Best Buy to cut costs, open and close stores
March 29, 2012 at 3:35 am in Grand Forks Herald
Best Buy Co. said it plans to close 50 big box stores and open 100 small mobile locations in the U.S. in fiscal 2013 and cut $800 million in costs by fiscal 2015. The news came Thursday as the biggest U.S. specialty electronics retailer posted a fiscal fourth quarter loss partly due to restructuring charges, but its adjusted results topped Wall Street’s expectations.
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Although there’s still a lot of reasons people want to go to the big box stores (Like go to try out items before looking for the best price on line to buy at….Harsh but true. A lot of people do this). I think it’s a sign of things to come. Even the mega box stores like Wally World and Target are feeling that crunch. Between dollar stores taking out a lot of the low end profit and on line taking out a lot of the higher end as well as a good chunk of the holidays market, they too aren’t just chugging away as usual. If the Aztec fevor is wrong and we’re still here after 12/21/12 then it’ll be interesting to see what happens next. We’re doing so many things via computer already that’s it’s kind of like that song “In the year 2525″…Only with the time line moved up..
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I stopped shoping at Best Buy when I read they were behind the big push in Minnesota to tax internet sales. Besides that their selection of music is poor at best. Amazon is the way to go when buying CDs…spend $25 and get free shipping.
Wal-Marts shipping prices are about what it would cost me in gas to drive out there. Besides that if you shop on-line for groceries or health & beauty they ship for free if you spend $45. And they are one of the fastest place that ship. It amazes me how quickly their products get to the door.
I shop at the same on-line site for clothing. I have been doing it for so long they don’t charge me shipping charges any more. Who needs to drive all the way across town to the south end of Grand Forks? I hate going out there.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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….And who needs the cattle drive out there durning the holidays? Apparently a lot of people are staying away for those same reasons…
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Reminds me of Yogi Berra comment “Nobody goes there anymore because it’s so crowded”
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Not trying to pick on you tj, but shopping on line for things that are available down the street is not good for the enviroment. All the extra cardboard, packing materials, gas of delivery truck coming from where, maybe a plane ride in there. I think recycling is fine, but simply using less is better.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I hear you…and I see your point. I will take your advice into consideration.
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Thanks!
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Someone as right winged as you are an enviromentalist? Are you the real Chins Nixon or one from Bizzarro world like in the old Superman comics where it was an exact replica of our earth only everything and everyone was exactly opposit….?
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A typical conversative conserves and avoids waste. It is all so very basic. I laugh when the young do gooder that goes to Starbucks everyday is lecturing the typical blue collar worker that had used the same coffee thermos for the past 30 years about recycling and how he can do his part.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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How did those products reach the store down the street? In a truck carrying card board boxes.
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They are in cardboard but not every item is packed in extra packing materials like an additional box, the packing peanuts, bubble wrap, individual invoices, flown to two or three shipping points, a ride on a truck or two before that one package arrives at your house.
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you still buy cd’s? Those are still around?
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Not likely they would close GF with all the Canadian traffic.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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I don’t shop at BB anymore.. My most recent experience was when I finally broke down and bought a large flat screen plasma.. I had done my research (i’ve been a nerd since before being one was fashionable) knew what I wanted to buy.
Got to the store and all the sales person would do was try his high pressure sales pitch on a ton of other garbage that I didn’t want or need.. Things like their TV Calibration service.. Pure trash.. After being offered 4 or 5 items I polite told the guy to go get my TV so I could cash out, or he could continue down the hard sales path and I would walk out.. He continued on his hard sell about the calibration service.. I turned around and walked out..
Ultimately I ended up buying the TV online, got it at least 100 bucks cheaper even with shipping and used the difference to buy a high end Logitech programmable remote.
I sent a complaint letter to their corporate headquarters, I called their customer service line. Not so much as a return letter saying ‘We are sorry you had a bad experience in our store’. I didn’t expect anything more than that, but that is what I did expect.
I will only use Best buy to go in and look at the product that I want to buy online to finish making my decision. They will never get another sale from me.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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I know the building you’re talking about Spearman. We stay near there in Bloomington when we go to the clinic in Edina. That is quite the building. It’s odd to me that the Best Buy store not far from there is a small building about half the size of the store in GF. I went in there hoping to find a decent selection of CDs but was disappointed. I thought it was odd that the corporate office building was this huge flashy building but the store itself was tiny dank and dark.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Maybe its the original. There are probably 20 stores in the metro though.
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Let’s see now, 4 people don’t like a comment saying there are 20 Best Buys in the metro TC?
