Posted on 01/02/2012 9:56:28 AM PST by Las Vegas Dave
Electronics retailer Best Buy is headed for the exits. I can’t say when exactly, but my guess is that it’s only a matter of time, maybe a few more years.
Consider a few key metrics. Despite the disappearance of competitors including Circuit City, the company is losing market share. Its last earnings announcement disappointed investors. In 2011, the company’s stock has lost 40% of its value. It’s forward P/E is a mere 6.23 (industry average is 10.20). Its market cap down to less than $9 billion. Its average analyst rating, according to The Street.com, is a B-.
Those are just some of the numbers, and they don’t look good. They bear out a prediction in March from the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column, which forecast “the worst is yet to come” for Best Buy investors. With the flop of 3D televisions and the expansion of Apple’s own retail locations, there was no killer product on the horizon that would lift it from the doldrums. Though the company accounts for almost a third of all U.S. consumer electronics purchases, analysts noted, the company remains a ripe target for more nimble competitors.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I was the Assistant Manager of a Radio Shack back in the early 80s while I was earning my EE degree.
I actually loved working there and became known as the go to guy for selecting components and half the time I would be drawing circuit diagrams to help customers.
Most of my employees didn't know squat about circuits and tried to just sell the big ticket items but I would end up selling dozens of $100+ tickets for resistors and IC components to very happy customers.
Those were some good times.
These are the same complaints I heard about Circuit City in the year before it went bankrupt.
Some of the stores are already working on that problem. When you go into a Sam's club, your cell signal becomes almost dead. The also cover up the upc code with their own code, which the readers on the smartphones won't recognize. Now, that does leave me the chance to manually type in the product, but they are working on making it more difficult.
I noticed that as well. I counted about 30 workers and only 1 person at customer service to help a growing line.
I don’t really care for their store layouts and just in general their stores, period.
And Sears and Radio Shack have closed a lot of under-performing stores recently. Sears and Kmart said this year they’d be closing hundreds of stores after this years’ black friday.
All I can tell about McDonalds is that they have gone 100% black with their marketing. Every commercial I ever see with them is all black, their music they use is styled to appeal to blacks.
Course I don’t eat ammonianized beef products anymore.
Sadly I got good sales help on two occasions at Circuit City.
For me too, and it seems like lots of other people as well. For about the last year or so I've done the majority of my electronics shopping at Fry's due to them having better prices, but this Best Buy ad campaign was the final reason I'm done with them.
Best Buy Co., best known as a vendor of giant televisions, is veering in a new direction: selling green vehicles.
America’s largest consumer-electronics retailer by sales has quietly begun offering electric-powered scooters, bicycles and Segway Inc. transporters in 19 locations in California, Oregon and Washington.
It is throttling up the venture this summer with the introduction of the Brammo Enertia, a futuristic electric motorcycle that can travel 45 miles at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour and plugs into a standard wall outlet. Best Buy wouldn’t disclose when it will begin ...
Making it more difficult for buyers to shop won’t solve the problem. It will simply drive buyers elsewhere.
Eventually, the inability to cut costs in order to compete with the internet is going to cause businesses to start looking at government for solutions.
That’s what the demand for internet sales tax is about. But that still won’t solve all their problems, especially if consumers band together to stop congress from implementing.
Eventually corporation are going to have start managing for product quality and customer service and stop managing for increased stock value.
Look back at Ray Kurzweil’s predictions on singularity.
every product that displays or plays media sold at Best Buy currently, Within 5 years we could see being a single device in multiple sizes sold as a loss leader for Itunes, Netflix, and Rhapsody, (and their competitors once NFLX goes B/K) etc.
NO more desktops, laptops, tablets, cellphones, in-car stereos, etc.
Just a single device you carry with you that has access to your entire cloud of data. Wireless connection, fast recharge batteries, and a basic commodity with very low profit margins, or maybe the electronics sold as loss leaders for subscription services...
We’re looking at universal wireless A/V standards, we are already looking at the sale of a LCD panel as a generic zero profit commodity, that leaves Best Buy with home appliances for the kitchen.
Not only is Best Buy going to lose out to Newegg, I think Best Buy will lose out to Spotify, Rhapsody and Itunes, and the local cable and satellite TV companies.
I reversed the charge on the credit card and left the stove where she fell after discussing the situation with Customer Service and the store manager that said they’d do me the favor of allowing the return minus 15% ($225) “per their return policy.” I despise Best Buy.
And when one does, is all too often gratuitously clueless. Went to look at 3D HDTVs: insisted the depth effect “popped out more” on one than another because it had “more lines”.
CompuUSA was awful. They had OK prices but it was essential that you knew exactly what you wanted. Their salespeople were useless.
They closed all their stores. I think they are just an online store now, if anything.
I got a flat screen at BB several years ago. I got a great price, and a three year no interest deal. I’ll be going back to BB.
I find the reviews on Amazon more helpful than going into a store and looking at the product. Though I will admit that the last time I went into a Circuit City was to confirm which TV I would buy on Amazon after I’d thoroughly researched and was down to just a couple options. Amazon delivered and installed identical unit for nearly $100 cheaper than CC even before sales tax savings. CC is bankrupt now and it has been longer than that since I was in a BB.
There is simply nothing that interests me in a BB that I cannot find volumes more information about online and without the hard sell tactics. DVDs? read the reviews and rent or download from Netflix. CDs? Amazon if I want to own, Grooveshark if I want streaming. Appliances? research online and Lowes or Home Depot have the better deals. TVs or stereos as example above. Computers? Amazon or direct from a vendor like Dell. Digital photography? B&H for higher end, Amazon for the basics. If I absolutely feel the need to play with hardware in a store Fry’s is about as easy to get too and is a much more fun.
How many of us are guilty of wasting sales staff time “researching” a product, only to leave the store empty handed and purchase on-line.
I don’t know how this is in Christianity but this is one of the Torah’s commandments. So I try very hard not to do it.
Those were good days to be an inquisitive kid. Back when electronics also had physical properties that you could inspect, measure and test. Todays electronics are nearly all a "magic box" where if it breaks you throw it away and buy a new one.
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