For anyone over the age of 40, they remember the days when Radio Shack was nothing more than an electronics hardware store... every wire, resistor, connector known to mankind.  As history has shown of course, you can't sell only those things and expect to survive.  So, instead there are now a fraction of the number of Radio Shacks as there once were.

On the flip side, there are many more Best Buys out there, yet there is still a shortage of retail DIY electronics hardware.

There just is no place to reliably go close by to purchase cables, connectors, adapters, screws, fans, heatsinks, memory, cards, tools, the list goes on.  When you need these things, chances are you need it now for a project you're in the middle of.  These are not things you want to have to order online. This is no different than being in the middle of that home remodel project and having to head down to Home Depot.

Enter the Geek Zone.  The part of the store now renamed that incorporates both the Geek Squad support desk and new retail floor space for the items mentioned above. Geek staff would be the sales staff in the Zone.

There should be more bonus points for new BluRay releases, like how Best Buy did for Zero Dark Thirty. Don't you think that could promote sales? Maybe instead of giving customers 100 points, you can boost it to 250 points for new releases?

Many TVs on BestBuy.com included box dimensions in the Specifications, but Insignia TVs don't for some reason. I think that this information should be made available to aid customers!

 

If you like this idea, click to Kudo!

While I am a frequent shopper at Best Buy, some other game shoppers may not be and many of those people may not know that your stores now sell pre-owned games. Aside from a small section in one or two of the circulars since the inception of the used game/game trade programs at BB I haven't seen very much marketing regarding it.

 

If you guys want to try to take a chunk of Gamestops' business away you're going to have to do an advertising blitz to get the word out. However, this may not help due to the disproportionate numbers of some games stores are being shipped back after an apparently lengthy processing cycle.

 

I've noticed 7-10 copies of some older PS3/PS2/360 titles that have been sitting on the shelves since they first arrived 3-4 months ago. They include copies of Two Worlds II for PS3 and Enter The Matrix for PS2.

 

Unfortunately another thing that may be lagging behind is price drops on these games and even if they are implemented quickly the price tags are not always changed on the products themselves.

 

Moreover, Best Buy really should get their lawyers looking at how exactly Gamestop skirts local pawn laws and is able to put out traded in products immediately after taking them in. I say this because the one month or MORE turnaround time from when items are traded in till when they are finally shipped back out to stores to be resold is hurting pre-owned game sales just as much as the lack of marketing dollars being spent on it.

Recently, the Pentax K-30 was featured on Pop Photography magazine as a top consumer pick, praising the camera's sub $1,000 price point, weather sealing against dust and water, incredibly quick autofocus and impressive low light capability. The editor was so impressed the review was on the cover of the magazine. It is available only on BestBuy.com.

 

The Pentax K-5 ($1250), which obliterated the Sony A77($2000) in a high ISO torture-test by ThePhoblographer.com, has a successor, the Pentax K-5 II and the Pentax K-5 IIs. With a newly redesigned autofocus system promising low-light performance down to -3EV autofocus (rivaled only by the forthcoming Canon 6D), 77 weather seals, and a new LCD panel that is without an air-gap between the panes of glass, leaving a sharper, higher quality screen, it looks to be a very high quality follow up. The "S" model of the camera is without an Anti-Aliasing filter just like the Nikon D800/D800E which results in sharper images for certain types of photography. The sensor benchmarking company, DXO Mark listed the older Pentax K-5 at a score of 82/100 which sounds low but actually is 11th in their rankings of all the cameras they have ever reviewed- The top 10 is dominated by medium format monsters and full frame professional cameras. These two follow up cameras are not even on the website- yet Amazon.com and BHphotovideo.com are already shipping units.

 

These cameras are performance driven cameras. They have special triats designed for different tastes and currently Best Buy isn't even carrying the best that they have to offer. At least have them on order from the website, I want to use the financing, I want to get Rewards points and most importantly, I don't want to go to Amazon to have to get what I want. Please see what can be done to get the products better in stock on the website, but also maybe even test them in stores.

 

Thanks.

BestBuy should make an application for the Windows 8 store front and the Xbox 360 so that BestBuy customers can buy product's off of the Xbox 360 and the Windows 8 store front.

I remember getting coupons in the mail every so often from best buy. What happened to those coupons? They were awesome and helpful in everyday as there was always something to buy whether it be an every day item or specialty item. Can best buy bring back the mailer coupons? Even if its only for silver members?

Its kind of dissapointing when I go into Best Buy, before the new video game season, and I can't find prequels to any of the new games. It would be cool if they carried more of those or even threw a coupon or two in the @gamer magazine. One good example is hitman this year. I really wanted to pick up a copy of blood money before absolution came out, and they're were none to be found, not even online. I had to settle going to gamestop and paying $23 for a fairly old game without a case. 

Myself and tons of artists that I work with would love a Wacom Cintiq, however the pricepoint makes it a hard sell.

