Best buy is being a valiant survivor. But I'm not sure if it will ultimately be different than the other electronics big box stores. Maybe someone should put them out of their misery, despite having not-so-bad memories of going to Best Buy to get stuff.
I can't help but feel like they've handled things poorly. They could have expanded their services business, really made their membership program into something special, and tripled down on e-commerce.
All three of those areas have been handled poorly and the effects of cost cutting are starting to show clearly in their actual physical stores.
There seems to be something about retail that makes them particularly vulnerable to the innovator's dilemma and unresponsive to macro changes (not just jumping on trends but actually restructuring their business when required).
Can you elaborate on "really made their membership program into something special"? What exactly could they have done that you think would make their membership something special?
It is being obviated by screens that allow people to shop with sufficient data without needing to browse in a store. And in Best Buy’s case, many devices also got obviated by one or two devices, sold by just a few manufacturers, leaving them to be a middleman with little value add.
And high labor prices for skilled labor relative to the price of new, replacement goods makes “services” a non starter.
They seemed to play their cards at least OK given what happened to competitors. But I think the one time I was in there for years was to drop off some recycling. Maybe for a once a decade TV purchase?
> Analysts have also said that the rise of artificial intelligence may have delayed purchases as some higher-income shoppers await upgraded laptops with AI features, such as Microsoft's co-pilot button, and televisions to hit the shelves.
Wait what?, does anyone here know someone who's truly waiting out for any of these features?
One of the problems with electronics has been that there has not been a lot of value add in a lot of categories for a while, and in some cases, there has been value erosion. I bought an LG OLED TV in 2017. Since then, a similarly sized TV costs 50% more and is still more expensive to buy in a sale. (I bought mine in a sale) Meanwhile, there has been not a lot of value add to the TVs in terms of hardware. And whatever software features are being advertised, are in fact the reason why I refuse to replace mine. Mostly because the more poorly written software they add to the TV, the more enshittification of the viewer experience happens.
Well my main and newest PC is a Thinkpad W541, it is 11 years old. It is plenty powerful and I expect it to be useful for at least another 10 years. All I did was replace the HDD with a SDD a few years ago.
There is no real reason to buy a New Laptop these days and to me, many people buy new just to get the latest OS from Microsoft or Apple. They claim "slowdown" is the issue for buying new, but mostly it is cruft those Operating Systems builds up over time.
With Linux or a BSD, you will see how a real OS is suppose to run.
If you do buy new, make sure it is user upgradeable. For example, memory is not soldered onto the board, hard disk (HDD/SDD) can be replaced.
This must be use-case dependent. I don't use laptops very much, but I still have the parts from my PC from 12 years ago, and I remember the difference from when I upgraded 6-ish years ago. The difference in the CPU alone was significant, not including the GPU and RAM. I expect to see similar improvements on my next upgrade. I don't see why that wouldn't also apply to laptops.
Though, the average person is probably getting significant slowdown from accumulating background applications.
For the machine I do web browsing from it can be anything, same with my D&D character sheets, anything, right now it is my phone.
But my games need a high end GPU and that scales with time. My workstation needs to build large C++ projects and I will never have enough cores or RAM for that. I am getting a threadripper with 196gb of RAM and the only reason I didn't get more was price. I will use it all, and a hearty amount of swap space.
If someone it just SSHing into things to administer them they don't need more. If some is gaming they always need more.
Actually I forgot this case, GPU may be the only reason to upgrade when the person is using heavy graphics games or maybe autocad or 3d modeling type software.
But if you ask me, these people may be better served with a desktop where you can upgrade the GPU Board every so often.
I feel like a 11 year old ThinkPad would be pretty slow at modern web apps like Gmail, especially if you have a lot of tabs open.
My 7 1/2 year old ThinkPad was painfully slow loading Gmail this morning for some reason though the fault could be 100% on Google's end.
My Thinkpad is also noticeable slower than a high end modern desktop running Windows at doing simple things like browsing for files, though that doesn't discount the possibility that it's the OS's fault.
I feel exactly the same way. My main machine is an 11 year old IdeaPad with a 4th Gen i7, 16GB of RAM, and an SSD. No performance issues whatsoever on Mint. From what I recall, battery life isn't great, but I've used it exclusively as a desktop for most of its lifetime.
Windows on the original 5.4k disk, especially booting, was a truly awful experience.
My "lounging around" machine is a 14yr old Dell E6510 with a 1st gen i5, 8GB of RAM, and an SSD. It also works like a charm with Mint.
Cant help but think they should reduce their store footprint and increase product density. I personally would love to buy a monitor after looking at it physically in-store but I want a good selection, not the 2 random monitors they happen to have in-stock that meet my size, resolution requirements.
