Uh-oh, this seems to be the beginning of the end for BB: once you get into this looking for a good CEO candidate thing, things generally do not go back up, e.g. Yahoo, Motorola.<p>BB's problems are myriad, but to me a single problem stands out clearly, and it's not Amazon's competition: It's the hapless nature of their store associates:<p>i) In BB stores, when you walk in it's always hard to find an associate.<p>ii) When you do find them, they tend to be starry-eyed young guys who know next to nothing about the products and usually resort to random searching of the aisles, which of course you could have done yourself.<p>iii) When they need to check for product info, e.g. "Do you have it in stock"", "Does this work with that?" They have to <i>walk back</i> to a computer screen on their desk and check using the browser, which of course you could have done <i>much faster</i> on your phone.<p>It's hard to create a low-paid task force that's also knowledgeable about the intricacies of tons of electronic products. So the solution is to use in-store tablets with a helper app running on them. In other words, go to an Apple store, observe for 15 minutes, come back and replicate. BB already has great inventory APIs, coming up with a very useful v1.0 shouldn't be hard.
> “I have enjoyed every one of my 28 years with this company, and I leave it today in position for a strong future. I am proud of my fellow employees and I wish them the best,” Dunn said, <i>double-checking his parachute as he prepared to leap from the burning airplane</i>.
I wonder if Ron Johnson (the guy behind the Apple retail concept) could have turned around Best Buy, had BBY picked him up instead of JC Penney.<p>The Apple store philosophy seems to be "We think most people will be delighted with our products. But if we can't make you a happier person for buying this product, we're just wasting your time trying to sell it to you, and making it less likely you'll want to come back when we <i>do</i> offer a product you might enjoy."<p>Meanwhile every shopping experience I've had at Best Buy tells me their philosophy is "You need <i>x</i>, but we'll convince you to buy <i>y</i>, and we'll try our hardest to pack in a high margin accessory bundle too. So buy it and get out, so I can move on to the next sucker. Oh, and you had better be buying a service plan on that."<p>Then again, if you can't turn the place around by making it a place where people actually want to shop and reflect favorably upon their experiences, then maybe the big box electronics concept is just falling out of favor altogether.
All my Apple products have been purchased from Best Buy (except iPad 3 which I had engraved), why? Because of the Reward Visa that I have with BB. But I dread buying Apple products everytime I go to BB – you never find someone that's free, I'd have to hunt down employees or stand next to one as they helped other customers (which took up to 30 minutes once) and wait for my turn. And after telling them what I exactly want, they'd disappear for 15 minutes in the backroom, only to come out with the wrong model, another 15 minutes before they tell me they don't have it in stock.<p>It's a horrible buying experience but I endure it for points (especially when one spends thousands of dollars, it can really rack up). It's the only reason why Best Buy still gets my money.<p>(If Apple had their own Loyalty/Reward kind of program on top of their customer service, it'd be so full of win.)
This is my rant about Best Buy:
Coming from a technical family (my dad being an IT director) at a small age I was dissecting computers and fixing them back. I love computers and that's what lead me into web dev. I'm still very technical in this area and I'd say I'm a pretty good hardware and software fixer.<p>That being said, when I go into BB it saddens me to see how they up-sell ignorant people. It bothers me so much. I'll be inline behind someone and they'll offer an initial setup and cleaning of your new PC for $75+ and I'm thinking to myself I could do this in 20 minutes and I'd do it for a lot less. Installing memory is way more than it should be. Backing up and restoring, etc, all relatively simple things they charge so much for.<p>And without the "geek squad" prices, their hardware prices are just high. Best Buy is for ignorant consumers who don't know about computers or geeks that need something asap and cave to pay the difference.<p>There needs to be a chain like this that doesn't screw people over, that has excellent customer service and doesn't continue to BS people about things that they really don't need. There's a business model to be had with treating people right.
I'd be hard pressed to blame the CEO for the all of the ills that plague Best Buy, though I have to give the man credit for knowing when to step aside. After 28 years with the company I'd say he deserves a rest.<p>The problems that exist with the company, I think, mostly stem from the pool from which they have to select their work force. It's hard to keep up any sort of reputable service when you get so big. Saying that, Apple seems to be doing okay..
I purchase from Best Buy because of the no-interest deals they have with their credit cards. It's convenient when I want something now, and know that I'll have an extra few injections of extra cash coming in the next couple of months to support it.<p>Regarding customer service, I had a great experience at a Chicago store. I just bought the 11" Air and decided it was too small for me, so I took it back with the intention of upgrading to the 13". I was waiting in line to exchange, when they noticed I was exchanging a MacBook and they whisked me off to a separate area to complete the exchange, saving me about 15 minutes of waiting time.<p>With regards to pushing their warranty's, I think they asked me once and then let it go.<p>I agree that some of their stuff is overpriced, and they could improve their sales workflow with tablets or whatever, but my experiences don't reflect the negative ones I'm reading about here.
This type of business is bound to change as technology evolves. It used to be people would get the good information from Circuit City and then go across the street to Best Buy for better prices. And now Circuit City is gone.<p>Somewhere down the line Best Buy started over charging for services that aren't necessary. My primary example of this is that they offer to come calibrate your new HDTV for $500 upon purchase. You can order the same software they are using off of amazon for $12. Another thing is their price on cables. They just rip you off and smile in your face. Its annoying. Geeks like to shop at tech stores, you know? These sorts of practices force us to purchase things online.<p>I just think somewhere down the line Best Buy quit putting the customer first and just like the rest of the comments, this seems like the beginning of the end.
Maybe it's just me, but I think a lot of the things that drew people to Best Buy at one point - powerful computers, big TVs, customized theater setups, rows of DVDs - have gradually gone from sexy to culturally irrelevant (still a profitable niche, quite possibly) in the last 15 years. They've become the workmanlike, unsexy appliance showfloors they put out of business by the early 00's.
Speaking as a Minnesota native, this is just all kinds of sad. Believe it or not, Best Buy used to be a more or less local chain that was known for their <i>customer service</i> and that inspired all kinds of customer loyalty. They were like the Fry's of the Midwest, except that it was usually possible to get useful technical information out of the employees.
> INNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The board<p>Is INNEAPOLIS a place or did they really misspell the companies head quarters location.<p>A quick search shows their head quarters are in Minnesota so it looks like they did. Or possibly it's shoddy reporting by the website who cut and pasted the press release?
It's going to be harder and harder to operate businesses that rely on the ignorance of their customers to achieve their margin goals. The last time I was in BB, I was trying to pick up a Roku box. After upselling me by being out of stock on the heavily advertised cheaper model, the sales person tried to sell me a connector cable that cost more than the box itself. Nice!<p>There is no real news about BB's business model in this announcement. A more interesting question is what remaining verticals are relatively untouched by transparency and fact-based marketing?
BB isn't going away, it'll just be forced to change. Change it's atrocious cust. service, adopt some technology and probably close a ton of stores. Not to mention have more competitive pricing. Now I'm not at all a fan of BB. But I think BB will survive in some form because there are still many people who still like to have things instantly and see/try physically. There's still a segment out there, like the older generation that still need to go somewhere for 'advice' and get hands on goods.
Dunn has been there for 28 years. He started as a sales associate an become CEO in 2009--truly a remarkable career progression. Dunn may not have caused Best Buy's mess, but he was promoted by the same people that oversaw it.
I parted ways with Best Buy last month and the writing has been on the wall about Brian for months. Lackluster vision, missed opportunities to capitalize on growth combined with soft performance meant this was all but certain.