Why Best Buy Failed In The U.K.

Best Buy survived the Great Recession and rise of Amazon that crushed so many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. Its stock reached a peak in 2018 and is still among the top retailers of consumer electronics. But back in 2010, its attempt to break into the U.K. market failed within two short years.

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Why Best Buy Failed In The U.K

[gavinbissell]

It's a shame because they generally undercut the other stores if you shopped carefully but in the UK we hate sales people. That was the wrong way to go.

[NeoTimbo]

The women in the video is wrong about almost everything. She talks about the whole UK as if everybody lived in the centre London, when in reality 95% doesn’t.
If you were to buy a fridge, or really any big box electrical your main options are curry’s or John Lewis. Most curry’s stores are big box Best Buy style stores that you have to drive to and John Lewis is like sears in large shopping malls. Our shopping culture is a 50/50 between Europe and the US.
The truth is really that Best Buy just entered the market at the wrong time. Just as they left the UK market, Comet went bankrupt and Curry’s/PC world stared merging stores, so we basically now only have one big electronics store brand. If they had just waited until 2013 and entered the UK market then, I’m sure they could have survived here with their model.
We certainly could do with the competition because Curry’s is a bag of ****. I mean if Costco can thrive in the U.K., Best Buy definitely could have.

[mrcritic]

I was working in Currys when BestBuy opened in Thurrock, Essex.
Most customers were saying that they wont support the "American" shop as it seemed arrogant.
They really thought theyll come in & swoop market share.

[AppleUK]

Wow, didn't even know that Best Buy had stores in the UK.

[jofarrell]

similar to why walmart failed in germany. misunderstood the market and consumer behaviour of europeans

[matthewstevens]

The reason Best Buy failed in the UK is because we and the whole world was in a recession, big stores like PC World had to be bought by Curry’s and Comet liquidated and went bankrupt in 2012. 2008 til 2013 were hard years for stores like Best Buy and if they had of waited just til 2014/15 they may have succeeded in the UK and that’s what CNBC forgot to mention.

[Wasserfeld.]

I remember the Best Buy at Purley Way in Croydon.


The UK is a European market (shock horror! we're a 20 mins train ride from France). US companies cannot come to the UK and use a US style approach here. It must be heavily tailored otherwise it comes across as arrogant and annoying. We don't like massive stores, we don't like US style adverts and we don't like being constantly talked at. If a member of staff is all overly happy we're wondering wtf is wrong with them lol.

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

Why Target Failed in Canada, that would be a good one

[OutOfNamesToChoose]

Also, people buy from John Lewis if they want great customer service on electronics; it was a niche that was already fulfilled to some extent.

[liamsmith]

Do a story on how chipotle is doing now post scandal

[andrewsmall]

I dont think people here in the UK need or want "service" and they are certainly not going to pay a premium over Amazon for it. Going to a big box store and asking the sales person for advice feels very outdated. Best Buy came along right at the time when people were getting used to Amazon next day delivery, and the ability to collect your Amazon parcel from a local convenience store. Even outside of London, its quite inconvenient to drive to a big box store with traffic. People might do it for Ikea that offers something that cannot be found elsewhere at a price others cannot beat - but for electronics that are cheaper online, and more convenient to be delivered to your door - to a population that is intelligent and does its own research... just a failed outdated model.

[Mershell]

I’m happy bestbuy hasn’t went out of business. I love Best Buy.

Europe and US markets are very different. One of the main difference is space. You can see how big stores fail to be successful in European market largely because Europeans are not used to massive stores, they don't even like massive cars that is why GM and Ford could never be successful in their Pick up truck line of production as they are in North America. At least Best Buy should have learnt from Walmart that how it failed in Germany. You just cant replica what is in US to Europe.

[TransitAndTeslas]

Why Best Buy is failing in the U.K. ? Same reason for the US, it’s a showroom for amazon.

[Axtrosity]

Bruh an 100ft Ethernet cable at best buy costs $100 and I got it on eBay for $15. It’s a failure in the US too

[Retrofuturia]

Great content CNBC, bring more of these please 👍

[bromptonbikelover]

In 2010 I went to Best Buy in Hedge End UK as I was in the area and needed a new iMac, I came into the Apple section of the store and was almost instantly pounced on by this overbearing bloke with beige trousers on started waffling on about Windows computers, He had come over from the states I know this because he would not shut up about it, after about 10 minutes of being polite I asked him to leave me alone as he was getting on my nerves, He became very arrogant and said "I'm only trying to help you sir, I wanna make sure you know why you should choose a Windows over a Mac" This is seen as incredibly rude in the UK, It's almost as if he thinks I'm stupid and he's like some PC wank wizard. I did end up buying an iMac 21'5 from him, but I was not impressed by how they operated. It felt like they didn't care we were a whole different breed of people with different thoughts and culture, Same as if Currys PC world laughed in the states, it would fail.

[raystewart]

UK - We dont drive cars that much, we like public transport in and around big cities.
Thats one major problem there, the US don't think about that when opening stores in the UK or in Europe.

[joshlikescola]

The UK is definitely somewhere between the US and Europe generally.

We have a mixture of large out of town stores and dense shopping centres. In fact, sometimes the big stores are all just outside the town/city centre so people shopping there can get there in about a 5/10 minute walk. Curry's/PC world run some very large retail spaces, as do Tesco.

US brands that are willing to adapt and bring something genuinely new to the table can generally make a success of it!

[Nishith]

Best buy is what a modern supermarket chain should be...