“Best Buy Co. is testing a new turnaround strategy: making its cavernous electronics emporiums look more like Apple Inc.’s sleek retail outlets,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
“The heart of a test store near Best Buy’s headquarters here is a Solution Central help desk, rimmed with chairs and manned by the company’s black-tied Geek Squad,” WSJ reports. “It strongly resembles the Genius Bar at Apple’s stores.”
WSJ reports, “Best Buy’s prototype has taken another cue from Apple, letting customers pay for products in several locations, rather than forcing them into checkout lines at the front of the store.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In a few short years, Best Buy has gone from having to be convinced to carry Apple products to making their stores look and work like Apple’s. At least they’re slightly less humiliated than Microsoft, which not only directly clones Apple Retail Stores but secretly wishes they had Apple products, not just Apple knockoffs, to sell, too.
Apple leads. The rest follow. As usual.
Related articles:
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
I hate to see a good “showroom” go and would miss being able to occasionally pick up the odd piece of tech I need (at higher prices than online) but Best Buy’s survival is anything but a sure thing. Resigning CEO Brian Dunn and Chairman Richard Schulze know when a ship is sinking. Good luck selling that 20% stake. Maybe you can exchange it for some nice swamp land.
You can change the look of the store, but until the attitudes of the majority of employees change, there will be no difference.
I walked up to the blue shirt guy at the Apple table in the Best Buy store near me, asked him if they had the new retina MBP. His response was that ALL of Apple’s products had retina displays. Typical.
Serves you right – use the Real Deal – Apple store.
Go online, be a student and pay less.
if you back up from the screen far enough it’s true!
That’s hilarious. You know it’s pointless to ask anymore questions of this dummy “expert.”. So nice we have an antidote to that kind of help – Apple Stores!!
That’s a great idea, MDN! I bet Microsoft could save their stores by selling Apple products — it’s the only way those stores will ever turn a profit! (Not that Microsoft is concerned about something as trivial as profit, of course.)
MS would never ask, but I wonder if Apple would let them sell accessories.
I stopped in to Best Buy the other day to kill some time while waiting for an appointment.
The new focus on “customer service” is really obvious. Unfortunately, they can’t seem to get the balance right. The salespeople were so ingratiating that it made me very uncomfortable. It was kinda creepy, actually.
I had a similar experience Tuesday under similar circumstances. Just browsing TVs and the young, eager sales rep started was there immediately. He did seem overly effusive.
Maybe the pendulum has swung too far, but it is better than my experience trying to buy a TV at Best Buy in 2002. A group of 4 blue shirts socialized about 20 feet away, willfully ignoring me for about 30 minutes until I walked over and said “I want to spend money here – can you help me do that?”. The dude that helped me was none too pleased to do so.
Lesser of two evils, I guess.
Good thing Best Buy stores are the size of an airline hanger because to handle the problems with Windows PCs they will need a genius bar the occupies the entire store.
Do they still have the unknowledgeable blue shirts walking around trying to talk people into buying extra warranties? Because that’s the best part of best buy!
They could start by taking all the Windows and Android shit out back to the dumpster.
The reason for decrease in sales (besides the Depression 2.0) is Best Buy has limited stock availability of everything from hard drives, dvds, computers, accessories, etc. etc. I am consistently told “you can order it online” when asking about stocked items. If a customer goes to the trouble of going to the store in the first place, the last thing they want to hear is “you can order it online.” No ship, Sherlock! Still plenty of us want/need the tactile feedback of touching and checking our STUFF before paying for our STUFF to make sure our STUFF is the STUFF we need to go with our other STUFF!
So you think they’ll change their name…
Best Buy Online.
BestBuy is floundering because their prices are too high and their managers don’t take good care of their stores. BestBuy used to be the go-to store for great prices on mid-level and discontinued merchandise. Not any more. Their “deal of the day” is a joke. Ditto for their midnight “madness” sales. Suckers with more money than brains might shop there. Not me.
MDN: The word you probably were looking for is foundering. It more accurately characterizes Best Buy’s situation.
Best Buy is not on the rocks yet. Floundering is the right word this month when they are thrashing around trying to find a fix.
