Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by ClownLoach »

wnetmacman wrote: October 31st, 2016, 7:07 pm I can give you two words that sum up Best Buy's lack of activity:

Circuit City

Their collapse scared Best Buy to its core, and while they have made *some* changes, it really doesn't amount to much. Best Buy is now an Electronics Convenience Store and Showroom. Folks don't go there to buy. They go to look, and to purchase immediate needs.

Comparing to Micro Center and Fry's is really unfair. These two only appear in certain large metro areas, and not in every metro like Best Buy. They also tend to lean more into Computers, while Fry's does have a large selection of other items. They aren't direct competitors in all areas, and that was the difference. Best Buy and Circuit City were direct competition, and essentially, Best Buy won the battle.
As a Circuit City veteran, I can tell you that the shock at Best Buy was the fact that their revenue was completely flat in the year after the Circuit City liquidation. They didn't get a dime of additional sales after expecting billions to flow in. All those sales went to other companies like Target, Walmart, and Costco. It is correct that this scared them to their core as they had hired thousands of former CC managers and employees expecting a surge of sales that never came.

Circuit City was a sad story of extreme mismanagement - they thought they could spend themselves back into first place in the electronics industry despite the fact that at the time this decision to rebuild the company was made Best Buy was up to a $60B company and they were only $12B. This would make about as much sense as Kmart today announcing their new goal is to put Walmart out of business - it ain't going to happen. They could not accept being a second place player when they should have studied successful 2nd place companies like Lowe's and Target to understand how they found a successful niche allowing them to survive the competitive onslaught. Then they started to run out of money from expanding too quickly Pre-2000 and thought they could cut expenses (payroll) to offset the fact that a quarter of the stores lost money when the rest of the chain was doing great. They eliminated commissions and appliances, and laid off the highest paid employees. The company was terrified that if they ever closed a few stores - the brand would be tarnished and the customer would not feel confident about shopping there - and most importantly they wouldn't trust that extended warranties would hold up despite being insured. Warranties are still the profit center of the electronics retail business, even Apple pushes AppleCare hard in their stores. Eventually the dead weight of carrying the 150 or so unprofitable stores was too much and started to cause impacts in earnings - those spooked the banks and the company credit lines were frozen - forcing them into Chapter 11. They thought that they could wipe out the leases and debts from the bad stores in the process but there wasn't enough confidence in the banking industry to give enough new credit for emergence from refinancing. That forced the company into an auction and of course the winners were the various liquidation companies. The saddest part of the whole affair is that the ENTIRE BANKRUPTCY ESTATE WAS PAID OFF IN JUST THE FIRST FEW WEEKS of the liquidation. Most retail liquidations result in creditors getting pennies on the dollar, but not CC. The bankruptcy ended up turning a massive profit which resulted in large bonuses for most of the managers upon termination and a large nonprofit foundation was established in Virginia with the remaining funds. In other words, if the banks had just given them a new credit line and refinanced debt they were very much a viable company that would still be here today minus the group of bad stores.

Circuit City was doing "omnichannel" better than anyone else in retail more than a decade before the phrase was invented. At the time of their closing they were selling over $2 Billion a year online for pickup in store. They had real time inventory and an ancient looking proprietary system that could manage every single aspect of the store operation allowing you in theory to be in Los Angeles and purchase a computer out of a store in New York for your kid - and the store in New York had a pickup ticket for that computer before the receipt even printed in LA. You could buy however you wanted, stores, online or by phone. They were actually far ahead of their time in many aspects.

I do not know of any company that consistently brought in $12 Billion a year that has gone out of business in the retail industry - Circuit City has been the largest.

What is even crazier is the fact that Best Buy is working currently on a new prototype format that, if successful, will be used for complete remodels starting in 2022. Google it and you'll find pictures. If you can find pictures - it is literally Circuit City's early 2000's format in blue. The format they used before they went to a Best Buy warehouse format imitation with a ugly gold yellow tower. In the Best Buy remodel they wall off a third of the store for a warehouse with pickup doors up front for easy pickup of online orders. You will pay on the sales floor and pick up at the front counter. They install several parking spaces out front by the pickup door. Large item boxes move to the warehouse which reduces shrink and improves the appearance of the sales floor as you can more easily compare TVs when they're closer together versus spread out to accommodate stacks of boxes below. The high shrink items are in the warehouse secured like computers, laptops etc. This worked exceptionally well for Circuit City as they prided themselves on having the lowest shrink in the retail industry - a store that was even close to half a single percent shrink rate was considered a ultra high shrink location and if not remedied quickly the Management team would quickly be dismissed. (I was usually the one who had to go clean these up after). In the new Best Buy format they even repainted the ceiling dark gray/black like Circuit City. It is literally their rebirth with a different name on the front.
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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by BatteryMill »

