Best Buy founder seeks to stop "2.0" plan to shrink chain down to Apple's size - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by Misa 

NCIX.com (yes it has physical locations) and Tigerdirect.com (Also has physical locations) they just aren't national chains.

 

Where I live, BestBuy is right across from a mall from Futureshop (which is owned by BestBuy) , NCIX is one block from the mall. London Drugs also sells Televisions (it's actually more known for electronics than anything else.) Superstore (grocery store) sells televisions. Other parts of Canada have Canadian Tire and Walmart. If BestBuy were to close all it's locations, the slack would be picked up by London Drugs here.

 

I'm certain in most of the US, there are Walmarts and Costco's that sell televisions as well. At worst, you won't be able to get all the specialty 600% markup monster cables anymore. You'll have to buy all those online.

 

In small towns, however the national chains don't exist. The prices for electronics, games and appliances can be three times the cost, you may as well buy online. Oh but small towns down't have UPS/FedEX depots.

 

 

In my opinion BestBuy's been swirling the toilet ever since they bought Futureshop and started expanding in Canada. Futureshop here is known for pushy sales staff on commissions, scammy mail in rebates and the only way Bestbuy could differentiate itself from Futureshop was saying they don't have commissioned sales staff. Still doesn't get rid of the pushy extended warranty or mail in rebate garbage.

in the USA walmart is everywhere. i'm an hour north of denver for a few more days and there are big box chains everywhere. and amazon will deliver next day if want it to

Originally Posted by digitalclips 
This all makes me wonder if Google are not thinking about going into online sales to compete with Amazon and Apple ... They copy every other successful model of Apple's.

The only thing about Google Shopping that isn't there already is that they don't get a cut.

I'll bet they're not that happy about that.

Originally Posted by jd_in_sb 
Almost every time I go into a Best Buy my Red Laser app shows me that the prices in the store are 50% - 100% higher than elsewhere, so I leave.

I know it's not the same product from the same company. Still. And the second one even has Ethernet! 

As with Blockbuster's CEO, Best Buy is in denial about why they suck.

It's a paradox for the brick-and-mortar stores. Out of all the products one could buy on-line, a local Best Buy will probably carry 1% of those...and then only the most expensive ones which people don't necessarily want. Go onto BestBuy.com and you will see dozens of products you could get in a particular category--say external hard drives. Sort that selection by those available in-store and you magically only see 2 or 3 options...always the most expensive ones. The stores HAVE to sell the pricier ones because they have 'bricks and mortar' they need to pay for. And unless you want one of those 2 to 3 options, you'll stay home and buy on-line.

It seems to be a circular vortex that brick-and-mortar stores are in, with no way (aside from closing that side of the business like Circuit City did) to extricate themselves from.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lekhtuz 

Matching or selling at a "slight discount" will not cut it after you factor in sales tax which is quite significant on big ticket items.
 

Disagree. Tax doesn't matter really. If I were buying a $2K television, and the price was the same as Amazon with $65 additional in taxes, I'd still buy at Best Buy. $65 is a drop in the bucket if something is wrong with the set. Having to box it back up, arrange to send it back to Amazon, prove that I was not the one who did the damage, and not having a replacement for two weeks, is FAR more annoying than simply taking it back up the street in 10 minutes and having a replacement the same night.  With respect to TV's, unless I can save over $200 or more, I buy locally.

Best Buy simply needs to focus on turns and not margin dollars per unit. The US is the country of NOW. If they can get instant gratification with next to little effort they will do it. Taxes on a $500-$800 computer are negligible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmvsm 

Disagree. Tax doesn't matter really. If I were buying a $2K television, and the price was the same as Amazon with $65 additional in taxes, I'd still buy at Best Buy. $65 is a drop in the bucket if something is wrong with the set. 

Where do you live where the sales tax is 3.25%?  In CT, it's over 6%.  In your example, that's over $100 price difference between a local store that collects sales tax and an online store that doesn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymouse 
...onerous return policies (and return lines)

I don't understand the complaint about returns... they seem to be at least as good, if not better than any other retailer in that regard. I returned like 3 TVs in a span of two months when I was shopping around. (At which point I did get blacklisted from returning anything else for 3 months, but I don't really blame them, since they eat at least 10% selling those returns as open box.)

Target, on the other hand, really did not want to take back a TV I had opened. Never even occurred to me that they might not take it back when I bought it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX 


Maybe they could buy Dell and RiM and make their store into an exclusive company like Apple. "We carry all the shit you don't give a **** about."

Lots of people buy DELLs, actually. Most of my colleagues in my previous three companies bought exclusively Latitude and other DELLs, so I guess I wouldn't disregard them. RiM, now, is pretty much another level entirely.
 

Anyway, given how unhappy I am with Lion and Mountain Lion, I'd say that Apple's on the fast track to becoming RiM if they don't remember that greatness comes from attention to details, not from trying to force some great idea (screams RiM... ) that people don't actually want. Of course, I do think Apple's going to realize that they have some corrections to make and realign their strategy before they go RiM, but I might be wrong.

Oh, and just one minor point: if anyone even wants to try to convince me that because ML is still a better OS than Windows I should STFU and ignore the fact that SL was overall much higher quality, it's not worth his/her time. I want the next Apple OS to be SL-quality, that's all ^^