Best Buy in trouble?

[Curt Fuller]

I never go to "touch and feel" a product I want to buy. I research it carefully, select what I want and then click "buy", generally from Amazon, but sometimes from B&H Photo. I haven't been in a Best Buy for years...

I have to agree that doing your own research is an important part of being a smart consumer. Depending on the overly aggressive sales people in Best But or any other sales outlet to tell you what to buy is just begging for disappointment. But once I've decided what I want to buy, if BB has the best price they'll get my business (if it is in stock). I hate the noisy, in your face environment in their stores so I get in, grab what I want, and get out as fast as possible. I just bought a new desktop tower the other day and got an incredible deal. But if Best Buy were to go out of business tomorrow, they would just be replaced by another annoying, overly hyped, big box with equally poor service selling the same products. Someone mentioned in one of the replies that they get the feeling that Best Buy is just looking for suckers to come through the door. Unfortunately they don't have to look very hard.

[Myk Rian]

The only reason I might go to BB is because Circuit City is no more, and BB seems to be filling the hole they left. At least, part of the hole anyway.
Still need to shop around though. I was looking for DVD sleeves. BB - $7.99 for 50, Meijer - A few bucks for 100.

[Brian Elfert]

I doubt we'll see another nationwide chain of electronics stores if Best Buy does go under. The only one I could see pulling it might be Amazon. Amazon has a good enough brand name they could pull off a chain of stores if they wanted to get into that business. (I like Amazon, but I generally only buy at Amazon if I get a deal on Amazon gift cards as the prices are not always the lowest.)

I could see Walmart and/or Target expanding their electronics areas if Best Buy goes under. Rumors are that Apple is opening stores/kiosks inside Target stores this year.

The problem is people want Nordstrom's type service and Amazon type prices in an electronics store. The two are pretty much mutually exclusive with the low margins on most electronics.

[Kevin W Johnson]

I read that article and agree with it 100%. The only reason I go to Best Buy these days is because they have a mini Guitar Center like corner in the back and the kid that works it actually does a good job.... plus he matches pricing. As far as other electronics I just get them from Newegg or Amazon to avoid the hassle of the idiots at Best Buy. Very rarely I will order something from Best Buys website and go pick it up because its a crazy sale or something. Seems like they are going the Radio Shack route. I used to go to Radio Shack as a kid because I'd draw up schematics for something (doesn't every kid?) and they actually had the parts and better than that they'd have an old geezer who really knew electronics who would help me with my project. Now, they just want to sell you batteries and cellphones and charge you $1 for a $.05 capacitor (if you can find one in their messy parts drawers).

Yeah, I remember the Radio Shack of old as well. It was quite common to go there with mom as a kid to get electronic components for dad. Then for myself starting about age 9-10 when dad taught me how to solder so he didn't have to always do it. Now it's an online affair with Digikey or a couple others.

[Derek Gilmer]

The problem is people want Nordstrom's type service and Amazon type prices in an electronics store. The two are pretty much mutually exclusive with the low margins on most electronics.

For the most part I think people wanted to be treated with respect. Something BestBuy rarely manages.

[Kevin W Johnson]

For the most part I think people wanted to be treated with respect. Something BestBuy rarely manages.

True about BestBuy, but I think he's closer to the mark. There are still a lot of people from generations past that still remember the service of years gone by. When stores bent the rules and policies and made good on defects and such even after the stated return period or warranty had passed. The margins were high enough at that time that stores could more easily absorb such situations. I suspect the defect rate was lower as well before being inundated with cheap imports, and there isn't much made in China these days that is really built to last. People have gotten used to current pricing, but still have memories of past service. Add to that the younger generations expectations of everything for nothing, and you have today's current retail mindset.

[David Keller NC]

This thread is sort of interesting. I buy many things by mail off of the 'net, but they're mainly small, inexpensive things or items that are tough for UPS to destroy, like books. Not that UPS hasn't succeeded in destroying a block of steel or two that had may address on it.

