only bit of Best Buy that made sense was Geek Squad, at least for the 99% of people that seem to be confused about which end of an HDMI cable to plug in the back.

    A business based on Geek Squad type outfit charging you a fee to help you pick a TV online, sync with Amazon etc to be there when it's delivered, set it up for you and be there when it breaks - could work. Manufacturers could even bundle Geek squad instead of their own appalling service support.

    Apple have figured this out, one of the reasons the 99% used to buy Apple computers was that they could go and get help from a person that had a reasonable chance of being able to actually help them.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't they have the internet at Harvard Business School?

      Best Buy ruined Geek Squad. Before they were bought by BB, the Geek Squad geeks actually had to know how to fix computers. After the purchase, the smart people left and the only ones remaining were Best Buy's patented mollusk-in-a-meatsack drones.

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    2. Tom 13
      Reply Icon

      Re: Don't they have the internet at Harvard Business School?

      There's still a valid reason for "big box stores": many people want to actually see what they are going to purchase. The key is for the big box to figure out how to convert that into a sale because cheapskates go look at the big box then buy online. Maybe it IS time to start taxing the internet to deliver a level playing field.

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  2. Tiny Iota
    Headmaster

    Best Buy said it wants to improve the customer experience...is a mute point

    They must not have said it very loudly then?

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    They over-saturated the market....

    First - there's a reason that people like me always refer to them as "Worst-Buy" : Much of what they have in terms of things like computer parts is crap, is over priced, and out of stock. Add to this "Oh, you need this special cable - genuine extra-virgin Yak Wool insulation, oxygen-free copper with iridium plating, a mere snip at $500. And you need the extra 5 year "we say we will replace this but we won't" plan. And these special surge protectors - they'll make the music sound better!" and people like me avoid them just on cost.

    Then you have the idea that the shopping experience is unpleasant - here I am, trying to buy music, trying to remember what other songs I might want to pick up, and then little Billy RicerKid comes in, tunes all the stereos (both car and home) to the same crap, turns the bass to +12 and the volume up, and leaves, and the store personnel do ziltch about it. And of course, if the music I want isn't <stage_direction>puts finger in cheek, withdraws with a </stage_direction>POP-ular music they won't have it, and is it any wonder I get my music online now - even if I am buying CDs rather than downloads (because some of us like having backups, and having something without compression artifacts).

    But the last thing is that WorseBuy has over-saturated the market. I live in a city of 300k people. There are 3 BestBuy full stores, plus a mobile audio store in one of the malls. All within 15 miles of each other. Does that make sense?

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There is a reason why...

    ...they earned the name Bad Buy.

    http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/Connecticut-Sues-Best-Buy-for-Deceiving-Customers/

    http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2004/08/16/daily22.html

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeeessss!!!!

    ...now if something could be done about amazon.com

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yeeessss!!!!

      Good luck on that one. Amazon is one of the main causes, if not the main cause, of Best Buy's troubles. They're raking in tha cash.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    window shopping

    shame - i used to like browsing the local best buy store before buying the product cheaper online

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    1. Tom 13
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      Re: window shopping

      And the Lorax said: remember that when all the Big Box Stores go out of business and you no longer have anywhere to window shop.

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  7. Charles 9

    There will always be a place for B&Ms.

    Some people are pressed for time and can't afford to wait for shipping, for example. Whether that B&M takes the shape of a Best Buy remains to be seen.

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    1. Timo
      Reply Icon

      Re: There will always be a place for B&Ms.

      The strategy of overpricing items in order to fleece people who can't wait for the mail has nearly come to an end. The same generic items that BBY carries can be found at many other brick/mortar shops - Target, Walmart, Staples, Office Depot, etc etc.

      And while those other options are also overpriced they're (a) not as overpriced as Best Buy, (b) won't get cornered by the sales pukes to buy an extended warranty for your overpriced cables, or upsold on everything under the sun.

      After many years of being tricked by BBY and others to overpay for stuff, the general public is wary of that place. Me? I shop anywhere that isn't Best Buy. People don't have time to screw around with variable pricing etc. and are probably shifting to the "every day low prices".

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      1. Charles 9
        Reply Icon

        Re: There will always be a place for B&Ms.

        Thing is, Walmart's ALSO slimming down its lineup. Basic stuff like keyboards are there, but you won't find internal hard drives anymore (you USED to, though). If you need to fix a PC in a hurry, then Walmart, Target, etc. won't be your go-to place. And it's getting harder to find a local PC shop with reasonable prices. And some of the competition (Circuit City) has already vanished while others have limited reach. In some cases like mine, odds are it's Best Buy or Bust.

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  8. Peter Clarke 1
    Coat

    Chuck

    Does that mean Chuck Bartowski will have to work full time for the CIA/NSA? Sorry, thats Buy More and the Nerd Herd

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  9. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Happy

    THANK GOD!

    My network card died this week on my PC, so I headed over to BB a block away for a new one. There was a Netgear gigabit PCI one for $30 on their website.

    So I'm wandering around and see lots of routers, wireless stuff, but no NICs. I saw a network-over-powerline thing for $80, and I picked it up so I wouldn't need to run cable to the garage.

    I didn't see any sales staff either, so I headed up front and asked for help. The manager came over, so of course about half a dozen staff showed up.