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That’s part of your fan club…It’s amazing when I get dislikes on thigs that are totally nuetural…..I doubt they even read the comment….Go figure
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haters are going to hate….that’s what they do….and it surprises me how many of them there are….
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According to their customer service the sales people are not commission based.. I told them they had to be bonus based then, because no sales person presses that hard on sales if there isn’t something in it for them..
The really sad part is, 90% of the time when I used to walk into the store I had to literally hunt for someone to help me find stuff. I even had to hunt for the TV sales guy.. The service there is horrible.
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“That’s what you get in “right to work” state, harried salesmen trying to make a living.”
What would the sales staff be doing differently if it wasn’t a right to work state? Imagine if they didn’t “have to” scurry about and try to make sales. Imagine if an income they were “comfortable with” was instead guaranteed. Imagine if that guaranteed comfortable income had to be paid for somehow by the employer. Imagine if that employer paid for it by doing things like raising the prices on everything. He or she would have to….their hired help was costing them more, AND….since their staff’s comfortable income was “guaranteed”, there’s be less incentive to work hard for it, so sales would likely decrease.
Hmmm…decreased overall unit sales due to the lack of salesperson motivation, and yet more dollars would be needed in the register to cover the guaranteed wages. Sounds like a recipe for closing a store. It’s a good thing that, (in addition to the challenges already on the table), the employer wouldn’t have to worry about silly things like competing with anyone else for the public’s business..
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I said they are harried as in “more desperate to make sales” since their wage is lower in a right to work state therefore they can’t afford to be more low pressure as a salesperson. Right to work states are more prosperous & populated. Seems to me GF & Fargo are more populated because employers locate in N.D. because they can pay lower wages, benefits & provide fewer rights than they would be req. to in Mn. They also pay lower property taxes on their businesses & they still pay lower wages so they can have that second home in MN. or Florida.
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“I said they are harried as in “more desperate to make sales” since their wage is lower in a right to work state therefore they can’t afford to be more low pressure as a salesperson”
Oh, I know what you “meant”, I’d just be more satisfied with your answer if it were fact instead of your wishful thinking. I guess you could try and “prove” your point by visiting a Best Buy in ND, and then comparing the shopping experience to a Best Buy somewhere else. When you do, by all means record the event and post a video. Let’s see if we can determine by the salesperson’s approach if he/she works for Best Buy in a right to work state or not.
(I’ll go not too far out on a limb and make a prediction now. Without any creative editing on your part, it’ll be a toss-up.)
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That was the approach that turned me off of Red lobster. They used to immediately push their expensive drinks and desserts. Found out they paid a monthy bonus to the person that sold the most. They’ve cut that out now, but it used to really irk me.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Thats you you shop online….No pushy sales! Sorry Chins Nixon I like the packing peanuts and the front door service. I walk to work so I call it even.
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I really want nothing to do with salespeople till i find what I want when it comes to TV’s or appliances. Also say no to anything else before they even start mentioning extra services.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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I used to shop Best Buy. I got totally taken on a couple of Hewlett-Packard computers that died just outside of warranty. (HP? NEVER AGAIN!)
Shopping for Home Theater amplifiers and speakers–Best Buy has a fabulous selection of bottom-of-the-barrel Chinese junk. There wasn’t a quality item in the entire audio department. What they had of “quality” brand names was the entry-level bottom-feeder crap. The Best Buy audio department is a total wasteland.
I used to buy media–CDs and DVDs at Best Buy. They’ve re-arranged the shelves so many times I can’t find what I’m looking for anymore. Nuts to ‘em. I’ll buy on Amazon rather than re-learn their store twice a year.
Best Buy wants to shut down the Grand Forks store, I’ll help ‘em chain the doors. No great loss.
And yet, it doesn’t have to be that way. All it would take is to NOT stock the store entirely with imported junk products intended for the lowest-common-denominator.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Don’t know if it’s changed, but BB used to have a really bad rep for selling electronics with a little sticker on the back that said, “reconditioned”.
And I know that the ‘warranty’ was pretty much useless a few years ago.
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Whew…I remember when people would go to Fargo just to check out deals at Best Buy because we didn’t have one here….A lot of people were impressed with them back then…..Times sure have changed….
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Gee, after Best Buy goes bankrupt maybe Wally McCarthy can get back his land on the 494 strip for another blighted but profitable
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What possible connecton is there between something along the southern loop of the cities and this article? Or do you just chime in totally unrelated answers from time to time?
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Troll…..
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a neighbor’s step-aunt? heh heh heh
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