
Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn resigns - zacharye
http://www.bgr.com/2012/04/10/best-buy-ceo-brian-dunn-resigns/
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Jun8
Uh-oh, this seems to be the beginning of the end for BB: once you get into
this looking for a good CEO candidate thing, things generally do not go back
up, e.g. Yahoo, Motorola.

BB's problems are myriad, but to me a single problem stands out clearly, and
it's not Amazon's competition: It's the hapless nature of their store
associates:

i) In BB stores, when you walk in it's always hard to find an associate.

ii) When you do find them, they tend to be starry-eyed young guys who know
next to nothing about the products and usually resort to random searching of
the aisles, which of course you could have done yourself.

iii) When they need to check for product info, e.g. "Do you have it in
stock"", "Does this work with that?" They have to _walk back_ to a computer
screen on their desk and check using the browser, which of course you could
have done _much faster_ on your phone.

It's hard to create a low-paid task force that's also knowledgeable about the
intricacies of tons of electronic products. So the solution is to use in-store
tablets with a helper app running on them. In other words, go to an Apple
store, observe for 15 minutes, come back and replicate. BB already has great
inventory APIs, coming up with a very useful v1.0 shouldn't be hard.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
That isn't a problem at all for me. In fact I prefer to be left alone by sales
people. I always know more about what I'm getting than they do, and like to
take time weighing the options.

My problem with them is that they have phased out a lot of non-store brand
hardware (Dynex and Rocketfish are their store-brands) and put ridiculous
markup on everything. Then they essentially scam you with marked up store
brand crap or Monster Cable/Monster Power, then push silly Service Plans on
you, and in some cases try and charge you for "calibration" or "optimization".

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pavel_lishin
> “I have enjoyed every one of my 28 years with this company, and I leave it
> today in position for a strong future. I am proud of my fellow employees and
> I wish them the best,” Dunn said, _double-checking his parachute as he
> prepared to leap from the burning airplane_.

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ben1040
I wonder if Ron Johnson (the guy behind the Apple retail concept) could have
turned around Best Buy, had BBY picked him up instead of JC Penney.

The Apple store philosophy seems to be "We think most people will be delighted
with our products. But if we can't make you a happier person for buying this
product, we're just wasting your time trying to sell it to you, and making it
less likely you'll want to come back when we _do_ offer a product you might
enjoy."

Meanwhile every shopping experience I've had at Best Buy tells me their
philosophy is "You need _x_ , but we'll convince you to buy _y_ , and we'll
try our hardest to pack in a high margin accessory bundle too. So buy it and
get out, so I can move on to the next sucker. Oh, and you had better be buying
a service plan on that."

Then again, if you can't turn the place around by making it a place where
people actually want to shop and reflect favorably upon their experiences,
then maybe the big box electronics concept is just falling out of favor
altogether.

~~~
edwinnathaniel
Can you find a company that is replicable anywhere in the world at the scale
of Apple/Best Buy?

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justjimmy
All my Apple products have been purchased from Best Buy (except iPad 3 which I
had engraved), why? Because of the Reward Visa that I have with BB. But I
dread buying Apple products everytime I go to BB – you never find someone
that's free, I'd have to hunt down employees or stand next to one as they
helped other customers (which took up to 30 minutes once) and wait for my
turn. And after telling them what I exactly want, they'd disappear for 15
minutes in the backroom, only to come out with the wrong model, another 15
minutes before they tell me they don't have it in stock.

It's a horrible buying experience but I endure it for points (especially when
one spends thousands of dollars, it can really rack up). It's the only reason
why Best Buy still gets my money.

(If Apple had their own Loyalty/Reward kind of program on top of their
customer service, it'd be so full of win.)

~~~
hyperbovine
Amazon has a Visa rewards card, sells Apple products, and won't even charge
you tax.

~~~
gameshot911
Which means you need to remember to declare it on your tax returns. Seems more
convenient to the buyer to charge it at the time of purchase, no? :)

~~~
hyperbovine
I will cede the moral high ground if you can honestly declare that you have
done so for every purchase you have ever made online. Ever.

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joshmlewis
This is my rant about Best Buy: Coming from a technical family (my dad being
an IT director) at a small age I was dissecting computers and fixing them
back. I love computers and that's what lead me into web dev. I'm still very
technical in this area and I'd say I'm a pretty good hardware and software
fixer.

