Why be a Best Buy when you can be a Target?
SHAKING THE TREE #69
Best Buy, the US-based consumer electronics retailer, is in trouble.
Quite apart from a major dip in sales and its staff restructuring, the latter resulting in major layoffs in the early part of 2021, Best Buy has a customer perception issue.
If talk in online forums from current and former staff is anything to go by, corporate decisions have intentionally reduced the number of in-store sales staff, making it harder and harder to shop in a Best buy store.
Put bluntly, this is a dick move on Best Buy’s part.
When the brown chunks hit the fan with Best Buy (which is only a matter of time), any blame they level at Amazon simply won’t wash.
There was a time—and just a few years before COVID shut things down—in Best Buy stores nationwide, when one blue-shirted staffer after another would ask you as a potential shopper if you needed help finding anything.
Sadly, those days are gone.
Twice in the last 12 months I’ve attempted to make a major purchase in Best Buy and I’ve failed on both occasions.
In late January I tried to buy my wife a new laptop. I stood around in the computer section, waiting for a sales associate to show up for almost half an hour. Nothing.
I asked for help, to which the response was “Someone will be with you shortly, sir!”
Half an hour later I left the store, empty-handed.
The following weekend my wife and I went to the Apple Store in a nearby shopping mall where we almost had to fight off sales associates!
Then, just yesterday, we went shopping for a new TV, again at Best Buy.
My wife asked THREE members of staff for help, all to no avail. So while we were in the store, we looked for the same make and model of TV on Target’s website. Bingo.
A short drive and a few minutes later we were cheerily being waited on by a nice young man by the name of Christian.
Although he didn’t have any of the make and model TV we were looking for in stock, he did look at two other nearby Target locations, one of which had exactly what we were looking for in stock.
Forty five minutes later we were heading home with our new TV and the order of the universe had been restored.
Best Buy 0, Target 1.
OK. I get it. Target is not Best Buy and Best Buy is not Target … BUT, how hard does it have to be to find what you’re looking for and to find help in a store when you need it?
It’s not so much that Best Buy dropped the ball on each occasion, it’s more a case that they’re less and less interested in stepping onto the field to play the retail game.
While researching this article I came across various tales of woe about Best Buy: declining sales numbers (I wonder why?), stores being closed (you don’t say!), and general disgruntlement about overall performance as a retailer (colour me shocked!).
Best Buy? Really? Come one guys! Get your shit together.
I understand that retail is a tough row to hoe and that margins are slim and so on.
I salute anyone who works in retail, I really do. I’ve done my fair share of customer-facing, one-on-one interactions as someone in customer service and I know full well how difficult the job can be.
That said, it will be a long time before I set foot inside a Best Buy again.
NOTE to Best Buy’s top brass: by making it difficult ro shop in your stores you’re setting your staff, and your stores, up to fail. And when Chapter 11 comes a-knocking—and that’s when, not if, and probably by mid-2025, if not sooner—don’t react all surprised, K?
Your staff deserve more support, and your customers deserve better service.
As always, thanks for reading.
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P.S. Next time on Shaking the Tree … Choosing the right web hosting service.