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Best Buy Chairman and Founder Resigns Ahead of Schedule
lightbox32 writes with the news as carried by MSNBC that "Best Buy's chairman and founder Richard Schulze has announced his resignation from the board of directors Thursday a year ahead of the planned transition at the helm of the struggling retailer. The resignation of Dunn and Schulze come after Best Buy reported a quarterly loss of $1.7 billion after same-store sales dropped 5 percent." This sounds like a bad omen for people who get their electronic fix there. For all its imperfections and limited range, when I'm looking for computer stuff new, at retail, and in person — meaning it's not at the Goodwill and I need it right now — I'm usually glad to be near a Fry's location. What brick-and-mortar stores make sense where you live?
Good move.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I dunno, could we see a renaissance in local computer shops as a result?
If you're lucky enough to live near one. They provide the "I need this thing right now" fix, while matching NewEgg's prices. Their sales people aren't perfect, but they're generally a tick or two above the TV salesman at Best Buy. You can't buy a washer/dryer combo there, but I count myself as fortunate to live near one. They're always busy, so I truly hope they're making money.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Answer: any that aren't Best Buy.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Maybe if they did not obsess over metrics written by some MBA by hounded customers on geeksquad protection plans and credit card sales there would not be any drop. I went to a job fair yesterday to get some extra part time work under my belt and all the retailers are doing this. At JCPenny you can not be a cashier unless you have experience selling credit cards at 25% to poor people and that is the only metric that follows.
With 1 trillion in debt people are no longer consuming because of shady deals like this are strangling their customer base for those who are dumb enough to use them. Geeksquad is a ripoff and it is so annoying when all you want is a job.
The upper management are really clueless and they make sure all mice and keyboards are wireless only because they can then bundle geeksquad protection plans. IT is just an insane customer experience when you want a wired gaming mouse and they can not even carry it.
http://saveie6.com/
If we loose BB, all I have left is Target, Wal-mart, Staples, Office Depot and of course the INTERNET. My last 3 laptops came from Staples. Good Prices, Good Selection and NO pushy salesman! AND no LOUD music.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
What brick-and-mortar stores make sense where you live?
Not many honestly. We don’t have Fry’s here in Nova Scotia (Atlantic Canada). A basic rundown of the geeky stores in my area:
- The source (basically circuit city/radio shack) go there if you want to have a teenager try to sell you a big screen TV or a high end power cord made by monster cable.
- Future shop (basically best buy but the employees are on commission which makes shopping their support annoying). They are basically the place to go for cables (they have monster cable too... but they also have reasonably priced stuff), memory sticks, or if you really need a hard drive.
Those are the “mainstream” ones. We also have some smaller local shops:
- Greenlyph / robotnik ... small hole in the wall computer shop. Very shallow inventory. Rarely have what you want in stock.. so they have to order it for you. Sometimes worth it to get a case or other heavy item through them.. but for the most part may as well buy online. Greenlyph is also really bad when it comes to getting back to you on parts coming in. They actually lost my business because of this. Very annoying to call for an estimate on when something might be in and finding out it’s been sitting there for 3 days.
- Jentronics – This is the one positive one on the list. Local electronics (resistors, diodes) shop. Great people who know their stuff. More expensive than digikey or mouser... but I still tend to shop their first. This is how you compete with the big online guys. By accepting you can’t beat the prices or selection and focusing on the service. They don’t try to up-sell me there... in fact they’ve down sold me a few times (“that’s overkill.. this would work”). I go there because I _enjoy_ the experience of browsing the isles and talking to the staff there. I avoid future shop because I can’t walk down an isle without 3 commission hungry kids attacking me (and then when I find something.. they want me to check it out immediately so they get credit for it..).
Here's an idea that could definitely save these retailers.
People need entertainment, right? And they want something they like, right?
