Taking a Look at Best Buy

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

Best Buy Co., Inc. is the largest electronics retailer in United States with international presence in Mexico, Canada and China. Best Buy Co., Inc. is headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota and currently operates more than one thousand brick & mortar stores. Founded in 1966 as “Sound of Music”, Best Buy Co., Inc. evolved from a small regional audio specialty store to a multinational consumer electronics retail chain within a short span of time. The company’s current name “Best Buy” was adopted in 1983 with an aim to emphasize a greater consumer electronics branding. Best Buy Co., Inc. went public in 1987 when it got listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Amazon and Ebay are two well-known brands of online shopping sites. They have evolved and grown from small firms to the giants of e-commerce today. In this essay, a comparison would be made between the two firms.

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

Technology is/and still playing a vital role in any business. The growth of online selling in the UK and the world has led to large increase in its online sales. The raising numbers of people, who own computers, smartphones and tablets; and having access to internet which has a high positive impact for their online sales. As there is an increase in demand of new technology, developments of new tablets, computers are rising in popularity and John Lewis sells a wide range of these. For John Lewis to keep up with the demands of their customers they had to move in-line with the recent development of new

Best Buy is a company that has 40 years of history with a very accomplished sense of success. In 1966 Best Buy was a small electronics store in that originated in St. Paul Minnesota by Richard Schulze and an acquainted business partner. Considering that technology changes so rapidly, Best Buy has had to transform from just being the little electronics store down the way into a competitive, customer-driven, talent-powered company that emphasizes on pleasing the customers as it pertains to the life of technology. In 1993 Best Buy was recognized as the nation’s second largest electronics retailer and was recognized by

Best Buy Co., Inc. is currently the world’s largest retailer for consumer electronics. The company has 1,400 brick and mortar stores and is a popular online retailer as well. The stores serve as display room for various online retailers. Best Buy consumers can purchase electronic products such as mobile, corded and cordless phones, televisions, cameras, personal computers, laptops, appliances and more (David & F.R., 2015). Today’s society relies on convenience and technology, forcing companies to implement new ideas and projects in an effort to maintain their ability to compete with other companies. For continued success the company must look at the internal and external issues the company may face as well as their competitors and their best practices that are contributing to their success.

Best Buy had a history of being able to adapt to the changing markets and their ability to do so contributed to their success (i.e. the vastly expanded product line, evolution to superstores, expansion, acquisition, converting from commission to salaried sales force.). The perception that customers were focusing less on the technical aspect of products and redirecting their attention to service and support, led to Anderson’s custom-centricity initiative. This transition and the rollout of 144 new “centricity” Best Buy stores was being blamed for the company missing third quarter earnings in 2005, resulting in a 12% decline in stock value and a loss of nearly $2B in market capitalization. Did Anderson perform the proper strategic market planning analysis before selecting and implementing the centricity initiative?

Revenue continued to double throughout the nineties. In 1995, Best Buy’s revenue was $3 billion, but there was no profit. They trained their employees to believe that customers were in charge of sales, not salespeople, and that they were there to assist in purchases, not be pushy. The consumer of the millennium was less needy for assistance in buying electronics; audio, video, and computer systems were commonplace in households of the time. Customers were allowed to help themselves to items on shelves, much like a grocery store setup, and check out when ready. This bolstered customer satisfaction rates. Revenue was above10 Billion in 1999. (Company Histories)

Best Buy has been successful with their web presence; they have found another outlet for customers to purchase products from Best Buy.

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.

In concert with high rivalry in the industry, the ecommerce industry has seen large brick-and-mortar retailers making moves to catch up with Amazon. Amazon came to dominate the ecommerce industry through technology, innovation, a laser focus on customer experience and efficient operations. The company had a first mover advantage, but today, as traditional retailers look at growth in the ecommerce market and see it beginning to chip away at traditional retail’s share of the overall market (Exhibit 3), these companies are making moves to further increase their own sophistication. In October, Best Buy brought in former Expedia president, Scott Durschlag, to head its ecommerce business and to “boost its online transformation.” In 2011, Wal-Mart acquired Koomix, hoping to apply “artificial intelligence to commerce.” It also hired the well-regarded Silicon Valley engineer who was instrumental in the development of eBay’s infrastructure as its Chief Technological Officer. Wal-Mart and eBay both announced this fall that they

Best Buy is a company that is a financially strong and profitable, that has generated a good few billion in cash flows from operating activities as is shown in its financial statements. They also delivered positive operating income through their trajectory. They grew total market share in the third quarter according to the most recent public data available. They have closed down certain operations that were not profitable (according to recent reports), which they expect to have a positive impact on their earnings going forward. And they are focusing the company on areas where they see the greatest opportunities for growth and profit: mobile devices and connection plans; enhanced digital and e-commerce strategies; growth in their services business; and expansion of their established business in China.

Without a doubt, the world of business is chiefly based on the aspects of supply and demand. Throughout history, a multitude of companies -- both big and small – and offline and online have been able to grow and spread through providing the best services to customers. In the form of products and services, various companies have been able to build upon preexisting value ratings while at the same time using this as a template to help boost more sales down the line. However, as technology changed so did the power of promotion. For instance, prior to the invention of the radio, many companies had to rely either upon word of mouth or different forms of advertising through print ads. This was particularly the key factors that aided in the growth and promotion of companies such as Sears throughout its creation and development in the late 1880s. In short, with the widespread availability of traveling through the newly introduced national railroad system, the founders created, passed around, and mailed their innovative catalogs to help spread word and deliver products to consumers (Brake, 88). Decades later with the invention of the radio, companies increasingly had much more bargaining power as they could literally speak directly to their audience. A few decades later, this overall level of marketing grew even more in reference to the actual presentation of products and services with the invention of the television. For the very first time in history, companies could literally

The reaction to Amazon’s marketplace initiative in the financial markets had been generally positive. Indeed, Amazon’s stock was up 52% for the year (as of mid-September 2002) versus a 35% drop in the NASDAQ index. Still, doubts clearly remained in some observers’ minds. For example, Holly Becker, an equity analyst at Lehman Brothers, had reservations about Amazon’s model. In a report issued in February 2002 she said, in part: The used business appears to be an excellent complement to Amazon’s core retail offering. The used business allows Amazon to participate in a growing market that leverages all of the inherent benefits of the Internet . . . a truly virtual model, used eliminates a large portion of fulfillment costs and inventory risk, and therefore provides higher margins . . . but . . . we believe used is detrimental to Amazon’s franchise in the long term. The company’s point of difference, market share, and service capabilities are far greater in new products than used . . . we believe cannibalization is likely in the longer term.1 While the company had made dramatic strides in expanding the range of products it offered, there were still many categories in which it participated little or not at all. Thus, a key element of enhancing selection was to constantly expand the range of