Best Buy Is Thriving In the Age of Amazon (defenseone.com)

Best Buy is turning to in-home consultants to help distinguish it from Amazon. The advisors act as "personal chief technology officers," helping people make their homes smart or merely more functional. "Unlike the Geek Squad and blue shirts working in stores, they'll be paid an annual salary instead of an hourly wage," reports Bloomberg. "Their house calls are free and can last as long as 90 minutes. [...] They're supposed to establish long-term relationships with their customers rather than chase one-time transactions." From the report: With more than 1,000 big-box stores in North America and about 125,000 employees, Best Buy was supposed to have succumbed to the inevitable. "Everyone thought we were going to die," says Hubert Joly, who was hired as chief executive officer in August 2012 after profits shrunk about 90 percent in one quarter and his predecessor resigned amid an investigation into his relationship with an employee. Instead, Best Buy has become an improbable survivor led by an unlikely boss.

The in-home advisors went national in September. When one of the trainees at the session in Minneapolis asked Joly how big he hoped the program could become, he said: "I don't have a specific goal. I don't think it would be helpful. McKinsey never had a goal of how many clients. It was how good was the work." Another employee said: "This is why Amazon can't compete with us. They can't dispatch an army of in-home agents." Joly wasn't as sure. "Amazon is an amazing company," he replied. "They kill companies. Maybe they will do this. But we have an incredible opportunity. If someone wants to copy, that's fine." Amazon has started offering free smart-home consultations and installations. It doesn't have a chain of big-box stores in which to meet customers, but that didn't bother investors. Best Buy's stock dropped 6.3 percent when Amazon announced its plans a year ago.

Comments

Do they have sales targets? commission?

[Joe_Dragon]

Do they have sales targets?
Do they get commission?

Do they do tech work or just sell sell sell?

I find this fascinating

[GerryGilmore]

In the era where "online sales will rule everything!" seems omniscient, I'm very pleased to see SOME level of creative thinking. Rather than just roll over, they're trying something different enough to distinguish themselves. Good on them! I hope it works.

Brought to you by the FBI...

[Cornwallis]

The FBI will love having Best Buy develop "personal relationships" with people in their homes:
https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

Re:Thriving, no. Surviving, perhaps.

[dj245]

Because this article didn't match my observations of closing and aging Best Buy stores all around me, I looked the facts up.

Their profits are roughly the same as they were a decade ago - before inflation adjustment. And they have less stores than they did at their peak. Any retail operation that isn't even maintaining is well on the path to dying.

Perhaps this article announcing their first new store in seven years this past April justifies the "thriving" label.

Given the collapse in other competition such as Circuit City, Radio Shack, Sears, K-Mart, etc, it is apparent that they have succeeded in picking up no customers from competitors when those competitors collapsed.

This is "thriving"? Was this article written by Best Buy's investor relations folks?

I'm not buying a refrigerator from Amazon. Trying to return it would be a nightmare. Sears is done and my local Lowes/Home Depot don't carry all the refrigerator/washer/drier manufacturers or models. Best Buy has a surprisingly large selection of appliances. They also had the lowest price last time I was in the market. Costco sells appliances too but they don't have display models. Is there any other major national appliance store? All I see in Houston is mom-n-pops and local/regional chains.