If I have to buy online, amazon is cheaper.
Microcenter's only problem is that they haven't quite expanded to where I live. Going into one of those gives me back a bit of that feeling of going to a toy store as a kid, there's just so much cool and weird stuff packed in there.
Best Buy, on the other hand, feels like it's been revenue optimized to the point that it's depressing to enter.
Microcenter is pretty much the only old-school store of that sort around where I live. But Ialso don't build PCs or have a need for a lot of media and components any longer so I confess to not really using them any longer.
I'm happy to spend on electronics, but never from that pile of garbage masquerading as a store. I bought a Chromebook, online, for my disabled mother, and its battery failed in three weeks. They demanded that to RMA it it had to be physically brought to a store. Nevermind that they've closed stores like mad so there wasn't any near her, and even if there were she CANNOT DRIVE. Then to add insult to injury, they made it impossible to even reach their stores by phone, all calls go to central call centers now so we couldn't try to set up any sort of pickup with a nearby store.
After that experience, I swore I would never buy a product from Best Buy ever again. Online, in person, doesn't matter. Permanently gone as a customer.
I go into Brick and Mortar stores as more of a museum or sorts to see what something is like before buying it online
Their sales team is wholly ineffective at swaying me, and I literally cannot compel myself to care about how they are lying to me to close a sale, like "wow that was desperate, google, reddit, the spec sheet, and the AI all said this isn't actually a bluetooth headset, just go get the tent now you're wasting your time trying to prove something to someone else or yourself."
If they just held merchandise and didn't try to sell it, but charged a small subscription to come check it out, I miiiiiiight be still be interested on occasion. Something besides what they're currently doing.
> I go into Brick and Mortar stores as more of a museum or sorts to see what something is like before buying it online
That's funny, I do the opposite. I might read reviews online but then I'll go to Best Buy and buy it same day. They price match Amazon so it's the same price, no waiting, and no supporting Amazon.
I briefly experimented with dropping my Amazon Prime subscription and using Uber delivery to go pick up from Brick and Mortar stores for 20 minute delivery instead of one-ish day delivery with Prime
I’m back to Prime, and an occasional Uber delivery
IMHO, the real problem is that there is zero value to go to bby. The sales teams are either not to be found, or know nothing. Checking out is a nightmare of "where is anyone to check me out?" and the place looks like a dump (the three I have gone into recently for an emergency part, which I could not find).
That's true, but not enough to keep a brick and mortar retail store of that size operating. Most people can wait a day or two for an online purchase to be delivered.
The group of panicked customers who need an Ethernet cable RIGHT NOW is just not big enough.
The brick and mortar store is probably just a loss leader for online shopping. I wouldn't be surprised if many locations closed down if they had to re-negotiate a lease in these times.
Some value for people that like to look at the product, have it in their hands, etc...the checking out part must be a local issue. As an opposite anecdote I have checked out at many Best Buy locations across the US and have never had a problem(even the shady ones). I actually love going to see some of the newer gadgets, but admittedly I have not made many big purchases there.
They also have a decent financing program(0% 24 months) that is great in these high interest rate times.
...I do love Microcenter though...and Fry's before it went out of business...now those places I could spend all day in.
> Some value for people that like to look at the product, have it in their hands, etc...
I've resorted to buying online and returning good if I don't like them. Most returns are free and even the whole process is less effort than driving to the store, searching, and waiting in line, then driving home
> I actually love going to see some of the newer gadgets, but admittedly I have not made many big purchases there.
To me this seems like their biggest problem, if they're just a showroom for Amazon then they're not actually making any money. The value of "buy it today" is not nearly as high as it used to be, and for bigger things delivery is probably preferred by most anyway.
TVs are probably a rare exception. But things like bad pixels are probably much less of a concern than they once were.
When a I bought a really heavy plasma TV off Amazon a decade+ ago I felt it was a bit of a gamble as I was sure the return would be, at a minimum, a big headache. I'm not sure I'd have the same concern today.
I wouldn't say zero, when you want to go hold and see a product before buying instead of buying and returning 4, in person has it's benefits if you're self-researched.
Getting help for a product (or navigating solving a problem with a category of products) is a fair point, getting help fro every product under the sun might also be a challenge with so many more consumer electronics out there where they may have just been a speciality product.
The one thing I still like them for is buying storage (hard drives, SSDs, USB sticks), and that only really because I do actually trust them to not sell me counterfeits and I absolutely don't trust Amazon/Newegg for the same. Anyone know a reliable way to source any of these online?
I wanted to by a big TV and checked out bby and they had one a decent price. But... the warranty was crap and if I had a problem I had to deal directly with the manufacturer (samsung). I literally asked the salesperson, so if I take this home and it has a cracked screen out of the box, I can't bring it back? I have to call samsung? They said 'yes'.
