BestBuy set for 10th straight quarter of sales drop on weak electronics spending
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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.
So I got the same TV from costco for only slightly more but with costco warranty.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
The Radio Shack of the 1970s/1980s, yes I do miss having a store like that in town.
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.