Next month foundering may be more apropos.
Possibly, but here’s betting that MDN, given its frequent headline exaggerations, made the common mistake of misusing the word while intending to imply that Best Buy is a sinking ship.
founder
verb [ intrans. ]
(of a ship) fill with water and sink
flounder
verb [ intrans. ]
struggle or stagger helplessly or clumsily in water or mud
USAGE It is easy to confuse the words founder and flounder, not only because they sound similar but also because the contexts in which they are used overlap. Founder means, in its general and extended use, ‘fail or come to nothing, sink out of sight’ ( : the scheme foundered because of lack of organizational backing). Flounder, on the other hand, means ‘struggle, move clumsily, be in a state of confusion’ ( : new recruits floundering about in their first week).
So in short, both are acceptable.
I totally concur on the pricing. Full retail is the standard. Ridiculous in this day and age of a cheaper price being just a mouse-click away.
Best Buy is at least looking at the right company to emulate to fix its problems. However, unless BB can get its employees trained as well as Apple Store employees are and also CARE as much about the customer as Apple Store employees, it won’t matter.
The employee issue is the heart and soul of a store like this, and many, many potential Internet sales would remain in local stores if people received good service and were treated well. Saving a few bucks online wouldn’t matter as much to customers if they knew any problems would be handled quickly and properly, and that they were getting good advice.
I went to Best Buy not too long ago to get a Wacom drawing tablet. They only had a couple models, and luckily the model I wanted was in stock. However, when I went to check out, the clerk didn’t even know what it was. How do these people get those jobs!! They really know nothing at all.
Can’t say I’ll miss them when they’re finally gone. Very irritating place to shop. Went to buy an iPad and they wouldn’t stop trying to sell me services. Just wanted to pay for the item and leave, not listen to a lot of bull. Told them I just wanted to pay for what I wanted and they still kept pushing. Should have remembered my last experience was the same, I just walked away the and bought it online at Amazon. Plus, I detest having to show receipts at the door, I consider it an insult to question my honesty as a customer. The store staff was never that great, but they have become more obnoxious. I clearly stated I wanted a 16 gig unit and they rang up a 64 and were irritated when I told them that it wasn’t what I said I wanted to buy. Amazon rules for me!
They should call their help section “the Idiot Bar” if they want to be accurate.
I actually like going to Best Buy. I think of it as a toy store for grownups. But when I go with actual plans to buy something, I make sure I know what I want before I go in, because I know I’m not getting any help from the staff.
My favorite moment was wayyy back in 1995 or so, when I asked a salesman a question regarding a computer’s specs and he proceeded to read them off the box. In all the years since, it’s improved only marginally.
The last time I went, I just wanted some lightweight headphones/earbuds that didn’t cost an arm and a leg and didn’t sound like complete sh*t. All BestBuy had were the various overpriced “studio” headphones for listening at home, and overpriced, brand name earbuds. My wife told me to go to Wal-Mart. I told her she was insane, but we headed over there, where I found a set of simple Sony earbuds that fit my needs (I am not an audiophile) for a low price.
——RM
——RM
OK Apple elitists…bash BB all you want. BUT, had it not been for their great interest-free financing deals (2 years same as cash), i would not have purchased up my last two macs. Apple may put its nose up to customers who, ick, “finance” large purchases, but it has likely helped their bottom line, which for several of you on this site, has benefit.
Best Buy has the worst customer service of any place I have ever shopped.
And everything is high as Hell!
Yea Why not try to be the Best but it wont work. The only thing about best buy is the name Best.
Your store and customers are not the same as Apple and certainly you associates arent either. Face it losing is the way it is going. Wake up your stores have never been good even 15 years ago I found that the store and the policies were bad – really bad.
The appliances and everything else you have is no longer a need for a customer with a better shopping experience at Target and even Wal Mart. You tactics and sales are out dated. Commissions and what ever else for selling polices that no one needs is the Best problem. Not at Apple. Microsoft is trying the same concept and it isnt working and they are a little more secure
than BEST BUY. BYE BYE BEST BYE
Woolworth Zayre and Kress all left and no one cared