ClownLoach wrote: December 6th, 2021, 5:02 pm What is even crazier is the fact that Best Buy is working currently on a new prototype format that, if successful, will be used for complete remodels starting in 2022. Google it and you'll find pictures. If you can find pictures - it is literally Circuit City's early 2000's format in blue. The format they used before they went to a Best Buy warehouse format imitation with a ugly gold yellow tower. In the Best Buy remodel they wall off a third of the store for a warehouse with pickup doors up front for easy pickup of online orders. You will pay on the sales floor and pick up at the front counter. They install several parking spaces out front by the pickup door. Large item boxes move to the warehouse which reduces shrink and improves the appearance of the sales floor as you can more easily compare TVs when they're closer together versus spread out to accommodate stacks of boxes below. The high shrink items are in the warehouse secured like computers, laptops etc. This worked exceptionally well for Circuit City as they prided themselves on having the lowest shrink in the retail industry - a store that was even close to half a single percent shrink rate was considered a ultra high shrink location and if not remedied quickly the Management team would quickly be dismissed. (I was usually the one who had to go clean these up after). In the new Best Buy format they even repainted the ceiling dark gray/black like Circuit City. It is literally their rebirth with a different name on the front.
Saw this at the Eagan, MN store - this new concept looks super plain and makes the stores look far dingier than any previous iteration. This is a weak remodel and a sad fact of the omnichannel era. I give points to the salesfloor concept (the TV display), though.
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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: December 6th, 2021, 5:02 pm

As a Circuit City veteran, I can tell you that the shock at Best Buy was the fact that their revenue was completely flat in the year after the Circuit City liquidation. They didn't get a dime of additional sales after expecting billions to flow in. All those sales went to other companies like Target, Walmart, and Costco. It is correct that this scared them to their core as they had hired thousands of former CC managers and employees expecting a surge of sales that never came.

Circuit City was a sad story of extreme mismanagement - they thought they could spend themselves back into first place in the electronics industry despite the fact that at the time this decision to rebuild the company was made Best Buy was up to a $60B company and they were only $12B. This would make about as much sense as Kmart today announcing their new goal is to put Walmart out of business - it ain't going to happen. They could not accept being a second place player when they should have studied successful 2nd place companies like Lowe's and Target to understand how they found a successful niche allowing them to survive the competitive onslaught. Then they started to run out of money from expanding too quickly Pre-2000 and thought they could cut expenses (payroll) to offset the fact that a quarter of the stores lost money when the rest of the chain was doing great. They eliminated commissions and appliances, and laid off the highest paid employees. The company was terrified that if they ever closed a few stores - the brand would be tarnished and the customer would not feel confident about shopping there - and most importantly they wouldn't trust that extended warranties would hold up despite being insured. Warranties are still the profit center of the electronics retail business, even Apple pushes AppleCare hard in their stores. Eventually the dead weight of carrying the 150 or so unprofitable stores was too much and started to cause impacts in earnings - those spooked the banks and the company credit lines were frozen - forcing them into Chapter 11. They thought that they could wipe out the leases and debts from the bad stores in the process but there wasn't enough confidence in the banking industry to give enough new credit for emergence from refinancing. That forced the company into an auction and of course the winners were the various liquidation companies. The saddest part of the whole affair is that the ENTIRE BANKRUPTCY ESTATE WAS PAID OFF IN JUST THE FIRST FEW WEEKS of the liquidation. Most retail liquidations result in creditors getting pennies on the dollar, but not CC. The bankruptcy ended up turning a massive profit which resulted in large bonuses for most of the managers upon termination and a large nonprofit foundation was established in Virginia with the remaining funds. In other words, if the banks had just given them a new credit line and refinanced debt they were very much a viable company that would still be here today minus the group of bad stores.

At the time Circuit City went down, Sears was also bleeding share in these categories. The lack of market growth by Best Buy spoke volumes.

