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Best Buy Closing Multiple Stores
Posted: January 22nd, 2021, 9:45 am
by arizonaguy
It seems that Best Buy is quietly doing a store purge.
So far based upon various sources they are closing the following stores within the next month or two:
Syracuse, NY
Chesterfield, VA
Mechanicsville, VA
Carbondale, IL
Brockton, MA
Re: Best Buy Closing Multiple Stores
Posted: January 23rd, 2021, 6:58 am
by veteran+
My experiences with Best Buy during the COVID thing has convinced me to never, ever do business with them again.
Store level and corporate level service was at a low level that I have not experienced anywhere, plus aggressive, unprofessional and rude behavior.
For me, no second chances with this company.
Re: Best Buy Closing Multiple Stores
Posted: January 23rd, 2021, 9:18 am
by storewanderer
I made a couple purchases at Best Buy last year. After the stores were open again so you could go inside but they closed at 6 PM or something really early. PIck-ups on weekday afternoons, the store was dead. On weekends, customers were lined up out the door. They were able to fulfill my orders but the attitude of the staff in the store was nothing short of depressed. The store felt dead and lifeless, and did not seem to be stocked well at all (but they did fulfill my orders quickly).
Morale at these retailers seems to be at a low, as if it seemed like it could get any worse than it was in 2019. Between mandated closures and various other things that happened last year I think it was a really difficult year for these retailers and it is reflected in the attitude and feel of the stores.
Re: Best Buy Closing Multiple Stores
Posted: January 23rd, 2021, 6:52 pm
by mjhale
veteran+ wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2021, 6:58 am
My experiences with Best Buy during the COVID thing has convinced me to never, ever do business with them again.
Store level and corporate level service was at a low level that I have not experienced anywhere, plus aggressive, unprofessional and rude behavior.
For me, no second chances with this company.
Would you be willing to elaborate a bit on your experiences? Your description of Best Buy staff is my experience even before coronavirus. If I have to go in to Best Buy I can be assured of disinterested, uninformed staff whose singular focus seems to be to sell extended warranties on everything that they sell. They even tried to sell me one on a flash drive I bought just after this past Christmas. The extended warranty was more than the cost of the flash drive!
It is too bad that Circuit City did themselves in by getting rid of their experienced, knowledgeable staff (although commissioned) who seemed to want to actually help you out. Where I live Best Buy really has no competition in the general electronics we sell a little bit of everything type of store. Thank goodness there is a Microcenter around here. I couldn't imagine having to go to Best Buy all the time for computer stuff. By the way, that flash drive I mentioned before was 50 percent off making the price way better than Microcenter. Couldn't pass that up.
Re: Best Buy Closing Multiple Stores
Posted: January 23rd, 2021, 7:08 pm
by storewanderer
mjhale wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2021, 6:52 pm
Would you be willing to elaborate a bit on your experiences? Your description of Best Buy staff is my experience even before coronavirus. If I have to go in to Best Buy I can be assured of disinterested, uninformed staff whose singular focus seems to be to sell extended warranties on everything that they sell. They even tried to sell me one on a flash drive I bought just after this past Christmas. The extended warranty was more than the cost of the flash drive!
Oh, this staff was so disinterested there was not even an attempt to sell me a warranty, or sell me anything extra for that matter. Also the concept of a greeting and a thank you, was no more. I mean, these employees, it was all they could do to say "here you go" as they gave me the purchase. The other thing was the "security" was no longer standing at the door wanting to see a receipt (my items had no bag). They were standing off somewhere else talking to other staff and did not have any interest in what was happening at the door, both times.
Re: Best Buy Closing Multiple Stores
Posted: January 24th, 2021, 3:50 am
by pseudo3d
One of those was in Destiny USA mall, which has been hit hard with a lot of closures recently, including two full anchors (Lord & Taylor and JCPenney) and one other junior (Michaels). Of the original six anchor buildings (including the former Bonwit Teller store, which is now fully surrounded by new retail), three of those will be completely vacant, and two more are only filled on one floor. Yikes!
Re: Best Buy Closing Multiple Stores
Posted: January 24th, 2021, 6:29 am
by veteran+
mjhale wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2021, 6:52 pm
veteran+ wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2021, 6:58 am
My experiences with Best Buy during the COVID thing has convinced me to never, ever do business with them again.
Store level and corporate level service was at a low level that I have not experienced anywhere, plus aggressive, unprofessional and rude behavior.
For me, no second chances with this company.
Would you be willing to elaborate a bit on your experiences? Your description of Best Buy staff is my experience even before coronavirus. If I have to go in to Best Buy I can be assured of disinterested, uninformed staff whose singular focus seems to be to sell extended warranties on everything that they sell. They even tried to sell me one on a flash drive I bought just after this past Christmas. The extended warranty was more than the cost of the flash drive!
It is too bad that Circuit City did themselves in by getting rid of their experienced, knowledgeable staff (although commissioned) who seemed to want to actually help you out. Where I live Best Buy really has no competition in the general electronics we sell a little bit of everything type of store. Thank goodness there is a Microcenter around here. I couldn't imagine having to go to Best Buy all the time for computer stuff. By the way, that flash drive I mentioned before was 50 percent off making the price way better than Microcenter. Couldn't pass that up.
I will not bore you with all of it because it begins with their telephones to their in store experience all the way to their corporate office.
The pervasive issue is their attitude at every single encounter with them. Anger, indifference, ignorance of product, misinformation, hostile, defensive, refusing to listen, no acknowledgement of customer, lethargic, busy talking to each other (mostly non business, protective of each other during inappropriate behavior with customers.
Corporate office the same! Telephone systems at store and corporate are intentionally dysfunctional.
Twice I was in line outside and inside where customers were mistreated and other customers present piped in, in protest.
Never experienced anything like it. A distant second would be Home Depot!
Re: Best Buy Closing Multiple Stores
Posted: January 24th, 2021, 7:35 am
by Super S
I have generally had good experiences at Best Buy in the Portland area. While I did like some of the competitors such as Circuit City, Good Guys, as well as Fry's when they were still relevant, I have never found employees at Best Buy overly pushy. The Portland area has a chain called Video Only which I stopped at about two years ago when looking for a new TV and I ended up leaving after a series of sales people kept bothering me every few minutes, I noticed the same thing happening for other customers. By far the most pushy electronics store I have been to.
I sometimes wish there was a little more competition though...Best Buy, while overall they do carry a decent variety, the depth of product lines is sometimes not all that great and sometimes will vary between locations.
It's too bad that Fry's is struggling, they had by far the best variety and even filled some of the niche of the DIY customers that Radio Shack seemed to turn away from.
Re: Best Buy Closing Multiple Stores
Posted: January 25th, 2021, 6:08 am
by buckguy
Five stores isn’t much of a purge. This is the time of year when a lot of closings take place because there is t that much inventory to move. BestBuy has always been inconsistent for service, although usually better than the long departed Circuit City.