We'll hire a bunch of college kids, call them the "Media Squad" and have them review movies, video games, and music, and recommend them based on each customer's particular tastes. By sheer coincidence, they'll recommend things most that are brand new, and stuck with a high markup. To prevent the kids from getting any silly notions like recommending Hulu or other things we don't make profit on, we'll give them sales quotas.
What could possibly go wrong?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I don't go to Fry's often due to their return policy.
I've had far too many instances of them blaming a defective product on me and wanting to charge me the restocking fee.
The item will have the security/warranty tape on it as an indicator of tampering but they will say I took it off and broke it, then put a new piece on. BB is no questions asked pretty much.
Also BB is MUCH better for browsing for newer movies. Fry's has a bigger selection, but with them so cramped you can't just browse.
I put on my hat, replace my wallpaper with a high res picture of the brick wall, and head off to newegg.com.
Probably not because they have to compete with the Internet too. If the highly-efficient Circuit City or Best Buy could not do it, it's doubtful some mom/pop store could do it.
Small stores might fill the same roll as 7/11 does (quick gratification for purchases needed immediately), but will also have the same higher prices on goods that 7/11 has.
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"I continue to believe in Best Buy and its future..." Schulze said in a statement.
followed immediately by "Schulze also said he was exploring options for his 20.1 percent stake in the company." and an accompanying article from here
Looks like he's getting out as much as possible now.
Hurray for Microcenter?
Thankfully, I have Microcenter in my city.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Anecdote is anecdote, but I have never had an issue returning stuff to Fry's, My volume of sales is pretty high, they can see it when doing the return and im sure that reflects how they handle my requests. My only issue with Fry's was when i returned something as defective and I saw the kid put it in the "return to shelf' bins. I had to remind him that I was returning it as manufacturer defective.
Good-bye
Probably not because they have to compete with the Internet too.
The Internet doesn't have a showroom that lets me touch the keyboard of a laptop or smartphone before I buy it.
Best Buy wasn't always so bad.
Circuit City was poorly managed and loaded with debt. It is not the internet per say, but rather management losing their focus. BB had its doom when it acquired GeekSquad. Since it was a ripoff and such a high margin they strong armed their managers into making sure it was bundled with every computer since customers would have to use it anyway etc.
Then the warranties could only be serviced at geeksquad. Then components were geeksquad insured. Then the cashiers were required to meet quotas, now BB wont even sell gaming keyboard and mice because they are not wireless which means no geek squad protection. Even their car audio and home entertainment installers are called geeksquad and are pushed. These are not real computer geeks
Now they sell things people do not want because they can bundle geeksquad, customers get hassled as employees need to piss people off just to keep their jobs, their greed makes them sell expensive things so you are more likely to buy a geeksquad protection. Their credit cards are a terrible deal too and they are hitting on those.
They lost what they are known for and that is great products at a reasonable price. Metrics can ruin many companies and CEOs who chose other lucrative markets devalue their assets. They are a retailer and not a computer shop.
http://saveie6.com/
It's not just the TVs. Or any one section of product. It's the customer service. The local Best Buy has eliminated checkout lanes. To actually buy something you need to get in line behind the people returning items (in a poorly laid-out fashion, which extends into the store), and wait while the person in front of you explains that, no, really, the dog didn't chew on his new game, it was just damaged in the packaging. And then wait as they go through some ten-step process to actually process the return.
I'm not sure what they actually want you to do at this point. They've reduced their selection so it's not worth looking at items, they've made it hard to actually give them money for things, and they've made getting service for something you've bought slow, for bad service. So, um, what's supposed to be the business model here? Step three being question marks doesn't work all that well in the real world...