It is not unusual to see banks push for liquidation. Toys R Us is another chain that comes to mind as one that seems to have been pushed into liquidation and it is very questionable if that was really the right decision. Sears on the other hand was saved from liquidation and for what, why?
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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: December 6th, 2021, 8:31 pm
ClownLoach wrote: December 6th, 2021, 5:02 pm

As a Circuit City veteran, I can tell you that the shock at Best Buy was the fact that their revenue was completely flat in the year after the Circuit City liquidation. They didn't get a dime of additional sales after expecting billions to flow in. All those sales went to other companies like Target, Walmart, and Costco. It is correct that this scared them to their core as they had hired thousands of former CC managers and employees expecting a surge of sales that never came.

Circuit City was a sad story of extreme mismanagement - they thought they could spend themselves back into first place in the electronics industry despite the fact that at the time this decision to rebuild the company was made Best Buy was up to a $60B company and they were only $12B. This would make about as much sense as Kmart today announcing their new goal is to put Walmart out of business - it ain't going to happen. They could not accept being a second place player when they should have studied successful 2nd place companies like Lowe's and Target to understand how they found a successful niche allowing them to survive the competitive onslaught. Then they started to run out of money from expanding too quickly Pre-2000 and thought they could cut expenses (payroll) to offset the fact that a quarter of the stores lost money when the rest of the chain was doing great. They eliminated commissions and appliances, and laid off the highest paid employees. The company was terrified that if they ever closed a few stores - the brand would be tarnished and the customer would not feel confident about shopping there - and most importantly they wouldn't trust that extended warranties would hold up despite being insured. Warranties are still the profit center of the electronics retail business, even Apple pushes AppleCare hard in their stores. Eventually the dead weight of carrying the 150 or so unprofitable stores was too much and started to cause impacts in earnings - those spooked the banks and the company credit lines were frozen - forcing them into Chapter 11. They thought that they could wipe out the leases and debts from the bad stores in the process but there wasn't enough confidence in the banking industry to give enough new credit for emergence from refinancing. That forced the company into an auction and of course the winners were the various liquidation companies. The saddest part of the whole affair is that the ENTIRE BANKRUPTCY ESTATE WAS PAID OFF IN JUST THE FIRST FEW WEEKS of the liquidation. Most retail liquidations result in creditors getting pennies on the dollar, but not CC. The bankruptcy ended up turning a massive profit which resulted in large bonuses for most of the managers upon termination and a large nonprofit foundation was established in Virginia with the remaining funds. In other words, if the banks had just given them a new credit line and refinanced debt they were very much a viable company that would still be here today minus the group of bad stores.

At the time Circuit City went down, Sears was also bleeding share in these categories. The lack of market growth by Best Buy spoke volumes.

It is not unusual to see banks push for liquidation. Toys R Us is another chain that comes to mind as one that seems to have been pushed into liquidation and it is very questionable if that was really the right decision. Sears on the other hand was saved from liquidation and for what, why?
I guess it would better be explained that the banks preferred to see Circuit City acquired by another company which was what we thought was going to happen all the way down to the wire. The richest businessman in Mexico had a bid in to buy the company and merge it with his operations down there. If there was no going concern bidder I think that the banks may have been more likely to have worked out a deal to save the company - but the bid was withdrawn at the literal last minute before the bankruptcy court deadline and expiration of debtor in possession financing - so suddenly Hilco and Gordon Brothers were the new top bidders and that was the end. One of the liquidators from GB had the nerve to tell us that it was the most profitable liquidation in their company's history and he wouldn't need to work for the rest of the year. On the last day open he bought the remaining crew a few lousy pizzas for lunch. Liquidator - one of those jobs I can't imagine how you could do and sleep at night.
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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: December 6th, 2021, 10:52 pm

I guess it would better be explained that the banks preferred to see Circuit City acquired by another company which was what we thought was going to happen all the way down to the wire. The richest businessman in Mexico had a bid in to buy the company and merge it with his operations down there. If there was no going concern bidder I think that the banks may have been more likely to have worked out a deal to save the company - but the bid was withdrawn at the literal last minute before the bankruptcy court deadline and expiration of debtor in possession financing - so suddenly Hilco and Gordon Brothers were the new top bidders and that was the end. One of the liquidators from GB had the nerve to tell us that it was the most profitable liquidation in their company's history and he wouldn't need to work for the rest of the year. On the last day open he bought the remaining crew a few lousy pizzas for lunch. Liquidator - one of those jobs I can't imagine how you could do and sleep at night.
Didn't CompUSA (I forget if they were still doing that The Good Guys cobranding thing when they liquidated) liquidate under that same ownership from Mexico? I know CompUSA's situation was quite a bit different...