That being said, when I go into BB it saddens me to see how they up-sell
ignorant people. It bothers me so much. I'll be inline behind someone and
they'll offer an initial setup and cleaning of your new PC for $75+ and I'm
thinking to myself I could do this in 20 minutes and I'd do it for a lot less.
Installing memory is way more than it should be. Backing up and restoring,
etc, all relatively simple things they charge so much for.

And without the "geek squad" prices, their hardware prices are just high. Best
Buy is for ignorant consumers who don't know about computers or geeks that
need something asap and cave to pay the difference.

There needs to be a chain like this that doesn't screw people over, that has
excellent customer service and doesn't continue to BS people about things that
they really don't need. There's a business model to be had with treating
people right.

~~~
zbuc
> That being said, when I go into BB it saddens me to see how they up-sell
> ignorant people. It bothers me so much. I'll be inline behind someone and
> they'll offer an initial setup and cleaning of your new PC for $75+ and I'm
> thinking to myself I could do this in 20 minutes and I'd do it for a lot
> less. Installing memory is way more than it should be. Backing up and
> restoring, etc, all relatively simple things they charge so much for.

The same argument can be made for cars(oh boy, a car analogy!). It's much
cheaper to change your own oil yet people still go to oil change shops and pay
a ton of money for it.

The reasons are ignorance(not knowing how to do it yourself) and convenience.

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walru
I'd be hard pressed to blame the CEO for the all of the ills that plague Best
Buy, though I have to give the man credit for knowing when to step aside.
After 28 years with the company I'd say he deserves a rest.

The problems that exist with the company, I think, mostly stem from the pool
from which they have to select their work force. It's hard to keep up any sort
of reputable service when you get so big. Saying that, Apple seems to be doing
okay..

~~~
LargeWu
The problems start at corporate HQ. I worked there as a contractor for a few
years. Getting anything done there is a huge political struggle. When I was
there, at least, B&M and dotcom were two separate concerns, often with
conflicting goals. Product was off doing its own thing. Everybody there seemed
to forget they were all playing for the same team.

I routinely worked with MBA's from supposedly reputable schools who could put
excel spreadsheets together, but couldn't interpret the results. Most full-
timers spend their days in meetings while contractors do the real work. When I
finally left, they offered me a few plush full time positions, in which I
would have vague responsibilities and ill-defined deliverables. No thanks, I
told them.

Everybody there felt pretty smug when they were kicking Circuit City's ass.
Now the shoe's on the other foot.

~~~
darksaga
I can back you up on this. I also worked at corporate as a contracter on the
dotcom team and it was a total circus. After outsourcing the work for their
website for so many years, the entire site was a disaster. Not to mention the
"business" side was running on waterfall while our team was trying to do
agile. Worse? Mangers on both sides knew it and did nothing about it - this
was just considered "normal" there.

I pulled the plug after only 8 months - it was crazy what was going on there.
Afterwards, a few of my friends who also did short stints there were amazed I
lasted that long.

------
jerednel
I purchase from Best Buy because of the no-interest deals they have with their
credit cards. It's convenient when I want something now, and know that I'll
have an extra few injections of extra cash coming in the next couple of months
to support it.

Regarding customer service, I had a great experience at a Chicago store. I
just bought the 11" Air and decided it was too small for me, so I took it back
with the intention of upgrading to the 13". I was waiting in line to exchange,
when they noticed I was exchanging a MacBook and they whisked me off to a
separate area to complete the exchange, saving me about 15 minutes of waiting
time.

With regards to pushing their warranty's, I think they asked me once and then
let it go.

I agree that some of their stuff is overpriced, and they could improve their
sales workflow with tablets or whatever, but my experiences don't reflect the
negative ones I'm reading about here.

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rickdale
This type of business is bound to change as technology evolves. It used to be
people would get the good information from Circuit City and then go across the
street to Best Buy for better prices. And now Circuit City is gone.

Somewhere down the line Best Buy started over charging for services that
aren't necessary. My primary example of this is that they offer to come
calibrate your new HDTV for $500 upon purchase. You can order the same
software they are using off of amazon for $12. Another thing is their price on
cables. They just rip you off and smile in your face. Its annoying. Geeks like
to shop at tech stores, you know? These sorts of practices force us to
purchase things online.

I just think somewhere down the line Best Buy quit putting the customer first
and just like the rest of the comments, this seems like the beginning of the
end.

