“Best Buy’s board of directors blew it. Shareholders should demand that, to a person, they’re removed and held in contempt,” Rocco Pendola writes for TheStreet.
“The board let investors down. It let Best Buy employees down. And, from a broad perspective, it let the largely pathetic retail space down,” Pendola writes. “If it stays the present course, Best Buy will go out of business.”
Pendola writes, “The company must capture the Walmart and Whole Foods Market audiences and all those in between… An environment that makes Best Buy cool like Apple or Lululemon, as convenient as Amazon.com and as progressive technologically as Starbucks. That’s quite the task. And there’s no way in hell Hubert Joly — the man Best Buy plugged its CEO hole with — can get it done.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Floundering Best Buy tries mimicking Apple Retail Stores in makeover – July 5, 2012
Best Buy founder Schulze abruptly resigns, explores options for sale of his 20% stake – June 7, 2012
Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn call it quits – April 10, 2012
Best Buy posts $1.7b loss, to close 50 U.S. stores, cuts 400 corporate-level jobs – March 29, 2012
Best Buy forces customer to buy service plan to get an iPad 2 out of storage – April 11, 2011
Best Buy is Amazon’s showroom for TVs.
You bought your TV on Amazon?
I did. And, as KSH alludes, I checked it out first at Best Buy. I’d have just bought it there, if Best Buy weren’t such a terrible, customer-hostile company that preys on consumer ignorance.
I agree with the attitude toward the customer. I experienced first-hand their rigid returns policy.
Almost the only thing I haven’t bought on Amazon is a car.
Heck I do non-perishable grocery shopping on Amazon. I notice I’m out of this that or the other thing.. I add it to a list on my iPhone, and at some point in the week I order it all on Amazon, usually at better than COSTCO prices (not counting shipping), but it means I don’t have to go to the store.
Gotcha coming and going on that – shipping rates are usually less than the 7% sales tax, plus the free shipping if over $25 on many items is great. Even tho’ Amazon states that the free shipping is 7-10 business days, I usually receive goods within 5 days.
As for not going to the store, I agree as well. I absolutely hate shopping, especially at large supermarkets where you take your life into your hands as people simple don’t look where they’re wheeling the indoor equivalent of an 18-wheeler around. It’s somewhat less stressful here in the Midwest than it was in the SFO area, but not by much.
Also, you get to take advantage of their reviews. I like how best buy would have the reviews on the tag off their website, just to find out there were 3 reviews.
Honestly, I hope Best Buy doesn’t go out of business. They’re the one store I can order something online from and choose in-store pickup and pick it up that evening. I mean, even with Staples, if you choose in-store pickup, even if they have the item in stock at the store, you have to wait for them to ship the item rather than pulling it from their in-store stock. I’ve never had the customer service problems that many people claim to have had.
if BestBuy goes bankrupt, it’s human hubris & stupidity.
with successful examples around i.e. Apple, why do all direct & non-direct competitors fail?! it’s right there in front of their noses.
humans can not even copy right. if they copy right and fall due to copyright, it’s silly again. problem is they all copy but without imagination on altering it enough to have their own identity.
fine, that’s not copying. but if they can’t copy, can’t innovate their own epic shit, can’t even copy without altering 1mm in marketing, ads, products, concepts, colors, design etc. then too bad, your own fault.
we can’t all blame scapegoats, outsourcing, the economy etc. what explains Apple is in the Black, recession-proof, defying gravity etc. is simple human psychology. none of them get it despite Apple setting the example for 2 decades.
Think Dfferent. That’s all.
To do so, you must not compete in Apple’s categories, but invent your own Epic Shit.
Use your head, brain, heart, passion, courage.
Have an ounce of vision.
Do not just do it in desperation.
To stop the buck here with you, to stop the bleeding, stop the fiscal cliff, stop the stupidity, stop the hype, stop the media bribes, stop being flummoxed,
to start being smart, iWise,
stop. stop to think as you did.
start from scratch.
Restart your co.
