Gee, who could have predicted this? The Internet is creating entirely new industries, and decimating others. Big-box electronics retailer Best Buy is among the latest bricks and mortar companies to be decimated by the web.
Circuit City is long gone, and the corner Mom and Pop hi-fi and TV shop is a distant memory. Now Best Buy is feeling the pain. Most recently, amid a spate of bad news, the retailer announced that it will undertake a 1.4% reduction in the company’s 167,000-person workforce – that’s 2,400 lost store jobs. And that carnage is in addition to the layoffs associated with a cost-cutting plan that has closed 50 of its superstores this year with the hope of opening smaller stores.
The enemy, of course, is online competition. Consumers shop online or simply use retailers as showrooms; adding insult to injury, it’s common to see a potential customer standing in a Best Buy consulting a smartphone to see how much cheaper they can buy it from Amazon (and that's likely to get worse if the online titan introduces same-day delivery as rumored). If that wasn’t bad enough, it is all bread and circuses at retailing juggernaut Wal-Mart which is taking a huge chunk of the physical-store market. Either way, an electronics specialty retailer like Best Buy is hosed.
Best Buy tried to differentiate itself and justify its existence as being a trusted “expert” retailer of electronics. But as part of the layoffs, the kids in the elite Geek Squad, Best Buy’s centurions of customer service, are suffering the elimination of 600 positions – fully 3% of the workforce. The company today announced a plan to hire more Geek Squad members later in the year as it reorients towards smaller stores, but that still leaves significant shrinkage. Perhaps even expertise isn’t enough to convince people to pay extra, and maybe Best Buy — always “consumer oriented” — has determined that it must belt-tighten and simply compete on price. Any way you slice it, this kind of decimation is not pretty, and probably not good for anyone who buys electronics.
Parenthetically, the word “decimation” has an interesting etymology. It was a form of harsh discipline practiced by the Roman army. If troops performed poorly, they were lined up, and every tenth man was singled out, to be mercilessly bludgeoned or killed by the other nine. As one might expect, this tended to encourage strong job performance among the troops.
Anyway, it’s kind of sad to see all those kids in blue polo shirts lined up in the parking lot, but hey, what are you going to do? Res ad triarios venit.
Sad? No, it's justice. These are the same "kids" that are too lazy to learn the products they sell and could care less if you buy anything at all. And no, it wasn't just "mom and pop" stores that were crushed by Best Buy (what an ironic name!). There were a lot of great, long established local and regional operations staffed by life-long music and electronics lovers, dedicated to their customers, that were "decimated". We raise a glass and say "bye, bye Best Buy"!
Best Buy has gotten continuously worse. The staff has a careless attitude, no customer service, and no training. Products are displayed that are on back-order or discontinued. The worst is buying from the website and pick up at the store. Many times I paid 20-30% more than amazon because I needed it RIGHT AWAY for a job. I'd get the "ready" email, only to show up at the store and have no one know about the order, it hadn't been pulled, or find out it's out of stock.
Simple requests are like trying to draw blood from a stone. I wanted the new IPad with a nice leather case and asked how it fit before spending $75 on the case and $800+ on the iPad. It took 3 hours to get help from someone authorized to demonstrate Apple gear, but only after I raised hell with the General Manager. After all that the case didn't fit snuggly and he couldn't understand why I wanted to leave and spend my $800 at the Apple Store.
I appreciate the need for local bricks and mortar A/V retailers and am willing when needed to spend more money for the convenience and customer support. Fry's which is just down the street from Best Buy, is well stocked, reasonably priced, and had an abundance of staff in each department with extensive knowledge specific to the products they carry. They both have the same overhead of a local "big box" retailer, but one is consistently good and the other consistently a nightmare. No wonder Best Buy's closing stores and dancing around bankruptcy protection.
There will be nothing left then.......Good-Bye, Best Buy (BB)? This is a BAD THING! Since we lost Circuit City (CC) & Good Guys (GG), there is nobody left, except BB. For me personally, I like BB because you can go there to get SOFTWARE; i.e., CDs, DVDs, Games, etc., like you could at CC. This was why GG failed, I believe, because they did not sell the software. Even though on-line shopping is easier, you still have the hassle factor of returns through the mail. If Amazon ever solves this problem, they will surely dominate. Since I do most of my Audio Video (AV) buying through my AV Dealer / Installer now, I guess I will just do without BB & turn to the internet for all software, especially iTunes. I agree with other comments that BB was TOTALLY INCOMPETENT on most of my large purchases, like a Washer & Dryer & Game hardware. I guess I will just go to Costco or Lowes for all these things in the future. I guess Steve Jobs was right, we don't need no stinkin' disks any more, just download.
Sorry guys.nthe theory was totally correct until state tax came into play. Now....do I want the product now, today or wait two days. The state tax is fair and levels the playing field. Two years ago I started to feel Goodbye Best Buy...no more....lBeat Buyer is now a player.