Comment by alexpotato | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alexpotato | Hacker News Reader

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There was recently an article on HN [0] that really opened my eyes to just how well Best Buy has done with that model.

This section in particular:

> Based on their feedback, Joly (the new CEO):

> - fixed broken systems, like an internal search engine that gave bad data about which products were in stock;

> - restored a beloved employee discount program; and

> - invested heavily into regular employee training.

I would bet money that fixing the search engine cost in the order of <$100Ks of engineer time and led to $1M+ in revenue. That's why the whole argument of "well, the profit margins are tiny so that's why retailers are dying" doesn't hold water with me. Just like every company there are critical systems that are obviously broken and are relatively easy to fix but are not correctly prioritized.

If they are prioritized, they tend to have ripple effects through the rest of the company.

0 - https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/amazon-almost-killed-best-...

fixed broken systems, like an internal search engine that gave bad data about which products were in stock;

I doubt (with complete speculation) that this was just an engineering problem (ie, the tech was why the product inventory data was wrong).

Inventory management is the biggest competitive advantage retailers can have, and often when it's wrong and messy, a full rework is needed to implement best practices and change the operational processes of the business. The unsexy logistics part of the business is the real cash cow, once the demand question has been solved.

I'd be interested to learn more about what Best Buy did to rework their processes, but I doubt it will become public because operational improvements like this can be a real advantage over competitors.

I work with fast moving inventory. One big trick is easy, optimized handhelds. Any employee can quickly do shelf-count or tag strays which keeps the house-count tight. And simple means BPA workflow is very refined (eg: big iterate the UX six times in three mo on just one or two flows).

Optimizing where items are stored to facilitate ease of access while also not overwhelming an aisle is also key. fast moving merchandise can change across a year. besides the handhelds using light to indicate where an item is has benefits over some systems which rely on audio clues

>I'd be interested to learn more about what Best Buy did to rework their processes, but I doubt it will become public because operational improvements like this can be a real advantage over competitors.

It might be simpler than you think. I've noticed that Best Buy's product listings consistently offer more product information (weight, dimensions, model numbers, and especially UPC) than the counterparts at Amazon, Target, and Walmart. All searchable, too; Amazon has the data but a) as mentioned, doesn't always make it visible, and b) doesn't always make it searchable.

best buy has also greatly improved their selection in inventory. about 10 years ago when i was building a pc the best buy store by me in NJ would only have a couple options for RAM, hard drive, gpu, and they would generally be no-name or low end brands marked up.

fast forward to this year and when one of my ram modules died, i was able to get the specific model i needed next day pickup in store, and their return policy is excellent. they also have basically been the exclusive seller of nvidia 3070/3080/3090's in the US. really impressed by their turnaround

I went to Best Buy several times and was in and out in several minutes. It improved a lot.

Search engine is definitely a critical factor in why I avoid using Amazon, and it's just as terrible now as it was 10 years ago!

I read the article and it seems to be a PR piece. It’s sort of like when a company asks a reporter to come in and take a look. It then tells them all the things they did and that made a difference.

It’s an article glorifying the CEO. Fake. The real reasons for their success or failure is much deeper.

I would love someone knowledgeable to take examples like this (and counterexamples) and create some discourse on how to defend a company against private equity takeovers.

Private equity firms don’t buy companies that are doing well. So don’t fuck up and you’ll be fine.

I wouldn't be surprised if PE bros know some "fucking up" entry points that regular people don't, which leave even doing-well companies vulnerable.

The business model of PE is to buy distressed assets cheap. You can look at a company’s financials and determine if they are cheap. The magic pixie dust of PE is to look at those financials, the state of the company and the sector, and determine if it’s something that will possibly offer a return.

What most people fail to recognize is that when PE is in the picture, the company is already circling the drain. If it was a sure thing to fix, then the company wouldn’t be cheap. Generally speaking, PE doesn’t kill a company: Management did, but PE is the triage doc with bloody hands. They make for a nice comic book villain, but it comes down to “don’t fuck up”

There’s another class of PE activity, which is “my company is only mildly fucked but I can’t fix it while answering to shareholders.” So PE helps the owner go private to fix it. Examples are Dell and TIBCO. I don’t care enough about the latter to even look, but I think we can agree that Dell isn’t being stripped by PE bandits.

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