4 ms·

Is Best Buy Really Finished?

5 points by edw519 15y ago

a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
One of the comments says that BB is Amazon's showroom. So, here's what they do: officially become an Amazon outlet/showroom. Cut the number of Best Buy's in any large area, and replace them with really big showrooms. They get money from Amazon to act as the showroom, and they get a cut anytime anyone orders "from Amazon" right in the store. "We can ship that to you from Amazon today ..." Remove all media. You don't have to see a physical DVD or game to buy it. One innovation they could enact is to be able to get any item not already in the showroom at the moment to the floor tomorrow. You can't have everything on the floor, but you can combine Amazon's warehouse/shipping expertise with Best Buy's sitting on the floor expertise to have a super showroom. Maybe they keep the name Best Buy. Maybe it becomes BestBuy/Amazon, or maybe the name disappears and they just become Amazon. They're already really good at being Amazon's showroom, they may as well get paid for it.
- meepmorp 15y ago
  Or they could act as Amazon's showroom, as they are now, and get nothing. What are they gonna do, throw out customers for price shopping? What's Amazon's incentive for this?
  - a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
    Customers can be lost on the trip home from the store. "Nah, I guess I don't really need that."
joebadmo 15y ago
Amazon's running a television ad that shows a guy use the Amazon smartphone app to scan a package of diapers and then put the diapers back on the shelf. I'm hard-pressed to see a way for physical retailers to offer any sort of competitive advantage, especially since Amazon's customer service is so much better than everyone besides Apple, despite being online only.
gamble 15y ago
I don't really see that BB is inevitably headed for bankruptcy. They've had some bad financial results lately and some embarrassing service problems, but they still have a near-monopoly on retail electronics. Their larger problem is a poor economy and the end of a period of very rapid growth in consumer electronics. It's very hard to argue that electronics retailers are necessarily doomed by the Internet when there's probably an Apple store ten minutes from any given BB doing more sales per square foot than anyone in the business, selling a tiny selection you can view in detail and order directly from Apple's own website. BB just needs to adjust the retail experience to suit higher-margin customers, as Apple did.
Semiapies 15y ago
What a rambling, useless piece. Downes wrote an article about Best Buy's problems from a consumer point of view, and Biggs spends half the article going on about how Downes must have a misconception of what employees think of it. Then he sadly acknowledges that Downes is pretty much right, anyway.

5 points by edw519 15y ago

One of the comments says that BB is Amazon's showroom. So, here's what they do: officially become an Amazon outlet/showroom. Cut the number of Best Buy's in any large area, and replace them with really big showrooms. They get money from Amazon to act as the showroom, and they get a cut anytime anyone orders "from Amazon" right in the store. "We can ship that to you from Amazon today ..." Remove all media. You don't have to see a physical DVD or game to buy it. One innovation they could enact is to be able to get any item not already in the showroom at the moment to the floor tomorrow. You can't have everything on the floor, but you can combine Amazon's warehouse/shipping expertise with Best Buy's sitting on the floor expertise to have a super showroom. Maybe they keep the name Best Buy. Maybe it becomes BestBuy/Amazon, or maybe the name disappears and they just become Amazon. They're already really good at being Amazon's showroom, they may as well get paid for it.

meepmorp 15y ago
Or they could act as Amazon's showroom, as they are now, and get nothing. What are they gonna do, throw out customers for price shopping? What's Amazon's incentive for this?
- a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
  Customers can be lost on the trip home from the store. "Nah, I guess I don't really need that."

joebadmo 15y ago

Amazon's running a television ad that shows a guy use the Amazon smartphone app to scan a package of diapers and then put the diapers back on the shelf. I'm hard-pressed to see a way for physical retailers to offer any sort of competitive advantage, especially since Amazon's customer service is so much better than everyone besides Apple, despite being online only.

gamble 15y ago

I don't really see that BB is inevitably headed for bankruptcy. They've had some bad financial results lately and some embarrassing service problems, but they still have a near-monopoly on retail electronics. Their larger problem is a poor economy and the end of a period of very rapid growth in consumer electronics. It's very hard to argue that electronics retailers are necessarily doomed by the Internet when there's probably an Apple store ten minutes from any given BB doing more sales per square foot than anyone in the business, selling a tiny selection you can view in detail and order directly from Apple's own website. BB just needs to adjust the retail experience to suit higher-margin customers, as Apple did.

Semiapies 15y ago

What a rambling, useless piece. Downes wrote an article about Best Buy's problems from a consumer point of view, and Biggs spends half the article going on about how Downes must have a misconception of what employees think of it. Then he sadly acknowledges that Downes is pretty much right, anyway.