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Just like when Circuit City went down, they're going to blame everyone but themselves. Circuit City's differential for years was that it had commissioned salespeople who were actually knowledgeable and gave a shit. Then they pulled their commissions, and when the economy started to falter, they died. They then turned around and blamed it on the recession, when everyone knew that their stores just sucked. So is it with Best Buy. In smaller markets, Best Buy is the only electronics store in town. You can count on walking the store and seeing many of the shelves empty because the merchandise is not in stock. They pay the salespeople diddly squat with no commissions, so you can count on having to browse the store yourself with little to no help from anyone. The only time you do get help is when you checkout the cashier will try to sell you an extended warranty that you don't need. Everything is overpriced, and most of the items they stock are of inferior quality.
I don't think anyone will ever try it, but here's an idea for how to run a store:
1) Hire people who know technology, and pay them adequately/treat them well to work the floor. Keep track of how much time your average customer walks the store without anyone offering to help, and work towards reducing that time.
2) Don't insult your customers with insane markups on things like cables, or with bullshit warranties, credit card offers, etc.
3) Instead of offering a wide range of choices with many of them shit, offer choices that someone has actually vetted as working properly, and keep them in stock. Don't waste the consumer's time and money with having to buy crap. In turn, you can expect your loss from returned merchandise to go down.
4) Make it a pleasure to shop your store and I might actually go there. Right now, it's a better experience to shop online. I can get reviews of products, narrow down my selection to the best possible one, and have a pretty good idea of what I'm buying. Much better than wasting time browsing some store. This is before considering that shopping online is actually cheaper. If when I went to your store I saw the same salespeople who had offered me good advice on other purchases I had made there before, guess what? I'd keep coming back because I'd value their input. The prices should be fair, meaning only a slight markup over what I could get online + shipping,
Did they inspect his bags before he left?
There are ways around stores that refuse to issue a refund on a broken item:
- Put the item for return in an envelope w/ delivery confirmation.
- Mail it back to store.
- Wait 30 days and then call the credit card company & file a dispute that you returned the item but never received a refund.
- CC company issues refund.
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What brick-and-mortar stores make sense where you live?
ok you asked. for the bay area, my 2nd home (it seems) is halted (hsc electronics). excess solutions, weirdstuff, maybe some other lesser known bay area surplus electronics stores. but a special place in my heart for halted; great people and just a fun place to browse.
now, you won't find new chinese made-to-export gear there. this is a 10-50 year old surplus equipment store. lots of dust, resistors and ic sockets all over the floor aisles, etc. the same clerks seem to have been there for the past 25 years or so (about as long as I can remember going to the store).
its about the farthest thing I can imagine from the blatant consumerism crap you find at worstbuy. I dread having to buy new things, these days. I know the quality (inside) will suck compared to the old school stuff I am used to and grew up on. I do NOT relish having to even set foot in a worstbuy or even a frys, for that matter.
I'm not their target audience (worstbuy) but I lost interest in things 'new' since they are built progressively worse and worse each year. knowing how they should be built and seeing what you get for your money, it just makes me a little sick.
I escape to the past in the surplus stores. and I avoid 'the malls'. but you asked, so I answered.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I live in Nashville, TN, and the only physical stores we have are Best Buy and Radio Shack. Our former CompUSA franchise was the high-water mark of sophistication before it went under.
Last week my brother and I traveled to San Diego on vacation, and since I was in the neighborhood, I decided to stop by Fry's and see what the hubbub was about. It's the frickin' geek Promised Land. I felt like a 10 year old kid wandering around the starship Enterprise.
Why can't we have nice things too? Atlanta has *2* Fry's, *2* Microcenters, and a TigerDirect. Nashville has precisely bupkis (BestBuy equals zero for any value you plug into it).
MBA's love to cluster because they assume their competitor sees gold in them thar hills and it's harder to be blamed for a bad decision when your competitor is doing it too. But doesn't it make sense to open a store somewhere else, someplace where you would *BE* the market?
the Apple store
I stopped reading there.
Why? THe Apple Store is how to do it if you sell expensive items. Walmart is how you do it for low margin items. The Apple Store pays its employees well, wont push you, gives you an excellent experience for the price.
http://saveie6.com/
You only got a refund because the store decided not to fight the chargeback.
