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Best Buy Cuts 650 Geek Squad Techies
tripleevenfall writes "Best Buy has cut approximately 650 jobs from its Geek Squad division, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The cut represents about 4% of Geek Squad's total workforce. The consumer electronics giant said the workers primarily service televisions and appliances in consumers' homes. Best Buy's performance has struggled to keep up with changes in consumer electronics, as the weight of its big-box format inhibits it from fending off competitive pressure of online retailers."
Good thing they only cut Geek Squad people, then.
You know, the customers' porn isn't gonna watch itself.
Which technicians were cut?
The ones with the lowest technical aptitude, or the ones who pushed the least amount of unnecessary service on their customers?
I thought charging for support accounted for around 90% of their profit?
If they are losing money on support they are totally fucked.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
When you cut support you begin to cut your own throat.
The beginning of Best Buy's end started with the end of Circuit City. Best Buy thought that they were now free of competition, so they reduced the variety of the products they stocked and focused only on high-margin stuff (for example, Monster Cable and in-house brands). They thought that their customers no longer had a choice and so they tried to stick it to us.
Now you hear them whine about being "the internet's showroom" - they think people come in to look and then go buy online instead. That's almost a complete fallacy because almost all of their products are commodities, you gain basically nothing from a hands-on experience with just about everything they sell. Even things like TV's, AVR's and speakers don't really give up much useful information from the show-room experience because performance in your own home is always different from in the show-room. You are almost always better off reading a variety of reviews than trying to make subjective judgements yourself in the store.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You sound like an informed consumer, not their target market. People do walk around and then buy online, or at least comparison shop. Some people do it by sending teams to different stores, and the lowest price feature compatible item gets bought.
People don't want a hands-on experience - they do want to window shop, though. And it helps to stay organized if you have a limited selection, and maybe tiered pricing in several physically separate locations. Once you narrow it down, you find something similar online and buy it. Not that item, just something like it.
It started with people checking out specials on their website while in the store, and noticing price mismatches. Now word has gotten around that you don't buy without checking the price first - and while you're at it, why not check someone else's store too?
They did cut inventory and act like they were the only choice, and people started window shopping there and buying online, and it was entirely their own fault.