So I got the same TV from costco for only slightly more but with costco warranty.
They can't go under soon enough. The low point of my shopping there was when they tried to hard-sell me an extended warranty on a 9-pin serial cable. I've avoided them ever since.
LOL, I just meant that as an exemplar of the the ridiculousness of it all, given that the price for the warranty would have come to more than the cost of the cable itself.
Aside from that, the staff being pretty low on product knowledge, generally tending toward pushy if not outright rude, the nickel and diming and the attempts to capture every shred of value they can pull out of people while they have them cornered in the store just make it a very unpleasant experience to shop there compared to other retailers or the online shopping options.
The only value of BestBuy to me is pickup of items I don't want to wait on. Also sometimes I can get mobile devices there that my carrier doesn't have in stock in their stores.
The main reason I used to go to best buy was to buy physical media. For years I would stop in at Best Buy a few times a month to browse CDs, movies, and games. Sometimes I would buy something, other times not, but it kept them at the top of mind for any electronics purchase. The CDs went first, then the games section started shrinking, older titles stopped going on sale, and physical games needed large day 1 patches and required servers so buying physical games became less meaningful. Still, there were movies and shows, and even if Amazon was more convenient the high number of counterfeit movies drove me to more reputable retailers. Now they've dropped DVDs and I'm not sure why I'd go there at all. I know most people don't care much about physical media, and while I'm sad to see it go I can understand the logic given the cost of retail space, but it doesn't seem like they've ever figured out how to replace that with something else that can drive foot traffic.
People only need a computer, television, or appliance every few years at most, and I think most people tend to either make major purchases based on the lowest cost (online) or with a retailer they have an existing relationship with. Without any inventory of the kind of small frequent purchases that help build a relationship with consumers, I don't see how they have any success attracting people with big purchases.
I like buying laptops where there's an easy return policy and Bestbuy, as for as I can see, has a broader range of models and better bargains on new machines than any other retailer for non-Apple models, in particular they have a good selection of Asus and Lenovo consumer laptops.
Microcenter has less of a selection from companies like Lenovo, is there anywhere else folks would recommend for non Apple devices?
A lot of rose-tinted glasses come out with respect to Radio Shack. They were the least bad source of local cables etc. and they did have some history in ham and some electronics components. But for a lot of their history they had a bunch of crap stereo and toys and latterly cell phone offers.
I guess they can shift to Microcenter model at least at some percentage. Knowledgeable associates that actually help, selection of a wider variety of stuff that competes with online warehouse retailers.
They had an advantage after all the other electronics brick and mortar retailers cratered but they blew it away by dumbing everything down and making the store experience boring.
As part of an on-going Amazon detox, I try to go through Best Buy for electronics. They tend to have the same inventory at identical prices (propped up by an online-only inventory) and offer incentives, such as reward points with their freebie store card, easy local returns, price matching with Amazon, and occasional credit card bonus offers on Amex/Chase. (Hardcore couponers can probably squeeze even more savings with something like Slickdeals Cashback Rewards, seen as high as 10%.)
One annoyance is their account security--it's dialed up to 11 and completely out of control, frankly. You cannot sign in on mobile and PC simultaneously without getting flagged and requiring a password reset. It's insanely anti-consumer and has frustrated me to the point of going elsewhere at least once.
Looks like the Chinese counterfeiters are winning. If BBY goes then it is one less place to get authentic goods instead of playing russian roulette on Amazon.
68 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] threadAll three of those areas have been handled poorly and the effects of cost cutting are starting to show clearly in their actual physical stores.
There seems to be something about retail that makes them particularly vulnerable to the innovator's dilemma and unresponsive to macro changes (not just jumping on trends but actually restructuring their business when required).
It is being obviated by screens that allow people to shop with sufficient data without needing to browse in a store. And in Best Buy’s case, many devices also got obviated by one or two devices, sold by just a few manufacturers, leaving them to be a middleman with little value add.
And high labor prices for skilled labor relative to the price of new, replacement goods makes “services” a non starter.
Wait what?, does anyone here know someone who's truly waiting out for any of these features?
> Why do the media keep running stories saying [bullshit about consumers]? Because PR firms tell them to.
There is no real reason to buy a New Laptop these days and to me, many people buy new just to get the latest OS from Microsoft or Apple. They claim "slowdown" is the issue for buying new, but mostly it is cruft those Operating Systems builds up over time.
With Linux or a BSD, you will see how a real OS is suppose to run.
If you do buy new, make sure it is user upgradeable. For example, memory is not soldered onto the board, hard disk (HDD/SDD) can be replaced.