Visa, MC, Discover, and Amex rules say a store can have a "no returns" policy as long as a sign is clearly posted.
You were supposed to return the item to the manufacturer.
I agree with the previous poster about GeekSquad really hurting the company.... but at the same time? I have at least 4 Best Buy stores in my area and still found them convenient on occasion, even completely ignoring the GeekSquad aspects of the business.
What I think really contributed to their decline was an overall floundering.... a loss of sense of who their customer really was and what he/she really wanted.
For example, one of our stores here (Crestwood, Missouri location) slowly cut back their selection of products over the last couple years. First it was their computer section shrinking, eliminating multiple aisles of software titles. (Somewhat understandable with so much going to online download purchases, but still premature, IMO, when there were so many Windows PC users who still wanted a one-stop place to view all the latest game, educational or application titles and grab one to go, with no hassles.) Then they started eliminating all the desktop PCs, trying to only sell portables. Next, the home audio section shrunk, and even the little corner of the store for car audio got to the point where every time you asked about an installation accessory, it was something they "could order for you" but never had in stock. It's abundantly clear that they selected their inventory completely by some sort of computer generates sales metrics. If X number of units didn't move in Y amount of time, they stopped carrying it. Eventually, it turned them into a giant Blockbuster-like store, full of console game titles, movies and music, a bunch of cellphones, and an appliance section along one edge of the store. It still has a fair bit of TV stuff in the back corner opposite the car audio too, but let's face it. Flat panel TVs just aren't a hugely profitable item anymore. The market is pretty much saturated so people only buy to do the occasional upgrade or to replace a broken one, and the biggest innovation they're pushing is 3D; an option of questionable real value. It's no wonder this is one of the stores on their slate of locations to close!
At other, larger locations? They've tried everything from selling Segway scooters in-store, to having mini music stores within their stores, a la Guitar Center franchises. (And I'm sorry, but Best Buy has NO chance of competing with Guitar Center! Not only do they lack staff with music knowledge, but they'll never have anywhere near as good a product selection, and likely not as good of pricing either. Why even try?) And that pathetic attempt at selling boutique high-end AV gear under the "Magnolia" name? No .... just, no.
What originally made Best Buy stores memorable for me were the early days, when everything that was returned would be put back up for sale as an open box special with a 20% discount or so, and clearance tables were constantly full of managers' "red tag" sales of various items. You never quite knew what they'd have to sell you on a given trip, because they just seemed to randomly get ahold of any cool electronics gadget they could -- but they still managed to keep each section of the store well stocked with items that fit the category. If you walked in with a gift card, you walked out buying something cool, whether you had any idea what you wanted first or not.
These days, they're so bad at being a computer shop (GeekSquad service is obviously a joke, but on the retail side, you can't get anything remotely "hard to find" --- so basically just the same staple items like keyboards/mice and 1TB SATA drives that WalMart sells), they may as well bail out completely, or start doing it right again. Prices are far from being a "best buy" too. Their very name is just a reminder of their former self.
hhgregg just as bad and 100% commission with draw that can get you fired just for being in a slow store. Having to work long hours does not help as well have to buy uniforms at a high cost.
http://www.franczek.com/frontcenter-Employee_Fired_Jury_Service.html
The first I heard about them opening here was the widespread news coverage of them closing down!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Ok, put an ad on Craigslist & become the local "cable whore" who does outcalls. If women & men can get away with running online escort services, you should be able to pimp Hdmi cables. Maybe even offer a free "happy ending" and connect it for them, too. ;-)
If it's store policy, it's store policy. Live with it. Frankly, it's not worth it to the employee who is getting paid $8/hour to go out on a limb by breaking rules that were beat into them during orientation. If it means breaking policy, the employee would much rather keep his job then help you out. If you don't like it, complain to a manager at the store who isn't afraid of losing his job by breaking a rule.