Reboot your concepts.
have soul.
think. do. be.
so far, all flummoxed competitors did this at most:
Nike: Just do It™
but it’s not even their slogan and it’s a silly slogan.
one must think before one just does it (as it always was).
one must not think too long, or miss opportunities, but to think at least a bit, and with vision, is a prerequisite to success.
Apple: Think Different.™
Audi: Lead. Don’t Follow.™
Audi: Vorsprung durch Technik™ (1990s)
Audi: Truth in Engineering™ (2000s)
De: Gestalt. ZeitGeist. Wanderlust. Wirtschaftswunder. Übermensch. Keine Schadenfreude.
Sturmtruppen!
Audi only uses Truth in Engineering in the US and a few other places instead of Progress Through Technology (Vorsprung durch Technik).
Here is an Audi UK ad from 2012 on Audi UK’s You Tube channel.The same ad in the US has a different voice over and tag.
Very easy compare. This has been done in great style at Eastman Kodak. Their BoD was, and continues to be pathetically apathetic, with CEO Antonio Perez driving the BoD as Chairman… Eastman Kodak let shareholders down, let employees down, same as where BBY is going.
Yeah while I’m not enamored of Best Buy their departure would leave a gaping hole for consumers. I mean with only Walmart and Fry’s left to compare and the odd chain like Sears. Surely there must be a hotshot CEO somewhere who could set right their faltering ship. Problem is with the old boy networks and the known quantity versus unknown in a CEO. At this point it sounds as though they need to take chances in order to survive.
Ron Johnson is busy at the moment.
Did somebody call?
lol.
Hey, that sounds like a good gig.
Mitt, don’t you dare! It’s not your turn! we’ve got some sailing and banqueting to catch up on, got some visiting foreign statesmen to entertain (Morsi, Bibi, Ahmedinejad, Li’l Kim, and that King of Kings – Abdullah bin Saud).
Best Buy isn’t in trouble because of its board or its president. It’s in trouble because brick & mortar stores in general are dying away as Amazon and the online retail experience is far more efficient in this era.
Ill be honest. I disagree with this.. If you happen to be in one of the markets Best Buy is piloting new store models (which I am)… Youll see a notable change.. They remodeled the stores completely. They dont look like a warehouse anymore. They have a central area that seems to always have people at it getting help from geek squad agents (ala the Genius Bar). Ive seen more customers, and have found it to be a good experience vs. the past.
Don’t count them out. I think they are making some awesome changes, and to be honest, Ive gone to a best buy to get my apple stuff lately vs. going to the apple store. that, and two of the stores I frequent have actual apple employees in them full time..
Years ago, BestBuy started selling Apple products. They hid them in the back corner and the sales people did everything they could to dissuade customers from buying them. Eventually, Apple stores opened and were wildly successful. Why couldn’t BestBuy have done that all along?
Even today, BestBuy could model their stores to mainly sell Apple products and make the kind of money Apple does. One of the main problems BestBuy have is customer service. I personally don’t feel good in a BestBuy and don’t trust the sales people but in an Apple store, I feel great. I wonder why that is?
Agree – their customer service is crap, and I hate their 19 year olds snotty little blue-shirts who think they are much more than they really are worth. I have not entered a best buy store in 2 years and never will. I wonder how well folks will feel about going to a BBY for training on Windows 8 from the snotty little 19 year old blue-shirts.
My wife hates going to best buy with me. I like to make a game of it. I listen to the bs coming out of the blue shirts mouth (to other customers) and like to interrupt and correct them. I even had one get agitated and try to cuss me out once, I went (with the customer) to the manager and I never saw the idiot at the store again. (He was telling the customer outright false info, prior to my interruption.)
If more people would take a proactive approach to helping improve service at establishments they patronize we wouldn’t be stuck with morons. If enough consumers demand better service it will happen. Complaining on the Internet isn’t getting it done.