    I asked about an ethernet card, and one of the morons points to a wireless USB dongle. I said I wanted wired, and he said "oh we haven't stocked WIRED since OCTOBER!" (wired is so '90s! tsssh! get with the picccccturrrreeeee)

    The manager calmly nodded and said "yup" so I set my $80 impulse purchase down and left.

    Staples across the street had the card for $21.

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  10. DJ Particle
    Paris Hilton

    I predicted this would happen for years...

    Back in 2001, Best Buy, with the help of the government of Richfield, MN, evicted dozens of people and a few businesses (including a 5-star Buick dealer from a prominent big-local-money company) so they could build their corporate campus. (Google up "7601 Penn Ave S Richfield, MN" to see the monstrosity)

    Nowadays, the building sits mostly devoid of its intended purpose. Yeah, Best Buy is still there, but after all the layoffs, the building just isn't as full of them anymore. They could probably move back into their prior HQ (near Eden Prairie, MN) and be comfortable again.

    So all those people who were displaced a mere 11 years ago: Yeah, likely feeling pretty pissed off right now.

    Paris, because even she knows when she's screwed over.

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    1. Tom 13
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      @DJ Particle

      That's not the fault of Best Buy. That's the fault of the morons who live in your state continuing to elect fascists who are more than willing to seize private property to transfer it to other private property holders who just happen to be better connected to the pols. You get what you vote for.

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What goes around can bite you in the arse

    BB is their own worst enemy. Give them a little more time and they close all the stores.

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  12. Mikel
    Unhappy

    Horrible in-store experience

    The in-store experience is just awful, and doomed now to get worse. Once these big-box stores start down the shrinking path they always come up with the idea that worsening the experience of being in the store is a driver of margins. Loyalty cards, access controls, pushy sales people trying desperately to force product upsell, warranty uplifts and $90 HDMI cables, giving you a hard time about returns and so on. And then they always buy the wrong product mix, going after higher margin, unsatisfactory quality products. After that the end is usually swift.

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  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Corrupt Ideology ?

    Perhaps their corrupt ideology is the reason for their demise?

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not looking good

    Two problems for these guys: 1) They used to sell boat loads of media, DVDs and CDs. No one has purchased either of those from a big box store in 5 years. 2) Amazon and the online retailers. People can go into a Best Buy, demo what they are interested in buying, go online and find it for less. Amazon doesn't need to open demo centers, but Best Buy is taking care of that need for them.

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  15. Alan Brown Silver badge

    "$200 from cost of goods sold"

    AKA: "shaft the suppliers"

    A medium-large company can get away with late payments, but something the size of worst buy can easily do serious damage to the Matshitas and Sonys of this world, let alone non-conglomerate-backed distributors

    If that part is implemented, 2 quarters later I won't be surprised to see marked instore stock reductions, noticeable delivery delays and a depletion of available brandnames.

    After that it's simply a matter of thyme. (Poke a fork in 'em and they're done.)

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  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Loss of jobs is sad

    From what prior BB employees report, the company is a sewer... and hostile towards it's employees and customers.

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  17. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Best Buy UK

    The first time I went into the newly opened local branch of BB I did feel the whiff of "Escom" about the place.

    Escom were of course the company who took over the Rumblelows stores in the early 90's and tanked shortly afterwards.

    But the one thing about UK BB is that I thought it was better than the DSG stores. Not only was it better but the local DSG warehouse approx 800 yards away promptly received a kick up the backside and had a total refit.

    For an electronics geek its always sad to see somewhere like BB vanish. Although I did pick up some cool stuff in the fire sale.

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  18. Nameless Faceless Computer User
    FAIL

    Thieves and liars

    Ah, Best Buy. I purchased a monitor from their website, downloaded the $50 rebate form, and picked it up at the store to save shipping. I asked them for another rebate form in the store. I was told it was only available through the website. Fair enough. I went back to download the rebate form again, but the rebate offer had changed to $75 and I missed the deadline.

    Confused, I sent both the $50 and $75 rebate forms to the manufacturer who failed to honor the rebate. I called them on the phone to ask what the issue was? They told me that no such rebate offer was ever made. The actual rebate was $70, which to their credit they honored. Best Buy had been feeding me bogus rebate offers.

    I googled this to discover they've been bouncing bogus rebate offers in other states as well.

    Their cables are marked up 100x over cost. Their return policy is, "Once we have your money we don't know you." Yea, go out of business already.

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  19. Mr. Byte
    Facepalm

    Mute point?

    I didn't know moot points were mute as well...

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  20. Tom 13

    Contrary to other posters here, I've never actually had a bad buying experience

    at best Buy. But then I usually had some idea of exactly what I was looking for before I went in. At the moment the following equipment in my house is all from BB:

    52" LCD TV (store brand)

    40" LCD TV (store brand)

    Sony Blueray Player

    combination VHS DVD player (store brand)

    1 DVD player (store brand)

    Wii station and accessories.

    Numerous DVDs including TV sets (all of Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, Babylon 5, The Incredible Hulk [Bill Bixby] and more) and most the new Doctor Who seasons. I think my roomie ordered two seasons from Amazon.

    My only bad purchase there was a Sprint Android phone, but that's more the fault of Sprint than BB. The BB sales clerks were friendly and helpful. Sprint let them down with piss poor cell service along my commuting corridor. That service is getting disconnected this month.

    Obviously, YMMV. I do have a friend who reports issues similar to most of the postings here.

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