Yiynova has come out with a tablet at a quarter of the cost of a Cintiq, but the supply has been very limited.

 

 

If BestBuy offered the Yiynova at $500, I would immediately order one (as I'm sure countless other artists would too).

I can order one off Amazon (when they are in stock), but I trust the customer service of my local BestBuy much more.

I understand a lot of the implications behind this, especially that mobile stores don't carry unlocked phones, but from doing some research online, the Nexus 7 tablet was one of the most sought after pieces of technology in the country this past Christmas season.  While the tablet is sold at cost, from what I understand through talking with various retailers, Apple products are the same way, and there are all sorts of huge Apple sections and displays across varoius Best Buy stores.  I feel like carrying Google and Nexus products would be awesome because of how much value for the prices these prodcuts offer.  They are available in many other retailers, but I would prefer the Geek Squad protection on my technology because I have trust in the brand.

I remember when BEST BUY was a "techie" store  with innovative products now it seems it is just like any electronic section of any other department store.

 

Innovative products like  (a concept) wireless earbuds. I  love my earbuds (Skull Candy no less) but hate that wire on my earbuds especially when jogging . A transmitter for the device and two wireless earbuds. And nothing which look like those freakish looking Bluetooth phone earpieces that make you look like a cyborg.

 

 

To make it easy to see the quality of pictures from digital cameras, add a small tablet to the aisle, next to each camera, that shows 20 different "best shot" images taken with that camera. It could be a slide show. It can also contain some additional technical or marketing slides to help consumers with their decision. This would be a far better approach than taking the annoying shot f the store and staring at the 3" LCD to try and make sense of the image. I bought all my cameras at Best Buy in the past. Now I buy them on line, because the imagery is so much more accessible (and beautiful) with the online experience.

An idea to save space in stores and create a better buying environment while adding more product choices. What about having book, music and video kiosks to browse, sample and buy/download in-store? Dedicate an area in store buy creating a cafe-like area where people could browse digital media via kiosks/tables. People could dock their devices and use high-speed connections they may not have at home to download to phones and/or tablets. Have a deal with a service like iTunes/Amazon/Spotify/Google to sample content and buy using their store accounts.

 I think Best Buy should consider making a gamer unlocked like program but for dvds, blu-rays and music cds(maybe even itunes giftcards). This would basically get more people to choose Best buy over other places, or even a purchase over a rental. I know an extra 10-24 points doesn't sound like much on the surface, but the points would add up, plus you could add 10% off all dvd or music purchases, maybe even an extra 500 rewardzone points for every 5 DVD or cds of any price. It doesn't even have to be a prograam, it could just be another perk of rewardzone, and also you could get coupon books or something for discounts of these things like gamer unlocked, which is an exellent program, let me know what you thing

Gamestop does that, they automatically attach the pre order bonus SKU to the game. A lot of confusion can be resolved.

 

The customer service staff in Chesterfield MO is so friendly, but when I preordered Borderlands 2 and asked them about the pre order bonus, they said the code would be emailed to me. Sure enough, the code was never emailed because it was not attached to the game and Best Buy had no record of it. It took me raising hell to get a resolution and I am very understanding of customer service people.

 

It is not the fault of the customer service reps because their job is varied among returns, geeksquad, and because Best Buy is not just a game store, it is easy to see how they would not remember or understand how to put the pre order bonus on the item. Game stores, however, focus only on games which means that their staff is also only focused on games. It would be one thing if a game store employee forgot to add a pre order bonus because that is one of their main jobs to take down pre orders. But Best Buy needs to automate the process and not make it fall onto the shoulders of the customer service people because they have more important things to do than to attach pre order SKUs to games.

 

I love love love buying games from Best Buy because I come in and there are displays all over and demos on the floor. I love listening to the Turtle Beaches or watching the new demo on your PS3 display.

 

I think after they do the whole E3 thing this June 11-13, make the biggest and baddest (good bad, not bad bad) games part of the program. I know they just did an Assassin's 4 trailer and I am pretty sure there is going to be another super multi million dollar COD, this time from Sledgehammer games.

 

Also, when the PS4 and Xbox (I heard they are just calling it the Xbox, no 720 behind the name) go on preorder, put loads of incentives up there like a free blu ray movie for the PS4 or a free little something (maybe 1600 Microsoft points since the new Xbox is probably still going to use the point system, or a 3 month of Xbox live). Make people realize that they will get incentives that they can calculate the worth of. For example, "I just bought the PS4 from Best Buy and they gave me a movie worth $20, therefore I got a $20 deal." Or you can give double points because the new systems are supposedly going to be in the ballpark of $300-$400.

 

Oh and this time make sure the managers and staff know not to sell the preordered consoles in the back to regular customers. I cannot stress this enough. I am probably going to order it from your site and have it sent to my home since I live about 10 miles from Best Buy and I get free expedited shipping, but I know the whole Wii U thing and Black Ops 2 thing turned some people off.