Those contract-based liquidators probably get very excited whenever a non-Sears/Kmart related project comes up and one as lucrative as Circuit City was, I can imagine had them drooling. Some of the liquidators are former store managers from various failed stores and you would hope they remember where they came from (when their store was closed or their chain was being liquidated) but it seems people forget those things as time passes.

Since COVID, I have not noticed the liquidators as active in the liquidating stores. I can usually figure out who the liquidator is after a few visits to a liquidating store. A Forever 21 liquidation was done and that one I figured out who was running it. But the liquidations for Stein Mart and Bealls TX/Gordman's, I went into multiple times in multiple locations and could never figure out who was running the liquidation. In the case of Stein Mart, when I attempted to negotiate for some fixtures, I dealt with the Stein Mart Loss Prevention employee from the store who had no desire to negotiate anything and to this day most of their fixtures are sitting in the empty store.
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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by ClownLoach »

BatteryMill wrote: December 6th, 2021, 9:18 am Been a few years, showing a number of interesting trends so I'm taking in a few notes about the evolution of Best Buy.

Closings are still commonplace in the chain. I assume these are primarily to decrease store density, limiting the spread to only a few per metro area (equivalent to the density of indoor shopping malls, or Wegmans for instance) compared to their 2000s strategy of market saturation (on the level of lighter big-box stores like PetSmart or Famous Footwear).

While BB has opened only one entirely new big-box location in the U.S. since 2011, the chain has for some reason undertaken numerous relocations of existing stores. I see the value in some that they wanted to get better frontage, but most of these situations could have been solved with appropriate remodeling at their existing locations (some of these new sites are marginally smaller).

Back to the main subject of the thread, I would like to update some of the notes I have taken on Best Buy's design experience. The banners previously lining the store perimeter have been taken down, giving the interior a rather bare appearance with nothing but plain white/tan walls to show. Meanwhile the floorplan has probably become the most disorganized it has been in their history, with a lack of clear pathways being intersped with wide-open spaces and no sense of specific zones as BB was good at designing in the past.

I assert that even though the product mix has vastly changed, Best Buy can still wrap their current model of brand-focused displays around nicely in a matter reminiscent of the old days. Here are some examples.
I spoke with our Real Estate director about a closing of a BBY at Grossmont Center in San Diego. She said that they did not care that it was their highest volume store in the area - it was also their highest rent location in the area and they were confident that the sales would migrate to the other close by locations. Cost reduction has been a large focus for them, but I do agree that they have lost all sense of store design and the environment is depressing in their stores today.

On a different note - Micro Center is a super slow growing chain with only one store in California - Tustin. These stores have all been very dingy and dated looking, with strange dividing walls and small rooms similar to the oldest Circuit City locations. This Tustin store was just fully gutted and remodeled over a six month period, and it is absolutely the best looking large electronics store I have ever seen. Apparently just like Circuit City they had lots of stock rooms and other non sales spaces - all those walls were removed, all drop ceilings removed, and the store is just incredibly impressive. It feels like they tripled the size of the store which tells you how much wasted space they had before. The perimeter is three core areas - computers (already built), electronics including a new TV department and a massive 3D printing section, and then Build Your Own PC. The BYO PC area is without a doubt the best I have ever seen. Somehow they manage to pack more assortment of computer components into this store than even Fry's had. They finally have a sense of style to the store and for the most part they have great what I call "A-B merchandising" in most categories of a display unit of a live product with box below so you can see what you're considering a purchase of. Target and Walmart in general just have boxed stock but even Best Buy in recent years has removed display models of many categories. Every fixture has built in lighting so the store just looks fabulous. It's pretty clear that Micro Center spared no expense on this remodel which clearly establishes a new prototype they can build hundreds of across the country. If I worked for Best Buy and saw this I would either be horrified by it - or I would make a deal to buy them out and start building hundreds of them. Only room for improvement in my eyes would be the Audio/Video department but they didn't really sell TVs before and probably don't want to sink a lot of money into inventory until they know how customers react.
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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: December 6th, 2021, 11:02 pm
ClownLoach wrote: December 6th, 2021, 10:52 pm

I guess it would better be explained that the banks preferred to see Circuit City acquired by another company which was what we thought was going to happen all the way down to the wire. The richest businessman in Mexico had a bid in to buy the company and merge it with his operations down there. If there was no going concern bidder I think that the banks may have been more likely to have worked out a deal to save the company - but the bid was withdrawn at the literal last minute before the bankruptcy court deadline and expiration of debtor in possession financing - so suddenly Hilco and Gordon Brothers were the new top bidders and that was the end. One of the liquidators from GB had the nerve to tell us that it was the most profitable liquidation in their company's history and he wouldn't need to work for the rest of the year. On the last day open he bought the remaining crew a few lousy pizzas for lunch. Liquidator - one of those jobs I can't imagine how you could do and sleep at night.
Didn't CompUSA (I forget if they were still doing that The Good Guys cobranding thing when they liquidated) liquidate under that same ownership from Mexico? I know CompUSA's situation was quite a bit different...

