Best Buy Announces Plans to Close 50 U.S. Stores

[southernshark]

Part of the problem is also greedy landlords though who Buy is just too big and it will fail. drove the price of retail space to unsustainable levels in the past 20 years. The fact is that retail space costs too much to lease or rent so this kind of failure is going to become more and more common. While electronics stores will be the first to fail, don't be surprised when all of the stores go with them. Wal-Mart and the discount stores will probably be the only survivors since people don't want to bother ordering that crap offline. I mean if I need a hammer, I'm probably not going to wait a week to get it in the mail.

 

[southernshark]

Additionally though... Best Buy decided to milk customers instead of serve them.

Just go in there and try to buy an unlocked cell phone. They won't sell you one from a major manufacturer. They will sell pre-paid phones but most of those are not unlocked, even though the idiot who works there will try to tell you that they are.

 

[Onus]

Best Buy? Hmmm, I'm all out of rodent hindquarters; sorry I cannot give you one.

 

[shin0bi272]

BB.com - 6ft HDMI cable $25
monoprice.com - 6ft HDMI cable $3

you be the judge.

 

[osaeed88]

[citation][nom]akopp21[/nom]Customer experience will improve when they close all of their stores...[/citation]

Indeed. Now that we have Newegg, amazon, ebay, all these electronic brick and mortar businesses are useless.

Bestbuy was a rip off from the start. Geek squad was a total joke! I am happy they are closing!

 

[Guest]

I still believe there is a need for brick and motor electronic stores, but Best Buy is (and hopefully soon to be "was") the worst example of how to run a retail store of any kind. They pretty much invented the bait and switch in regards to advertising a price on an item just to find out that that price is with a "mail in rebate".

 

[Guest]

While I do a lot of purchasing through Newegg, when I need something in a pinch, and don't mind paying slightly more (in some cases offsetting the shipping costs) I love being able to run into Best Buy to pick up an item.

 

[wikiwikiwhat]

FOr all that is holy...please shutdown the one in my town. I will finally get more customers.

 

[thrasher32]

I don't even know why we have 5 or 6 Best Buy stores here with a Fry's superstore in town. I used to like Best Buy until I figured out I could get everything far cheaper online or over at Fry's.

Best Buy has become the electronics superstore for chumps who don't know any better. The sooner BB folds the better.

 

[thrasher32]

[citation][nom]john_4[/nom]LOL, good one, we will rid ourselves of the Socialist hack in the White House then we can start to repair the damage done by his crony capitalist regime. I would start by firing every last Socialist hack he hired and fire anyone they hired down the food chain, give DC a sorely needed enema.[/citation]

Socialist Hack LOL thanks for showing us just how ignorant you really are. In case you handn't noticed, that "socialist hack" is about to trounce the joke candidate from the party of "No Brain, No Gain", so if I were you I'd get with the program son or you're gonna be very unhappy for the next 4 years.

 

[signothorn]

Also, many retail locations are fighting for their survival by adding better customer service initiatives. In reality, it's an expense control, they get their work done earlier in the day with logistics teams the only help customers pretty much the rest of the day with a much reduced body count, leading to lower payroll. I'm a store manager with one such retailer and they pretty much have told loss prevention to go fly a kite and allow laptops just sit out in the open in receiving ect until a group of thieves get wise and figure it out. Then after the thieves have moved on to a different area, they go right back to the behavior. It is a form of optimization in expense control and improving total store and awareness on the sales floor but I'm looking at career options because I think brick and mortar is pretty much doomed in the next 10 years if the economy doesn't boom.

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]john_4[/nom]LOL, good one, we will rid ourselves of the Socialist hack in the White House then we can start to repair the damage done by his crony capitalist regime. I would start by firing every last Socialist hack he hired and fire anyone they hired down the food chain, give DC a sorely needed enema.[/citation]

You seriously need to download Economics 101 into your e-reader to understand what happens when a country spends more on 'defense' then the rest of the world combined!
And that did not happen because of the current administration as you may recall.

 

[Luscious]

I once walked into a Best Buy and was surprised to get a bazillion people come up to me and ask ME questions. I told them to go shop at Fry's because they have a better selection and cheaper prices.

It was only when I walked out I realized I was wearing a blue shirt with khakis...

LOL

 

[hoof_hearted]

[citation][nom]danwat1234[/nom]I don't get how these electronic stores still exist. Doesn't everybody buy everything online? Newegg, Ebay, ...[/citation]

They exist so we have a place to look at the physical product, scan the barcode with our smartphone, then buy at newegg or amazon.

 

[Tab54o]

Well honestly Ive often wondered why they're still around today. Place is a total rippoff. They wanted 50 bucks for an hdmi cable, cheapest they had and I ended up getting one for 8 bucks at Fry's. Peace out "Best Buy"

 

[thechief73]

I wait for the day the article reads "Best(Worst) Buy closes it's last store and shuts down it's website for good". Hopefully I can read it in a few short years.

 

[Hellbound]

They seriously need to streamline customer service at the store. Just last week I helped my brother return a TV. They told him to stand in one line so they could check the TV and the reason why he was returning it.. There was nobody in line, but two customers were being helped at that counter It was over 15 minutes before we were helped. After checking the TV, and telling him he could get a refund. We were told to stand in another line to get the refund. With 5 other people in that line returning smaller items, it took us nearly 30 minutes to finally get to the counter. Funny thing is, after getting to the refund counter, the clerk had to verify the TV, the receipt, then told my brother they could only give him his refund via check, by mail because it was over $500..... He had purchased the TV at the store, with cash.. F'ing retarded.

 

[upgrade_1977]

We have 1 Fry's in our whole state, but there are like 5 Bestbuys within half hour from me.

 

[cathode]

We need competition, if we can call it that? If BB closes or goes bankruptcy we might see prices spike in amazon or newegg. BB needs to remodel their business and make it more competitive. I also like the fact that if I buy something in the store and it's defective I can return it the same day without having to wait through the mail.

 

[dark_knight33]

[citation][nom]Mathos[/nom]No, the average person who doesn't build their own computer, or isn't too internet savvy, or doesn't have reliable internet available still shops at brick and mortar, which tends to be the vast majority of computer shoppers.[/citation]

I do build my own systems, am internet savvy, and have a reliable ISP (VZ FIOS).

I bought my TV at best buy because if I have to return it, it takes 15 minutes to put it in the car and drive there to get another one. I don't need to dick around with boxing it up or dealing with UPS's mishandling of my property and shipping delays. It also helps that I can compare things side by side in the store. TBH, the price online wasn't significantly better and the risk of carriers damaging large purchases is bigger than you think. I once had to have circuit city replace a TV 3 times because their own delivery people banged one on the door, delivered another one with a shattered screen, and finally delivered a DOA unit. When I had problems, I didn't have to hunt down phone numbers, wait on hold, get RMAs, wait 1-2 weeks for stuff to ship back and forth, etc. I simply drove up to the store, talked directly to the manager, and he handled the exchange right there. That is worth the extra 5-10%. You think UPS is more careful than those guys? What if you get a stuck pixel on that brand new TV? No matter what it's going to cost you something to ship it back and exchange it. That return shipping price eats up any savings you might have gotten and wastes your time.

People that don't see the value in paying a little extra for better service will never understand it. It's a race to the bottom right now with everyone demanding stuff be sold at cost, and to hell with how it got to you. A.K.A "The Walmart Effect". You think Walmart sells good products? Manufacturers give them the crap that isn't good enough for other retailers to buy because Walmart shoppers don't know the difference. They don't care how crappy it is as long as they paid $.03 less than buying it elsewhere.