But - I would never even consider purchasing a 60" plasma TV off of the net and having it shipped to my house. The incredible PITA of calling, waiting through the robo-cue, establishing (with pictures) that it was the shipper that turned a $2k TV into a pile of silica shards and I'm not "just trying to get a free one" (I've had a telephone service person accuse me of that before - takes a lot to tick me off, but that did it!), getting an RMA, and taking the risk of leaving it out for shipper pickup makes me very grateful for a brick and mortar retailer. I gladly pay around an extra 20% for a lot of things because I save an enormous amount of time in the long run.

Saving time and hassle is, btw, the principal reason I go down the street to the family-owned small hardware store and pay $0.80 for a couple of screws rather than $1.00 for 40 of them at the BORG. Going to Best Buy for a new TV isn't the same thing, but it's the same reason.

[John Coloccia]

Generally, I don't shop anywhere that treats me like a criminal on my way out and tries to examine my bags. I won't cry when they disappear from the local strip malls.

Fortunately, I have a family owned and respectful chain in my area...one that I grew up with, in fact. P.C Richard and Son. I met the head honcho when their Connecticut store opened. He was standing at the door on my way out. He didn't check my bags. He asked me how things were going. I told him I know his stores from when I was a kid growing up in Yonkers, and thanked him for opening a store right near Best Buy.

[John McClanahan]

Generally, I don't shop anywhere that treats me like a criminal on my way out and tries to examine my bags.

Sam's Club does that, too. That's one of the reasons I'm not a "member".

I agree with David Keller. If I'm going to spend big bucks on an item, I do want to touch and feel it first. A reasonable markup for allowing me to do that is worth it to me. I don't care for the car salesman approach that I get at best buy. If you ask one of them a question about a product and they don't know the correct answer, they assume you are clueless, and give most any answer that they think you want to hear.

[Myk Rian]

Generally, I don't shop anywhere that treats me like a criminal on my way out and tries to examine my bags.

Like Costco does. I won't shop there.

[Derek Gilmer]

Sam's Club does that, too. That's one of the reasons I'm not a "member".

I agree with David Keller. If I'm going to spend big bucks on an item, I do want to touch and feel it first. A reasonable markup for allowing me to do that is worth it to me. I don't care for the car salesman approach that I get at best buy. If you ask one of them a question about a product and they don't know the correct answer, they assume you are clueless, and give most any answer that they think you want to hear.

Maybe I'm a audio/video snob, but the tvs and audio gear at bestbuy are so poorly setup that it isn't worth looking at them to evaluate picture or sound quality. So really all I'm doing is looking at the physical shape of an item. Which pictures online do good enough for me.

[David G Baker]

Sam's club does not use bags and I don't recall Costco using bags either but I am not sure. You miss some very good buys by not shopping at some of the big box stores but that is your choice.

[David Weaver]

I feel less offended by them than BB, but the bag thing didn't bother me at BB. Our store is not too far north of the city border, and I'm sure that BB (and sams) would have problems with theft if they didn't have someone checking carts.

I'd assume that the cart checking occurs at sams because you can basically run all over the store unimpeded after you go through the register. There is nobody around to stop you and it's not hard to have someone pop right by the door and throw a gizmo in your cart on the way out.

At least that's what I'd assume those checkout people are looking for, because they don't seem to check the food items that carefully.

[Brian Elfert]

I don't get the big deal about checking carts or bags at stores. They are holding down prices by helping prevent shoplifting. Sam's Club marks the receipt so you can't go back inside, load up on the same items again, and then head out without paying.

I use Sam's club to buy stuff for my small concessions business as they have stuff I can't get anywhere else but a food wholesaler. I don't have enough business to interest a food wholesaler.

[Matt Meiser]

Yep, and on a busy Saturday at our Costco that probably wouldn't be hard to do.