Though, the average person is probably getting significant slowdown from accumulating background applications.
But my games need a high end GPU and that scales with time. My workstation needs to build large C++ projects and I will never have enough cores or RAM for that. I am getting a threadripper with 196gb of RAM and the only reason I didn't get more was price. I will use it all, and a hearty amount of swap space.
If someone it just SSHing into things to administer them they don't need more. If some is gaming they always need more.
Actually I forgot this case, GPU may be the only reason to upgrade when the person is using heavy graphics games or maybe autocad or 3d modeling type software.
But if you ask me, these people may be better served with a desktop where you can upgrade the GPU Board every so often.
My 7 1/2 year old ThinkPad was painfully slow loading Gmail this morning for some reason though the fault could be 100% on Google's end.
My Thinkpad is also noticeable slower than a high end modern desktop running Windows at doing simple things like browsing for files, though that doesn't discount the possibility that it's the OS's fault.
Windows on the original 5.4k disk, especially booting, was a truly awful experience.
My "lounging around" machine is a 14yr old Dell E6510 with a 1st gen i5, 8GB of RAM, and an SSD. It also works like a charm with Mint.
For any computer electronics, I prefer Microcenter (if available), or buy it online.
Best Buy, on the other hand, feels like it's been revenue optimized to the point that it's depressing to enter.
Bestbuy is useless garbage circling the drain.
After that experience, I swore I would never buy a product from Best Buy ever again. Online, in person, doesn't matter. Permanently gone as a customer.
Their sales team is wholly ineffective at swaying me, and I literally cannot compel myself to care about how they are lying to me to close a sale, like "wow that was desperate, google, reddit, the spec sheet, and the AI all said this isn't actually a bluetooth headset, just go get the tent now you're wasting your time trying to prove something to someone else or yourself."
If they just held merchandise and didn't try to sell it, but charged a small subscription to come check it out, I miiiiiiight be still be interested on occasion. Something besides what they're currently doing.
That's funny, I do the opposite. I might read reviews online but then I'll go to Best Buy and buy it same day. They price match Amazon so it's the same price, no waiting, and no supporting Amazon.
I’m back to Prime, and an occasional Uber delivery
If I need something asap, and they have it. That's the value.
The group of panicked customers who need an Ethernet cable RIGHT NOW is just not big enough.
Some value for people that like to look at the product, have it in their hands, etc...the checking out part must be a local issue. As an opposite anecdote I have checked out at many Best Buy locations across the US and have never had a problem(even the shady ones). I actually love going to see some of the newer gadgets, but admittedly I have not made many big purchases there.
They also have a decent financing program(0% 24 months) that is great in these high interest rate times.
...I do love Microcenter though...and Fry's before it went out of business...now those places I could spend all day in.
I've resorted to buying online and returning good if I don't like them. Most returns are free and even the whole process is less effort than driving to the store, searching, and waiting in line, then driving home
To me this seems like their biggest problem, if they're just a showroom for Amazon then they're not actually making any money. The value of "buy it today" is not nearly as high as it used to be, and for bigger things delivery is probably preferred by most anyway.
When a I bought a really heavy plasma TV off Amazon a decade+ ago I felt it was a bit of a gamble as I was sure the return would be, at a minimum, a big headache. I'm not sure I'd have the same concern today.
Getting help for a product (or navigating solving a problem with a category of products) is a fair point, getting help fro every product under the sun might also be a challenge with so many more consumer electronics out there where they may have just been a speciality product.
https://www.cdw.com/category/storage-hard-drives/hard-drives...
So I got the same TV from costco for only slightly more but with costco warranty.
Aside from that, the staff being pretty low on product knowledge, generally tending toward pushy if not outright rude, the nickel and diming and the attempts to capture every shred of value they can pull out of people while they have them cornered in the store just make it a very unpleasant experience to shop there compared to other retailers or the online shopping options.
People only need a computer, television, or appliance every few years at most, and I think most people tend to either make major purchases based on the lowest cost (online) or with a retailer they have an existing relationship with. Without any inventory of the kind of small frequent purchases that help build a relationship with consumers, I don't see how they have any success attracting people with big purchases.
Microcenter has less of a selection from companies like Lenovo, is there anywhere else folks would recommend for non Apple devices?
The Radio Shack of the 1970s/1980s, yes I do miss having a store like that in town.
They had an advantage after all the other electronics brick and mortar retailers cratered but they blew it away by dumbing everything down and making the store experience boring.
One annoyance is their account security--it's dialed up to 11 and completely out of control, frankly. You cannot sign in on mobile and PC simultaneously without getting flagged and requiring a password reset. It's insanely anti-consumer and has frustrated me to the point of going elsewhere at least once.