~~~
mgkimsal
This seems to be very dependent on the people and store locations. We just
bought a $2k HDTV, and weren't pressured in to warranty, weren't upsold on any
services like that, and they delivered, installed and configured it for free.

re: cables - every retail store rips you off. go to target, walmart, radio
shack - they all have $20 cables that you can get online for $5. I've had
other geeks laugh at me when I complain about cable pricing. "Dude, just get
it online!". Well... when I need a cable, I need a cable. I don't want to
preemptively buy 5-6 cheap ones online (however cheap they are) on the
offchance that I'll need one of them later.

~~~
zbuc
I wonder if that's due to the profit margins on the big-ticket items(like an
HDTV) being so low that they have to make it up on the accessories.

~~~
mgkimsal
maybe, and maybe, because we bought a more expensive one, there was no
call/pressure to upsell? they'd already hit a profit min for that sale? still,
I'm not even sure we were offered an extended warranty. Well... maybe. been a
few months now - can't remember.

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saturdaysaint
Maybe it's just me, but I think a lot of the things that drew people to Best
Buy at one point - powerful computers, big TVs, customized theater setups,
rows of DVDs - have gradually gone from sexy to culturally irrelevant (still a
profitable niche, quite possibly) in the last 15 years. They've become the
workmanlike, unsexy appliance showfloors they put out of business by the early
00's.

~~~
aswanson
Yeah, it's like, aside from layout, Walmart offers the same stuff.

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ArbitraryLimits
Speaking as a Minnesota native, this is just all kinds of sad. Believe it or
not, Best Buy used to be a more or less local chain that was known for their
_customer service_ and that inspired all kinds of customer loyalty. They were
like the Fry's of the Midwest, except that it was usually possible to get
useful technical information out of the employees.

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chollida1
> INNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The board

Is INNEAPOLIS a place or did they really misspell the companies head quarters
location.

A quick search shows their head quarters are in Minnesota so it looks like
they did. Or possibly it's shoddy reporting by the website who cut and pasted
the press release?

~~~
AdamTReineke
Yeah, they're based out of Minneapolis. Probably a copy/paste error somewhere
and they missed the first letter.

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alexqgb
Wouldn't it be something if Radio Shack outlasted Best Buy and Circuit City
both.

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T_S_
It's going to be harder and harder to operate businesses that rely on the
ignorance of their customers to achieve their margin goals. The last time I
was in BB, I was trying to pick up a Roku box. After upselling me by being out
of stock on the heavily advertised cheaper model, the sales person tried to
sell me a connector cable that cost more than the box itself. Nice!

There is no real news about BB's business model in this announcement. A more
interesting question is what remaining verticals are relatively untouched by
transparency and fact-based marketing?

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fourmii
BB isn't going away, it'll just be forced to change. Change it's atrocious
cust. service, adopt some technology and probably close a ton of stores. Not
to mention have more competitive pricing. Now I'm not at all a fan of BB. But
I think BB will survive in some form because there are still many people who
still like to have things instantly and see/try physically. There's still a
segment out there, like the older generation that still need to go somewhere
for 'advice' and get hands on goods.

~~~
jader201
The same could be said about buying books and renting videos, but Borders and
Blockbusters are both on their way out. I agree with the other comments that
this is the beginning of the end for BB.

We are in an era where online businesses are starting to have a real impact on
brick and mortar stores.

~~~
Goronmon
_The same could be said about buying books and renting videos, but Borders and
Blockbusters are both on their way out._

Until someone figures out a way to stream me a SATA cable that I'm missing for
a new computer build I'm putting together on a Saturday, I think that Best Buy
will be able to hang on for quite a while.

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fruchtose
Dunn has been there for 28 years. He started as a sales associate an become
CEO in 2009--truly a remarkable career progression. Dunn may not have caused
Best Buy's mess, but he was promoted by the same people that oversaw it.

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astrodust
I hope they frisk him at the door on the way out and double-check his
receipts.

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yuhong
I wonder what would happen if Geek Squad's Robert Stephens was promoted up.

~~~
422long
Robert Stephen's left BBY last month

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righteous
I parted ways with Best Buy last month and the writing has been on the wall
about Brian for months. Lackluster vision, missed opportunities to capitalize
on growth combined with soft performance meant this was all but certain.