Those contract-based liquidators probably get very excited whenever a non-Sears/Kmart related project comes up and one as lucrative as Circuit City was, I can imagine had them drooling. Some of the liquidators are former store managers from various failed stores and you would hope they remember where they came from (when their store was closed or their chain was being liquidated) but it seems people forget those things as time passes.

Since COVID, I have not noticed the liquidators as active in the liquidating stores. I can usually figure out who the liquidator is after a few visits to a liquidating store. A Forever 21 liquidation was done and that one I figured out who was running it. But the liquidations for Stein Mart and Bealls TX/Gordman's, I went into multiple times in multiple locations and could never figure out who was running the liquidation. In the case of Stein Mart, when I attempted to negotiate for some fixtures, I dealt with the Stein Mart Loss Prevention employee from the store who had no desire to negotiate anything and to this day most of their fixtures are sitting in the empty store.
I think CompUSA was actually too small to do anything with when Grupo Carso acquired it - it never was more than about 200 stores and computer average unit retails were dropping 30% a year making it very expensive to grow out the business nationwide while also integrating other categories to make up for the computer price declines. Ultimately they threw in the towel, but they were very interested in acquiring Circuit City because basically it was already there and built with a nationwide network of about 700 stores (although only 500 were profitable). I think they just started to realize that they didn't have the time to learn the American customer, the economy was starting to crash, and Best Buy was a juggernaut with annual double digit comps. Supposedly the Chairman, Carlos Slim, was very emotional and upset about withdrawing his bid as he knew it would result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

The liquidators I met were all from outside of California and had limited retail experience, if any. They were real jerks who would sell their children if the price was right. Because I knew what I was doing as I ran the regional training store the liquidator generally left me alone. He was a guy from the East Coast who has never been to California and was working out of a hotel room with his wife. The guy could have tried out to play a vampire on TV - he was pale and I swear he hadn't seen sunlight in decades. I got him on a routine to visit at opening, give a list of instructions, then I would pretty much kick him out and tell him to go to some nice touristy location with his wife in the Orange County area. He rarely came back to visit the same day. He quickly learned that I could execute without his presence and left me alone, plus the liquidation company figured out they needed company experts due to all the proprietary systems and procedures - many people quit early on. I would always be the one called to solve odd problems. It was an interesting experience going through a liquidation, I learned a lot, and I hope to never go through one again.

Strange about the fixtures - they used to set up a fixture salesperson in the store. That employee was tasked with negotiating the sale of everything that was approved for disposal, given a list of average selling prices, and a sales budget. Once they hit the budget - they split the rest of the sales proceeds 50/50. My wife was at a different Circuit City and she sold nearly everything in the building and took home a check for a few thousand dollars.
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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by BatteryMill »

ClownLoach wrote: December 6th, 2021, 11:06 pm I spoke with our Real Estate director about a closing of a BBY at Grossmont Center in San Diego. She said that they did not care that it was their highest volume store in the area - it was also their highest rent location in the area and they were confident that the sales would migrate to the other close by locations. Cost reduction has been a large focus for them, but I do agree that they have lost all sense of store design and the environment is depressing in their stores today.

On a different note - Micro Center is a super slow growing chain with only one store in California - Tustin. These stores have all been very dingy and dated looking, with strange dividing walls and small rooms similar to the oldest Circuit City locations. This Tustin store was just fully gutted and remodeled over a six month period, and it is absolutely the best looking large electronics store I have ever seen. Apparently just like Circuit City they had lots of stock rooms and other non sales spaces - all those walls were removed, all drop ceilings removed, and the store is just incredibly impressive. It feels like they tripled the size of the store which tells you how much wasted space they had before. The perimeter is three core areas - computers (already built), electronics including a new TV department and a massive 3D printing section, and then Build Your Own PC. The BYO PC area is without a doubt the best I have ever seen. Somehow they manage to pack more assortment of computer components into this store than even Fry's had. They finally have a sense of style to the store and for the most part they have great what I call "A-B merchandising" in most categories of a display unit of a live product with box below so you can see what you're considering a purchase of. Target and Walmart in general just have boxed stock but even Best Buy in recent years has removed display models of many categories. Every fixture has built in lighting so the store just looks fabulous. It's pretty clear that Micro Center spared no expense on this remodel which clearly establishes a new prototype they can build hundreds of across the country. If I worked for Best Buy and saw this I would either be horrified by it - or I would make a deal to buy them out and start building hundreds of them. Only room for improvement in my eyes would be the Audio/Video department but they didn't really sell TVs before and probably don't want to sink a lot of money into inventory until they know how customers react.
Good points, I wonder how Best Buy can turn their store design around these days without having to resort to chopping up the salesfloor as with their recent prototype.
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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by buckguy »

