I hate the Best Buy in Murfreesboro TN. The address: 2615 Medical Center Pkwy Murfreesboro, TN 37129. Avoid if at all possible. Drive to Franklin or Nashville. You have been warned. I have promised myself I will not go back multiple times but eventually find myself picking up something I can't wait on Amazon to ship. There is a 50% chance I will leave mad.
Other Best Buy stores are wonderful. My wife and I had the best shopping experience of our lives at the old Hickory Hollow Best Buy where we bought a refrigerator and gas stove. After a disappointing trip to a scratch and dent Sears warehouse we stopped by the store on a whim as we headed home. We got a better deal on new appliances than Sears was offering on refurbished items. My wife wrote a letter to Best Buy telling them how pleased she was. They delivered and installed exactly as promised.
Further I have visited the Knoxville and Destin Best Buys numerous times and have always had a pleasant shopping experience. It is just the Mufreesboro store that is the odd man out, the rotten apple, and the party pooper.
Why do I hate the store so much? A few examples:
- A store associate told me they were out of stock on a Pico projector. The inventory system is usually correct so I asked him to check the back. He refused. REFUSED! I knew the store pretty well so I poked around and found 3 of them in the TV department. A $600 purchase. I talked to the store manager and said it was an 'unexcusable mistake'.
- Picked up item off the shelf went to the front of the store to the cash registers where no one was working. I stood there with another customer for 5 minutes until the door security guy said we would have to checkout at the customer service desk. 10 minute wait in line at the customer service desk behind someone returning an item. The whole time I watch two Best Buy employees in the camera department (two employees in cameras? what is this 1985?) talking to each other. As I left the store there was still no one running a register. I worked retail for 17 years. RULE NUMBER ONE someone works the register every minute the store is open. RULE NUMBER TWO if three people are at each open register open another register.
- Went in to upgrade cell phone. Took an early lunch to avoid a crowd. When I got to the store the one person working in cell phones was a Verizon employee and they were helping a customer. I waited 20 minutes. The Verizon employee never addressed me or even looked at me. Guess what? The whole time two guys stood in the camera department talking to each other. Not one customer ever went into the camera area. The same customer was being helped and two new people were waiting to be helped when I gave up. Needing to get back to work happened upon the store manager as I left, who I told about the issue. He agreed it was terrible but he didn't have any other trained people scheduled to work for another hour so I was SOL (Google it).
I have many more. So it is with glee I predict that Best Buy will be closing stores by the end of the year and completely shuttered by 2019.
from Mashable
Best Buy Stock Plummets 30% After Disappointing Holiday Sales
Best Buy's efforts to combat showrooming and lure shoppers into stores during the holidays with aggressive promotions appear to have backfired.
The electronics retailer announced Thursday morning that sales at comparable stores — stores open for at least 14 months — declined by 0.8% for the nine week period ending Jan. 5. That came in well below estimates as analysts had expected Best Buy's sales to grow this holiday season.
Investors reacted by sending the stock down sharply. Best Buy was down by more than 30% at one point in pre-market trading Thursday.
Read the full story HERE
Best Buy Shares Collapsing After Bad Holiday Sales
Best Buy shares were tumbling by 30 percent or more in pre-market trading Thursday morning on holiday sales data* that painted a bleak portrait of the big-box electronics retailer's holiday fortunes. The key takeaway is that U.S. comparable store sales fell 0.9 percent in the nine weeks ending Jan. 4, 2014, with CEO Hubert Joly saying that "aggressive promotional activity in the retail industry during the holiday period" cut into everyone's sales.
In other words, Best Buy and others cut prices to try to stay competitive with Amazon and margins suffered as a result.
I don't exactly want to dance on Best Buy's grave here. Lots of people work in Best Buy shops and it's sad that when any company struggles, innocent people end up losing their jobs. Just look at these J.C. Penney layoffs. At the same time, the Joly-era revival of Best Buy's fortunes during most of 2013 was a genuine economic feel-bad story. Great companies succeed by offering great value propositions to their customers, win-win transactions where everyone ends up happy. Joly boosted Best Buy's share price by slashing costs while maintaining reliance on upselling customers to overpriced accessories. It's a pernicious business model that offers neither the efficiencies of Amazon's e-commerce nor the intensive customer service of the independent electronics retailers that Best Buy displaced. The top performing stocks of 2013 generally painted an optimistic portrait of the American economy. The exception was Best Buy's 239 percent increase.
Read the full story HERE
from Reuters
Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) shares fell nearly 29 percent on Thursday after the world's largest consumer electronics chain reported a drop in holiday sales despite offering deep discounts.
The retailer also forecast a bigger-than-expected decline in operating margins for the quarter covering the biggest selling season of the year.
The company cited intense discounting by rivals, tight supplies of phones and high-end tablets, and weak traffic in December for the disappointing report. This was the latest evidence that holiday sales at many chains came at the expense of profit.
The news also dragged down shares of consumer electronics peers such as RadioShack Corp (RSH.N) and Hhgregg Inc (HGG.N).
"It just seems that the promotions did not drive incremental sales, that opening on Thanksgiving just added costs," Janney Capital Markets analyst David Strasser said.
Adding to the pressure on Best Buy, he said, was the "promotional cadence of troubled retailers" like Sears (SHLD.O), Toys R Us Inc and smaller electronics chains.
Best Buy cut prices sharply to thwart competition from Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) and other rivals in what turned to be one of the most promotional seasons since the recession.
Chief Financial Officer Sharon McCollam said the company planned to remain price-competitive in January as well.
Best Buy now expects operating margin, excluding items, to be 175 to 185 basis points lower in the fourth quarter ending February 1 than a year earlier. Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter said that outlook was well below Wall Street expectations.
The discounting, however, boosted Best Buy's market share at a time when overall industry sales fell, Chief Executive Officer Hubert Joly said, citing data from NPD Group.
Best Buy's sales at stores open at least 14 months were down 0.9 percent in the United States and up 0.1 percent internationally in the nine weeks ended January 4. Total revenue fell about 2.6 percent to $11.45 billion.
Declines in sales of digital imaging, movies, MP3 players and other products more than offset strong demand for computers, appliances and gaming devices, the company said.
Best Buy's online segment was a bright spot in the otherwise weak report. Domestic online revenue was $1.32 billion, and comparable online sales rose 23.5 percent.
During the most recent holiday season, Best Buy offered free shipping for online orders of more than $25 and made its website easier to navigate.
The company also shipped directly from more than 400 stores this season to compete better with the likes of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Wal-Mart. It is now expanding that service to its 1,000 big box stores, Best Buy said on Thursday.
Shares of Best Buy were down 28.9 percent at $26.70 in early trading.
(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Lisa Von Ahn)
Read the full story HERE
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