Pre-RIP: Best Buy?
Apr. 1st, 2012 01:49 pmI read an article on Forbes (IIRC) recently that said Best Buy is doomed, and now BB is announcing that they're closing 50 stores. With my luck they'll close the one in Las Cruces and leave the two or three in El Paso alone, just like they did for Toys R Us.
With Toys R Us, they were bought out by a rather mercenary capital group who thought that in some cases the land the stores were on were more valuable than the stores themselves, never mind if they provided services to the community that were profitable for the corp. I've seen many such sites still vacant after the stores closed, not unlike when Mervyn's died.
In this case, I think most of the blame can be laid at the feet of poor customer service and constantly pressing people to buy extended warranties. They're blaming a lot of their woes on Amazon, which demonstrates that they're failing at the customer service game, something that Amazon is well-regarded for.
BB reported a $1.7 billion US loss for their fourth quarter, versus a $651 million US profit the previous fiscal year. I told my wife after I read the Forbes article, which mainly blamed poor customer service, that I'm giving them four years before they're gone or bought out, but who would buy them out? Now I'm giving them less than three.
This saddens me, because if I need to buy some strange computer gear, locally I'll be limited to Staples, Radio Shack, and Walmart, or wait until I'm in Phoenix and can go to Fry's Electronics if I want to handle it and actually look at boxes, otherwise it'll be Amazon or similar.
You'd think that as well as Amazon is doing, that the US Postal Service would be doing better. I really don't like the concept of internet-only purchasing for people who live in somewhat remote communities like I do.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SBB0001424052702303404704577311322427071212.html
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/03/30/1830209/best-buy-closing-50-stores
With Toys R Us, they were bought out by a rather mercenary capital group who thought that in some cases the land the stores were on were more valuable than the stores themselves, never mind if they provided services to the community that were profitable for the corp. I've seen many such sites still vacant after the stores closed, not unlike when Mervyn's died.
In this case, I think most of the blame can be laid at the feet of poor customer service and constantly pressing people to buy extended warranties. They're blaming a lot of their woes on Amazon, which demonstrates that they're failing at the customer service game, something that Amazon is well-regarded for.
BB reported a $1.7 billion US loss for their fourth quarter, versus a $651 million US profit the previous fiscal year. I told my wife after I read the Forbes article, which mainly blamed poor customer service, that I'm giving them four years before they're gone or bought out, but who would buy them out? Now I'm giving them less than three.
This saddens me, because if I need to buy some strange computer gear, locally I'll be limited to Staples, Radio Shack, and Walmart, or wait until I'm in Phoenix and can go to Fry's Electronics if I want to handle it and actually look at boxes, otherwise it'll be Amazon or similar.
You'd think that as well as Amazon is doing, that the US Postal Service would be doing better. I really don't like the concept of internet-only purchasing for people who live in somewhat remote communities like I do.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SBB0001424052702303404704577311322427071212.html
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/03/30/1830209/best-buy-closing-50-stores