ClownLoach wrote: December 6th, 2021, 11:06 pm
On a different note - Micro Center is a super slow growing chain with only one store in California - Tustin. These stores have all been very dingy and dated looking, with strange dividing walls and small rooms similar to the oldest Circuit City locations. This Tustin store was just fully gutted and remodeled over a six month period, and it is absolutely the best looking large electronics store I have ever seen. Apparently just like Circuit City they had lots of stock rooms and other non sales spaces - all those walls were removed, all drop ceilings removed, and the store is just incredibly impressive. It feels like they tripled the size of the store which tells you how much wasted space they had before. The perimeter is three core areas - computers (already built), electronics including a new TV department and a massive 3D printing section, and then Build Your Own PC. The BYO PC area is without a doubt the best I have ever seen. Somehow they manage to pack more assortment of computer components into this store than even Fry's had. They finally have a sense of style to the store and for the most part they have great what I call "A-B merchandising" in most categories of a display unit of a live product with box below so you can see what you're considering a purchase of. Target and Walmart in general just have boxed stock but even Best Buy in recent years has removed display models of many categories. Every fixture has built in lighting so the store just looks fabulous. It's pretty clear that Micro Center spared no expense on this remodel which clearly establishes a new prototype they can build hundreds of across the country.
MicroCenter is slow growing for a reason---they once had over 100 stores and now have just 25. They nearly went out of business about 10 years ago. They straddled the hobby market and broader consumer market, but had problems once PCs became commodity items and it no longer paid to build your own while more and more mass market places sold PCs and peripherals. The smaller specialty stores that sold software, PCs or hobbyist gear vanished pretty quickly but that didn't mean they had a huge residual market to exploit. I seem to remember that they already were closing stores in the '00s---like the one in Manassas, VA, well before they almost went under.

They have stabilized in recent years but the stores seem to be a mixed bag. I periodically go to one in Rockville, MD (cramped, dingy, not very well staffed) and one in Mayfield Heights, Ohio (brighter, well laid out and staffed with knowledgeable people). I've also been to the flagship in Columbus, Ohio which was nicely laid out but not very well staffed. Most of their stores seem to be recycled discount or big box stores. I forget what used to be in Rockville. The one in Mayfield Heights was a long-running Zayre and a local full-line department store before that. I'm glad they're still around as they do fill a niche--broader selection than Best Buy et al. and if you're lucky, you get knowledgeable sales people. They also have an online business with periodic mailings which I assume has helped them survive. They always seem to have store traffic--I usually stop in Rockville during off times from work and the place is never empty. The Mayfield store does a a sizable weekend business---so I assume they have found a scale and business model that works and if they have the capital to begin upgrading the stores, hopefully they will stick around and do better. They also opened a couple stores in NYC a few years ago which I would guess is another positive sign.
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Re: Best Buy and the Smartphone Era

Post by rwsandiego »

ClownLoach wrote: December 6th, 2021, 11:06 pm I spoke with our Real Estate director about a closing of a BBY at Grossmont Center in San Diego. She said that they did not care that it was their highest volume store in the area - it was also their highest rent location in the area and they were confident that the sales would migrate to the other close by locations. Cost reduction has been a large focus for them, but I do agree that they have lost all sense of store design and the environment is depressing in their stores today...
Did Best Buy move into Grossmont Center recently (last 5 years)? I recall a Best Buy on Fletcher Parkway in the same center as Petco down the street from Grossmont. I think it is called Grossmont Trolley Center or something like that.

I think the real estate manager is right. The Parkway Plaza and Mission Valley stores aren't THAT far away and parking at Grossmont Center is atrocious. Mission Valley is a very nice Best Buy (one of the best in San Diego) and when I lived there they had a stable workforce who was very knowledgeable.
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