no surprise here,another beginning of an end

Dan · Post by **Dan** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 11:35 am

Best Buy To Close 50 U.S. Stores, Stock Drops

Best Buy To Close 50 U.S. Stores, Stock Drops - Project Economy News Story - KCRA Sacramento
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it's being blamed partly on what I do a lot of,see it in a store then come home and order it online at a better price.
I will say Fry's started a smart online price matching policy a few months ago.

"Still driving to your local Best Buy to fondle all the latest gadgets before swiping your card, or hopping to the web to pull the trigger? That tradition could be short-lived,"

Best Buy to close 50 big box US retail stores, open 100 Mobile stand-alone outlets in 2013 -- Engadget

Easto · Post by **Easto** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 1:32 pm

Virtually every "big box" store or retail outlet I visit has gotten smaller and smaller. I won't go into the list of place I shop but the in-store inventory has been drastically reduced in almost every case. I'm not sure why it's taken places like Best Buy so long to figure out the public's current buying habits. They need to change and realize they have to become more like a Micro Center etc. They need to offer internet prices while letting people get touchy-feely with the items.

RaisinCain · Post by **RaisinCain** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 1:55 pm

I believe that most people who purchase technology do it from the web (which tends to be cheaper, i.e. newegg). That is why the brick and mortar stores are continuing to fail.

Unholy · Post by **Unholy** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 4:14 pm

I just home that Fry's or Microcenter can take up some of those spaces.

blebs · Post by **blebs** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 4:23 pm

50 out of 1100 isn't all that bad, but I'm sure it will continue.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 4:48 pm

They need to give customers a reason to buy from them. They need to be like the brick and mortar version of Newegg.

They need knowledgeable staff, not people pushing you to buy useless stuff, or Comcast partners trying to sell you an internet package. They need to stock some of the high end and mid ranged hardware. And pick the quality brands to carry, not Apevia crap and such. Even their in store laptop models aren't usually that great.

When my home built PC died and I decided I would just buy a new one rather than build one, I went to Best Buy. After explaining that I had a monitor, keyboard, and mouse the first thing the salesperson tried to sell me was a touchscreen monitor. I looked around at different systems they had, desktops and laptops, but the selection sucked. They had some Core2Duos and various AMD CPUs in them, a couple desktops had i5s and I think they had one laptop with an i3.

Another time I went with my mother to help her find a new camera she wanted and they didn't have either of the latest ones from Nikon or Cannon, but buy.com and newegg did.

Easto · Post by **Easto** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 5:54 pm

In my case, the advantage of not having to burn any gas driving around visiting stores that may or may not have the item in stock... and usually not having any sales tax is a HUGE reason to buy off the Net.

I've also gone online to confirm that a BB had a particular item in stock. I got in the car and was in the store no longer than 1 hour from the time I confirmed the item was in stock and I got the answer that it had been sold. I'm sorry, but I don't think you have people buying Canon 15-85mm IS lenses every other hour. The story the rep gave me was a JOKE. And then what kills me is that they say they can order it and have it to you in 3 to 5 days. Well, so can I. The reason I'm in your store was because I thought you had it. If I would have known ahead of time I would have just purchased it online.