Agree they they spew out crap most of time from what they heard a friend say…. as to being proactive, while a great idea, would require that I actually care about BBY enough to visit their stores which I do not. BBY makes a crap ton of money from vendors in margins, promotional $’s, coop funds, seasonal dating monies, warehousing allowances, all this BS, PLUS merchandising teams that are supposed to help train these nitwits in blue…. plus they have an entire department catering to in-store training – dozens of people working to make sure the snotty blue shirts don’t tell lies….
“I hate their 19 year olds snotty little blue-shirts who think they are much more than they really are worth.”
Sounds like a lot of people in this day and age. It would appear Paul Harvey nailed it back in ’65.
They need to do the mother-of-all pivots. Get out of electronics retail and use the space for Airsoft gaming.
I don’t need bestbuy anymore I have steam todownload games and I have new egg for computer parts (Mac & PC)
And I might use a PC for gaming but oh hell no I will not touch that windows 8 poc windows 7 until apple steps up their graphics card options and game support
The Best Buys around here are staffed by LOTS of young people who stand around in pairs and clusters ignoring customers, and aren’t very knowledgeable about anything when approached for assistance.
Another clueless corporate dinosaur whose lame BoD will no doubt all receive hefty bonuses as they put thousands out of work with their stupid and short-sighted decisions.
Generally I have a bad experience at Best Buy
Here is my recent story from Best Buy.. I went there to shop for a new TV. There was a factory rep there showing demos and giving tech info.. I talked with him and the store sales person for about an hour going over all kinds of specs and demos.. The Factory Rep even offered to throw in some free-bee’s if I bought the set. So I decided to pull the trigger and get it… 5 minutes later the sales person tells me they have no sets in stock but I could order it online!!! WTF? I wasted an hour of my time just to leave empty handed!
What good is having a physical store if you don’t have things to actually sell? If they keep this up they are done….
I wouldn’t lose any sleep if Worst Buy goes by the wayside. Like Fry’s electronics, lame ass and overpriced has beens.
Anyone visiting a Best Buy store EVER will know how it feels to be there – like you are in a dimly lit funeral parlor. The lighting is atrocious, useless. You cannot read labels. One can hardly see the stuff there due to the dim light, and then they place product on shelves that are in some cases so low they must have been designed so their 3 year old customers can see them easily – wait, they have no 3 year old customers. That ignores the rest of the dismal experience – no need to look further. When one has a choice of a pleasing environment vs a morgue, there is no choice. BB certainly does not win on other factors such as price or expertise.
This is a case of perception being not quite the reality. I’m studying Best Buy right now for a class project. Did you know their revenues were greater than Amazon’s last year? That their margins are nearly double Amazon’s admittedly minuscule ones? And yet Amazon is a Wall Street darling and Best Buy is on its last legs.
Christian, while you’re looking at BBY, might as well look at Apple – who is “hurting”, because they “missed” their last earnings, and they “don’t have any innovation left after Steve”…. go back and read this link
BBY was once darling, once is gone. Tchau, bye-bye…..
Yes, BB has their upsides, sort of, but I’ve always despised them right down to their sales force. I have never appreciated their Windows-only modus, and even now, when they finally and very begrudgingly, offer up Apple products, it’s still clearly a mere tokenism. As far as I’m concerned they’ll get nothing less than what they asked for. They experimented with Apple products way back in the early 90s, but you could never, and I mean never, get a sales person to voluntarily refer you to an Apple product – if it didn’t run Windows they were brain dead. If BB had given equal time to Apple and others, plus kept up with the times in a more timely fashion [online] I don’t think they’d be where they are now. If they had willingly and enthusiastically carried Apple products all along they would now be seen as retail visionaries. Instead, they’re seen as just another junk retailer. I won’t be shedding any tears if BB goes under.
Karma?
THey are bad people. The product too high priced. They hire a bunch of wannabe kids who think they are savy.
I hope to God best buy goes out of business because their floor people know jack shit about electronics, tell you anything they can think of to make a sale even if it is untrue or highly exagerated, and their prices are higher than amazon on 100% of their items.
Interesting how it’s two years later, and Best Buy is still around. 🙂