I was in there yesterday, mystery shopping them. It was fun to report that the staff was actively trying to hide from me–guess they didn’t want my money. The scary part is this has been going on for a while–kind of hurts sales when you don’t want to talk to customers.
We should be so lucky.
Except for those cheddar biscuits. Those can stay.
I think Best Buy can hang on for another 5-10 years.
Abercrombie & Fitch is in a bad spot. Nobody’s been buying their clothes for a while now. Teens aren’t as willing to spend big bucks on a brand name.
Since Darden spun off Red Lobster they seem to be doing fine. And you can buy the mix to make the biscuits at home.
I used to work for a company that did some work for Best Buy and from what I saw supporting BB as a client, they’re not long for this world. In addition to what Bump said about them, they’re also burning a LOT of time and energy with internal turf battles. It’s not that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, it’s that one is actively trying to sabotage the other and nobody’s paying any attention to the customer.
There are a substantial number of people who want to hear audio and see video of an electronics device before buying. You don’t get this at Amazon. So yes I see a need for a brick and mortar chain like Best Buy. And offhand I can’t think of major competitors. Recently Best Buy has been offering store within a store options like Sony and Samsung.
WalMart, IME, has floor models of TVs, at least, though I don’t know if the floor model / demo capability at a WalMart is as good as at Best Buy.
With the demise of Circuit City a few years ago, I don’t think that there’s another nationwide big-box electronics retailer any longer. There are regional chains (like H.H. Gregg and Fry’s), as well as smaller, local chains – the latter often have more knowledgeable staff than Best Buy, and may be where the customer who wants to be able to demo products will have to wind up going.
Disclosure: I work in advertising, and had Circuit City as a client for several years, about a decade ago. Circuit City had a lot of problems which led to its death, but one area where Best Buy was destroying Circuit City was on sales of “content” (DVDs, music CDs, video games); Best Buy was able to use sales of content to drive store visits. With so much of content sales moving to streaming and digital sales, Best Buy has lost that source of sales and store traffic.
Western Union will be decimated by “Internet of value” if it doesn’t change fast.
Being Amazon’s showroom isn’t going to help them stay in business, though. “Yeah, OK, I think the Samsung looks good here. And hey, I can get it for $50 less from Amazon with free Prime shipping.”
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Is Radio Shack too obvious? (It’s still alive, but with many fewer stores.)
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The Shack is in stasis for now. AFAIK, they’ve already closed the stores they wanted to get rid of and the company is now owned by someone called General Wireless. Time will tell if this is a successful plan.
Another electronics chain that seems to defy logic by staying in business is Fry’s Electronics. They may have a better selection of electronic components than Radio Shack ever had, but the customers know more about the merchandise than the sales help, and unless you have the misfortune to get within 50 feet of one of the commissioned sales guys, good luck on even finding someone. Aisle descriptions are random and placement of stock is capricious. Probably the only thing keeping them alive is sales of individual capacitors and diodes to people who don’t want to wait for Jameco or Grainger to ship, and the legendary checkout line that snakes through the candy and chips.
I like to pretend it’s because of the themes. Sci-fi, Aztec, Polynesian, ancient Rome… it’s like a little history lesson with each visit.
Playboy Enterprises will probably be gone within five years. It’s pretty much just coasting downhill on nostalgia and its back catalog.
Our local Long John Silver’s shares a building with A&W. I think they’re owned by the same company.
7-eleven is owned by the 5th largest retailer in the world. They have staying power.
It is, but what happens is you see something you like on their website and a lot of the time the local GC doesn’t have it in stock so you end up either ordering it from their website (you have 30 days to return it) anyway or as long as you’re ordering you might as well see who else might have it for less and/or with better service. Plus big music stores can be a drag to try out an instrument in. If you want to sample a bunch of different models they’re good for that though.
And less than 12 hours later they announce they are getting rid of nude photos and will essentially be another Maxim.
I believe strongly that the future of mass-manufactured retail is either premium brands that sell for the same price everywhere (like Apple), or showrooms where the manufacturers pay for the retail space and drop ship purchases overnight.
They used to be, but aren’t any longer. They had both been owned by Yum! Brands, which also owns KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. Yum has, over the past 10-15 years, built a lot of “shared space” restaurants across their chains like that.
In 2011, Yum spun off both A&W and Long John Silvers, to different ownership groups. However, both ownership groups are groups of franchisees, and I would not be surprised if a number of them own the franchises for both chains, which would explain why A&W and LJS are still sharing locations.
I now feel five years may have been too generous.
Apparently, they don’t realize that “I only read it for the articles” is actually a joke…