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This is probably a long shot, but here goes:
Best Buy is the leader in consumer electronics but the technologies that Best Buy utilizes in its stores suggest anything but. If Best Buy wants to be the leader in technology and showcasing it to customers you need to commit to it fully by investing in supporting infrastructure:
(1) Better WiFi bandwidth and infrastructure in-stores. My closest Best Buy is located in a rock quarry. Simply put, cell phone signals don't exist. When employees activate phones, they have to go outside and up the side walk to get reception so you rely heavily on WiFi, which is atrociously slow in this store. Whether it be mobility, home automation, home theater, etc. Everything that is big in technology right now requires significant WiFi to work and as such, Best Buy should provide significant WiFi bandwidth to give its' employees the capabilities to demo these solutions to customers, effectively.
(2) Update/refresh kiosks and registers. It still amazes me to see these clunky registers all over Best Buy (my local Best Buy store still has beige registers to give you an idea) - meanwhile, I go to the local mall and every other store has eliminated the register space in favor of tablet or phone-based point of sale solutions. I would love to see Best Buy consider giving each department several tablet-based point of sale units and maybe keep registers up front only for cash-based transactions. This would create a better shopping experience for customers and employees alike and force Best Buy to update their antiquated POS software - if you've ever been in a Best Buy store when a register goes down, I need to say no more, but it takes an embarrassingly long amount of time for the systems to restore and they do go down quite a bit. Yes, this would be a sizable investment, but if help desk tickets went down as low as even 25%, there's a significant ROI on this too.
We should already be providing our stores the fastest possible WiFi available in their area, and the real problem is most likely the sheer number devices connected to each store's WiFi.
We did recently upgrade our Point of Sale Systems.
At least print about them on the reciepts! Store #364 don't have a clue about them and I'm sure the other stores follow suit. I thought companies were supposed to know all about the inner workings of their companies but some do not?
I hope I'm making sense, perhaps integrate the forums experience into part of their training and make them aware that these forums exist and what their purpose is.
I'm sick and tired of hearing about how showrooming is hurting Best Buy. If you are going to try and compete on price alone Best Buy has already lost. You need to add value, why should consumers come into Best Buy? The only current reason is so they can measure the devices.
A run down of a couple ideas I've seen here or think Best Buy is doing backwards.
- Free Delievery and Installation ( I'd gladdly pay more for a device for a nice helpful person to deliver and setup my latest toy). I can't belive Best Buy charges for TV installation and setup. That's one thing no online store can offer or has the capability to offer. Best buy should be snatching up business by giving customers a better at home expierence.
- Offer regular classes, like REI and Home Depot. It gets people in the stores and if you don't scare them off people will buy. Teach classes on networking, on tablets, on operating systems. I can't tell you how many people I know that don't know the full capabilites of there electronics.
- Help people find what they want, not what makes Best Buy a couple extra dollars. The single goal of the boys in blue should be to help the customer find the best fit for them. A happy customer will return.
-Don't push product replacement plans. ( I remember the first computer my father purchased15 years ago from Best Buy. They wouldn't let my father leave the store without a PRP before talking to the store manager. He had to tell 3 people he didn't want a PRP. That's no way to treat a customer. If he didn't want it he didn't want it.
I want to tell you a story that should be your model. I recently purchased new ski setup. I went into a local store during a big sale and was planning to show room cause I can find them cheaper on the internet. Guess what that didn't happen. Instead the prices were competitive (skis - cheaper, bindings - slightly more, boots - more). I was treated with respect, the salesmen explained everything I needed to know about skis, boots and binding. He didn't push me. They mounted the bindings for free because I purchased them there. They molded my boots to my feet for free because I purchased them there. Overall great expierence and what they don't know yet is I'm planning to buy backcountry skis in the next year. Guess where I'm going? That's at minimum 2200 dollar purchase and that started because how they treated me on a 600 dollar purchase. I could probably knock a couple hundred off if I truely bargin shopping, but why would I because I now trust they will do their best to get me in the best setup.
Good luck, Best Buy needs to make some large changes if they want to survive.
