Best Buy: Matching Price System

Economic conditions affect every business in the United States in some way, shape, or form. Best Buy is directly affected by numerous economic conditions. Some factors that go into the Economic Conditions sector of the external environment of Best Buy include: the employment rate, inflation rate, recession, and growth of the economy. In order for Best Buy to remain successful, they must be efficient at monitoring the economy by knowing how to react and respond to it as opposed to trying to change it. Economic factors can affect how you market products, how much money you can spend on materials and business growth, and which markets will be your future targets. If Best Buy can understand and strategize their business according to the surrounding

I. Company Overview Best Buy Co., Inc. is a multinational retailer of technology and entertainment products and services in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The multinational retailer sells both products and services through more than 1,600 retail, mobile stand- alone, and smaller express stores under the Best Buy, Best Buy Express, Best Buy Mobile, Five Star, Future Shop, Geek Squad, Magnolia Audio Video, and Pacific Kitchen and Home Sales banners. Its stores sell a variety of electronic gadgets and wearables, tablets, movies, music, computers, mobile phones, and appliances. On the services side, it offers design, delivery, installation, repair, maintenance, technical support, and subscriptions for mobile phone and Internet

Executive Summary Best Buy is one of the best electronic retailers in the North America and the leading name in the electronics industry. Best Buy has more than 4000 stores within U.S., Mexico, Canada, Turkey and China (Hoffman, 2010). Best Buy practices differentiation strategy by using customer centricity model that provides end-to-end service. Best Buy was first established in 1966. They changed their name from “Sound of Music” to the “Best Buy” in 1983. Globally, Best Buy has made great business by increased market share and acquisitions of companies. They acquired companies like Geek Squad, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales and most recently The Future shop.

Reputational Resources - Best Buy was seen as the team to beat by their competitors. - Best Buy was named as “Amazon’s showroom”. - Purchased almost 65% of its product from 20 suppliers with 5 of those (Apple, HP, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba) providing almost 40% of its merchandise.

Like any successful business, Best Buy has to be on the cutting edge to succeed in today’s market. They do this by exploring what technologies and services other companies display all around the world. Best Buy also pays attention to the changing of times, realizing what’s dated and what is on the cutting edge.

Threats of Substitutions The threat of substitutes for Amazon is high. With the exception of its patented technology, there are quite a lot of alternatives to Amazon’s products and services. In addition to physical presence, most companies have an online store as well. Amazon’s products can be purchased all over the internet and they are just spread out among different web sites. The companies operate in brick-and-click mode providing the similar product categories and competitive prices have become the biggest threat for Amazon. However it is extremely difficult for Amazon to establish physical stores or launch price

Amazon make sure that customer service is the best, Customers experience low prices through Amazon, the fastest delivery, having a form of reliable contact. Amazon customer service problems have allowed retailers to sell itme on the website, to make broaden the worlds selections of products. Amazon has a rival EBAY, which also allows merchant to sell and buy through its site, but with eBay there has been complaints with poor service and fraud (Cohen, 2009).

A competitive strategy is a plan of action that a company develops towards attaining a competitive advantage over its competitors in the industry. Companies examines and research their competitors strengthen and weaknesses and compare them to its own. A company strategy can incorporate efforts to please customers, ward off competitive threats, and meet a unique competitive advantage.

It must not be forgotten that most of those companies failed and were shut down soon. Amazon had been successfully operating for almost two decades because of its unique business style. Amazon has ensured all this time that it must make customer preferences its preference and must cater to them accordingly.

JESSOPS Qianqian Zhang Group DF Jessops Strategy Analysis 09/02/2012 Contents 1. Executive Summary 3 2. Introduction 3 3. PEST analysis 4 3.1 Political factor 4 3.2 Economic factors 4 3.2 Social factors 5 3.3 Technological factors 5 4. SWOT analysis 5 4.1 Strengths 5 4.2 Weaknesses 6 4.3 Opportunities 6 4.4 Threat 6 5. Porter’s five-forces 7 5.1 Threat of new entrants----high 8 5.2 Power of buyers----high 8 5.3 Bargaining power of suppliers----high 8 5.4 Threat of substitutes----medium 8 6. Jessops competences 9 7. Key environmental and ethical issues 10 7.1 Environmental issues----recycle 10 7.2 Ethical

Case Study of Best Buy, Inc. Best Buy’s History & Main Characters: Best Buy is Minneapolis-based and is North America's leading specialty retailer of consumer electronics, personal computers, entertainment software and appliances. Throughout Best Buy's 37-year history, the company has maintained the tradition of making life fun and easy for customers and employees, while providing a significant return to partners and investors. It has 80,000 employees and over 550 stores in the U.S., in addition to the brands Best Buy Canada, Future Shop and Magnolia Hi-Fi. Their leadership is led by Dick Schulze, Founder and Chairman, Brad Anderson, Vice Chairman and CEO, Al Lenzmeier, President and COO, and Darren Jackson, Executive Vice

Executive Summary Best Buy is electronic retailer that has brand names under 11 brand names in the United States. The company also has services in Canada, China, Europe and Mexico. It specializes in selling technology and entertainment products and services. The company became successful by using a low cost strategy and high cost customer service practices. The company has a lead market position because of its differentiation strategy, its brand names that are reputable and the many series of acquisitions.

Weaknesses – One of Best Buy’s weaknesses is Customer Service. This is show from the high percentage of customer service complaints written to Best Buy. According to PlanetFeedback Radio Shack and even Circuit City have a better customer

Amazon’s Pricing and Retail Strategy In my opinion, the best online retailer is Amazon. They easily have the best customer service and product fulfillment when compared to other online retailers. The inventory in the USA is over 200 million products, making such a feat impossible for a physical retail store to compete (Export, 2013). The following essay will discuss Amazon’s pricing and retail strategy. Both are key factors of their marketing that allow Amazon to sustain their market dominance and retain their loyal customers.

1. What can any retailer learn from this case? 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