Best Buy just announced a plan to take out 50 stores, 400 HQ jobs and many thousands of store employees. They blame the need to scale down on overbuilding. I blame it on shabby treatment of customers that’s driven buyers out the doors.
Just several years ago many of us were singing the praises of Best Buy and CEO Richard Anderson for taking a customer-eye view of their business – including extensive staff training and upgrading retail floor talent. But then Anderson retired, they hired Brian Dunn as new CEO, and Dunn’s first pronouncements addressed profitability and efficiency, not customers. The writing was on the wall. Back to the old, company-centric business model – which today’s customers aren’t buying, just as they’re not buying Best Buy’s merchandise.
Sure enough, lots of formerly loyal customers, myself included, now use Best buy as a store of last resort. So they’re not lying about being overbuilt. But they aren’t fessing up to the true reason. And so they’ll double down on what they’re doing wrong and morph into “Worst Buy.” It was good shopping with you – while customer-centric thinking lasted.