Here's a suggestion, Best Buy: print the last day of a customer's return period according to the day they purchase on the receipt. For example, I make a purchase today, the 10th, and the receipt would say I have through April 25th to make a return or exchange. It's made clear to the customer how long they have and gives workers at the store a direct place to point out the time frame of it when someone comes in outside the return period begging to have the rules bent for them. Benefits for both sides for not much effort.
I like the idea, but I do see one problem that will come up. The return or exchange period starts the date a customer took possession of their purchase. In the vast majority of cases this is the same day they paid for their items.
In some cases the dates are not the same. When a customer is purchasing something large (i.e. Large TV, Appliances, etc...) they have the option to have these delivered, and their return or exchange date would be based off the date we delivered their purchase. In addition our stores can also order products for customers, and in these cases the date of purchase would not be the same as the date they took possession of their purchase. Does anyone have any addition insights into this idea? Remember to vote for an idea if you like it.
Having wished this myself in the past I can truly say I like this idea. Space in any retail store is usually at a premium, and rarely goes to waiting areas when product could be displayed in that space. Because of this it's unlikely this idea would be put in place in every Best Buy store. I guess it's possible that stores with more square footage might be able to create waiting areas. Who else would like to see this idea put into place? Make sure you vote for an idea if you like it.
I was at the store on Atlantic Blvd in Jacksonville, FL looking for a gift bag for my purchase, but I did not find one, so I just gave the gift in the blue plastic bag it was placed in by the cashier. I asked the store workers about gift bags and one searched for me, but determined that there weren't any gift bags sold by Best Buy, but said that a gift bag was a great idea. I think that Best Buy should partner with a greeting card company, or allow a vendor to set up shot in their stores so gift giving can become more touching with gift cards and gift bags.
I read in your ads that you say you can upgrade to "X" amount of ram and a bigger hard drive for a little more money. That is fine. But it seems more of an upsell then to customize a computer.
But some customers who may walk into your store may be intimidated by prices and or specs. At least group your desktops into sections, one for Gaming, One for Basics , One section for business use , etc.
And Insignia , by entering into the PC monitor market, lets hope you can expand this to entry level desktops and deliver even more value on the solid brand you already have in the store.
Currently the Mac Pro is only available online. I could understand, when it first came out, making it online only, as you could not get your hands on them because they were back ordered by several months; However, with improved availability, I would love to see Best Buy expand it's in-store assortment to include the Mac Pro. I find it weird that Best Buy would carry the $2500 MacBook Pro with Retina but all of sudden the Mac Pro is not worth carrying even though it's the most powerful and customizable Mac Apple's built-to-date.
I would love to see Best Buy pilot selling the base model Mac Pro in select stores - maybe start with the top 50 or 100 Mac-selling stores and see how it does and expand from there?
Entry-Level Mac Pro | Model: ME253LL/A | SKU: 2680016
3.7 GHz Intel Xeon E5 Quad-Core; 12GB of 1866 MHz DDR3 ECC RAM; 256GB PCIe-based Flash Storage; Dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs (2 x 2GB); Six Thunderbolt 2 Ports; Four USB 3.0 Ports; One HDMI 1.4 Port Supports up to Three 4K Displays; 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.0; Unique Compact Cylinder Design; Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks
This weekend my wife and I visited your store in Cherry Hill NJ. We are shopping for a new point and shoot camera. We looked at your display of camera and played around with a few of them. I asked the assistant Josh (who was wonderful and very knowledgable) what his opinion was and what help can he provide me and my wife about the Samsung camera. He explained the camera in great detail and made my wife and I comfortable about making the purchase. Yet here was the issue I ran into. After playing with the cameras zoom and other options we could not test to see how it would work in low lighting such as a bar or wedding that has very dark envirnments. So I asked Josh if he could let me take the camera into the Home Theatre area and take some photos to test its low light abilities. Unfortunately he was unable to remove the camera from its security locks and let me test the camera. My suggestion would be this.
Create an area just for testing specific products such as the cameras.It doesnt have to be a large area just big enough to test. Or at least let customers (supervised of coarse) take the camera into the Home Theatre area where they can test low lighting conditions.
If your true intention is to make the sale of a camera I think letting the customer test the product like that will help them with making a better purchase. Let them test the camera in a similar environment they might find themselves in after purchasing. Just a thought you do as you please. Thank you.
