Best Buy Has The Blues ( Shirts ) Case Analysis Essay

Customers often have substantial power to affect the competitive environment. This power can take the form of easy consumer access to several retail outlets to purchase the same or similar products or services (Pearlson & Saunders et al., 2009). L.L.Bean has, from the beginning, recognized that the customer has many options in spending. This recognition of the power the customer holds is reflected in

Best Buy Co., Inc. is organized as a Richfield, Minnesota, based US Corporation and operates a multi-business unit structure. Company’s Board of directors consists of nine members with a Chairman and CEO and eight directors. Best Buy Co., Inc.’s operations consists of seven departments whose heads are directly responsible to the Chairman / CEO. The current organizational chart of the Best Buy Co., Inc. is as

Best Buy is a multinational retailer of consumer electronics, computing and mobile phone products, entertainment products, appliances, and related services. The company operates retail stores and call centers and conducts online retail operations under a variety of brand names such as Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile, The Carphone Warehouse, Five Star, Future Shop, Geek Squad, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and The Phone House (Bestbuy.com, 4). The domestic segment consists of all operations within the United States, while the international segment includes all operations in Canada, Europe, Mexico, and China. The Best Buy 's success is contingent on the market 's demand for electronics. The company 's strategy is to provide good customer service combined with lower prices (news.cnet.com). Best Buy 's success is directly related to economic conditions, the cost of goods, and other things like fuel prices. The company 's strategy depends upon the ability to offer customers a broad selection of name-brand products; therefore, leading its success to depend upon satisfactory supplier relationships (Bestbuy.com, 8). Best Buy, as it is included in the retail segment, is a seasonal store. Their stronger quarter is the fourth quarter, which they can contribute to the holiday season for their success.

From 1966, Richard Schulze, had suggestions for improvement(s), but, wasn’t token seriously from other people. early in his managerial career, Schulze, allowed himself to show-off his uncanny ability to adjust to market trends and seek out profitable opportunities. Since, 1966, Best Buy began

The economic success of retailers greatly depends on their ability to reach customers and meet customer demands in ways that is convenient for the customer. No longer can retailers expect customers to only shop at their retail stores. Retailers are required to provide customers with the multiple shopping channels and flexible fulfillment options that they demand. Companies who fail to do so will see their customers take their business to competitors who are both willing and able to serve customers based on consumer demand (xxx)

Costco is a recognized and successful retail chain including several locations, glowing feedback, and a wonderful overall reputation. Known by several audiences to be considered a “big-box” store, Costco offers various products in its stores at low, discounted prices, accompanying a membership card. Before and after researching this company, the author of this paper has heard exceptional feedback regarding the company for its initiative to keep prices low, employee morale high, and customer satisfaction to be one of its top priorities. Within this body of work, the author will dissect and discuss some of Costco’s stakeholder perspectives and how some of the perceived initiatives may help aid the company within its

Hhgregg, Inc. is an electronics store company that is worthy of investing in for a multitude of reasons. The history of hhgregg indicates that they place a strong emphasis on customer service, which is why they are so successful. Hhgregg also has many important initiatives for the future, such as redesigning all of their stores, continuously retraining employees on customer responsiveness, and implementing a stringent corporate governance program. These valued-added initiatives will help hhgregg grow in the years to come. Their biggest competition is with Best Buy, who owns the biggest share of the electronic store

Nordstrom is a main retailer with a demonstrated notoriety for incomparable customer service. The organization has been doing business since 1901 and nowadays is positioned among Fortune 500 's best performing organizations. There is no doubt that Nordstrom flourishes nationally, however notwithstanding utilizing worldwide markets can be an alternate challenge all together. We should investigate what are some of Nordstrom’s considerations in the worldwide business market.

In the international segment each of the nine European countries run their operations at a smaller level than the Best Buy branded stores but the rest of the branded stores in those territories run an operating model similar to that used in the U.S. stores. The only differences would be in Canada and China where Best Buy runs and supports two principal brand companies. In Canada the Future Shop stores “Have commissioned sales associates who take a proactive role in assisting customers and driving

In business, three major strategies comprising of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies exist. The focus strategy emphasizes on providing services and products to a specified buyer group or market segment within a given geographic market. The differentiation approach is often defined as provision of services or products that are perceived to be unique in the market place. Wal-Mart emphasizes on the long-term strategy of cost leadership. Through this strategy, the company ensures that it offers customers with quality products at relatively lower prices than other providers in the industry. Through overall cost leadership strategy, Wal-Mart has been offering better quality products at a lower price than any competitor can offer. For the organization to achieve this goal, it has developed long-term supply chain management, which ensures that products are made available to the market at the required time (Enz, 2010).

If the centricity concept is being blamed for not meeting earnings and the decline in Best Buy’s stock price and market capitalization, the question becomes was there a need for this change to the company’s strategy, was the strategy poorly implemented, was there a delayed market response to the change, or was the launch an overly aggressive action of a newly appointed CEO? The Best Buy leadership team first needed to evaluate whether there truly was a need for a (drastic) change and if so, was centricity the appropriate response to the market.

Best Buy, a familiar retailer in the technology world, is struggling to stay on top. Online and mass stores have cornered the market in terms of convenience, customer service and price matching. The recent closing of over two hundred stores alongside falling sales has experts predicting that the giant won’t be in business long. Using a results-only work environment (ROWE), Best Buy has removed the customer from the equation and forced many employees out. A marketing disaster, Best Buy must change its marketing strategy from sales-based to a customer-based to stay afloat.

Organizations like Amazon store realized that attaining long-term customer value through delivery of quality services is the key to their existence. Also, be alert to the customer’s needs and wants, because having a loyal base of satisfied customer brings relevant performance indicators. For example, increase in sales improved profits, and possible higher market share (Shamma & Hassan, 2013).

It makes sense for Best Buy to worry more about Wal-Mart, which is getting more involved in electronics retailing, and less about Circuit City. The competitors are a diverse lot today, and for them to continue to grow they're going to have to get much better at everything they do and define themselves in clear ways. Best Buy's plan is to revamp its stores according to the types of customers they serve. A strategy previously mentioned, customer centricity, focuses on targeting five prototypical customers, all of whom have been given names: "Jill," a busy suburban mom; "Buzz," a focused, active younger male; "Ray," a family man who likes his technology practical; "BB4B" (short for Best Buy for Business), a small professional employer; and "Barry," an affluent professional male who's likely to drop tens of thousands of dollars on a home theater system. Their most current focus is on a "Jill" based store, the soccer mom who has money to spend but typically hasn't a clue of where or how to find products in the store. According to the data Best Buy has collected, Jill shops a few times a year, usually twice at an electronics store, but she usually spends a significant amount.

According to this case, and concerning about the strategy that Best Buy has created, retailers can similarly create a retailer-led product strategy to leverage their customer knowledge for product differentiation and to understand what the needs of the customers are; they must discover what satisfies the customer and what not. In addition, the retailer can seek for news partnerships, new stores, new countries and new categories and services in order to increase their net sales and their share market. It’s very important invest in marketing study aiming to discover what the other companies are doing. Besides, with the time, the smaller retailer can increase significantly even more than the