Brett {removed per forum guidelines}
PS. In the end I purchased the camera thanks to Josh. Sorry didnt get his last name but he is a new hire as of 1.12.15
I'm not sure how we would guard against theft, but I do like the idea. Would anyone else like to see this as a reality? Make sure you vote for an idea if you like it.
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 own MN largest Solar installation company and would like a chance to show you the benefits of installing solar on stores in favorable utilities and states through-out the USA. I think some of those stores would also benefit from a partnership in selling solar to customers in the store. Its a market that woudl fit well with advanced electronics and home installations.
In order to establish a business relationship with Best Buy you will need to visit extendingthereach.com. I would be interesting hearing from customers if they would like to see this type of product in our stores or on BestBuy.com? Remember to vote for an idea if you like it.
It would be really awesome if you had space in your stores (For example, you have all of that square footage from your music instrument experiment in the Fargo, ND store) that customers could use to build their own computers. Customers could pay to use the space and get help from your Geeksquad team members. I want nothing more than to build my own computer, but I don't even know where to start. This would be a really great service to have access to.
The current generation MacBooks have been out for almost a month and they still have no data on the tags. The current iMac signs are also creating confusion because they are not coherent. The entry level iMac fails to mention that it includes WiFi which is clearly called out on the other tags. Is there any way you guys could update this and make the signs coherent as it really does create a lot of confusion and frustration when there is missing, incomplete or incoherent data across tags. Thanks.
hello i like my best buy and been shopping there a lot i got my xbox one from best buy as well. i was on line for 8hr and yes i preoder. now my idea would be if you preoder ANYTHING game console movie phone whatever you should be able to get it at least 3 or 2 hrs early why not? now a days when you go to the movies they let you whatch it around 9pm thats before realease which is midnight! why not take advantage of this opportunity if you preoder at best buy get it early you will have so much sales for preorders. its almost 2014 and we as customers have a lot of options for buying items amazon walmart etc.also now you can buy digital games on lauch date over microsoft store xbox live or psn playstation that means no line no waiting no driving also you dont get robbed besides you got to preoder at best buy i have to wait come in pay taxes do another line get my game and wait to get out by midnight get to the car and get home and then... wait for the game to install! thats a lot of waiting please make this a reality please
As a long time consumer at BestBuy I have seen the transition from many departments where there could be plenty of items to a now crowded area for computers/etc and a huge select space jus for "samsung" products. I mean..really? I'm surprised Apple doesn't have a larger area if you are going to do this!
At first even I thought the idea would be worth going into. However, now I see that it really and truly isn't work the space used. I do have to start questioning Best Buy if the profits from the section is that high really? Cause at least out where I lve you rarely see people go into the section.
So my suggestion is to just remolve the entire department and redistribute the departments respectively. Go back to the old system!
Recently while in-store I had a chance to test out the "improved" (supposedly the connected stores received a WiFi speed boost) WiFi connection and it was absolutely terrible. It ended with me ultimate switching my phone to LTE and just using that. I can't imagine why in the world Best Buy would advertise free WiFi knowing that if the initial speed is that slow it only gets worse as more and more people connect their devices onto it and browse the web as they walk around the store. It just seems counter-productive.
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.
There is no way to compare ear bud sound quality side by side without buying them first. The reviews are not all that helpful, sound quality can be more of a personal preference. Also, I think customers would spend more on ear buds if they knew the sound was significantly better. There is nothing worse than spending $100 on a ear buds to find out that they sound terrible. I'm not sure how you could set up a demo area like the over/on the ear demo space, but if you could, it'd be a huge competitive advantage.
Yes, due to health concerns we will never have earbuds that can be tried out prior to purchase.
Some cell phones support phone words in the dialing environment (e.g. Blackberry qwerty phones).
Some support phone words in the texting environment (e.g. in Samsung Galaxy S phones, you can specify a phone word as a text message recipient, the phone accepts it and even writes its numerical equivalent under it).
Other phones simply give an error message if you write a phone word for a text message recipient (e.g. Sony Xperia).
I think it would be great if BestBuy specifies for each cell phone whether it supports phone words in the dialing environment and/or in the text messaging environment.