What Is Going On At Best Buy? | Retail Archaeology

In this episode we take a look at what is going on with Best Buy.

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[Cow-Moth-With-A-CRT-Head]

Man, I'm still bummed about Fry's Electronics going under. It was so great knowing there was a store that was basically guaranteed to have whatever weird electronic thing I needed that didn't require me to pay extra shipping costs.

[mr.goodboi]

"It's just kinda filled with expensive stuff nobody has money to buy it with now"

TBH that's a pretty good summation of all retail, entertainment and product now.

[andydufresne]

I'm a gen-x mall rat really bummed about the death of retail, especially Frys. I've been using Best Buy since Frys closed and have been happy to usually find exactly what I want, like RAM chips, hard drive, mechanical keyboard, videogame controller, and headphones. My closest store closed six months ago and it depresses me seeing it empty when I visit a store nextdoor to it. Sigh. The 90s really were the best.

[thedavidj]

I didn’t think Best Buy was in trouble until this video. My local Best Buy is always busy and it was recently renovated, and very nicely I might add. It has a VERY extensive home appliance section in mock kitchens, the standard Apple Store (which is now much larger than the old one), a larger Windows store, a well organized TV section, and smaller module like sections for smart home, fitness, and camera equipment. Everything is more set up like a “store within a store” and it makes the shopping experience more interesting.

[PSXfiles]

I worked at a Best Buy in the media department and loss prevention about 15 years ago, and recently stopped by my old store on a trip back visiting family. I was shocked at how empty it was. Empty shelves, no customers, no staff to be seen, expanding into cheap toys on clearance. It was sad to see such a bustling store back in the day that's now so dead. I remember at one of our morning meetings our store manager was making fun that the local Circuit City was closing for good. Karma's a B.

[SHADOSTRYKR]

I worked at Best Buy around 2012, there’s still a few employees working at the same store that were there when I was, I went in to pick up Zelda and was chatting with one and he said it’s been nothing but cost cutting this past year. They’ve dropped a bunch of employees and even some of the more senior ones were laid off or forced to take a downgrade in position. I know for me one reason I frequent Best Buy less is they absolutely gutted the customer loyalty programs. I used to spend enough to get free two day shopping, 2x points, and other benefits. Now only purchases with Best Buy’s own credit card qualify for any rewards and even that has so many restrictions on what products qualify (Apple products for example are excluded) it’s a sure fire way to make people not want to shop with you.

[padistedor]

I think Best Buy was about to go bankrupt before the pandemic, but once everyone needed to work from home, they all ran to Best Buy to buy laptops and other office electronics. Now that we are past that, the stores are struggling again. Best Buy stores won’t last for long.

[moonbladem]

Yeah call me old-fashioned, but I miss those days when I could go into a store like Best Buy and spend hours browsing the PC games, CDs and DVDs. The selection was mind-boggling, so it was easy to kill time there. I think it's the combination of streaming, downloading games versus owning a physical copy of the game, online shopping etc that's causing the demise of stores like these.

[davidb]

Being a kid in the 90s I'll never forget when Best Buy had tube TVs stack together which formed a giant TV that would display N64 games that people could play. Over the past 20 years it always seemed like Best Buy electronics were overpriced.

[carson]

The thing is I think this experience is based on a store to store bases. My local Best Buy is always full during normal peak hours. It's also well staffed, stocked, and overall a more welcoming place. I wouldn't have even imagined a Best Buy in that condition until I saw your video. From the experience I had at my local one I would've never questioned the company's health. Although I always had a nabbing thought in the back of my head saying "Why haven't they crumbled like the rest". I wonder what lead to such inconsistency?

[reallyretro]

Last time I stepped foot inside of a Best Buy, it was the most depressing feeling ever. Devoid of people, and way too much stuff all over the place in different sections scattered throughout. I used to buy a ton of DVD’s and CD’s from this place back in the day when it was a thriving business. The problem with this place is they refuse to change with the times, just like all the others that went bankrupt. Bed Bath and Beyond, Sears, Kmart, etc.

[newerapandattv]

I work for Best Buy and I’m on my way out. You hit the nail on the coffin when you say it’s depressing. If you would ever want to speak to someone who’s been in the warzone I’m always open to chat. Great video 😊

[Smiles]

Considering for YEARS they've been pushing people to shop online I'm not really surprised they're not doing good, the last several times I've shopped at Best Buy they never have what I want BUT like always I'm told I can order it online and have it shipped to the store or to my home. I get online shopping is the norm nowadays but I really don't appreciate them keeping low stock and forcing us toward buying online.

[boskostoybox]

I'm 50 and I miss the days of Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's and Radio Shack.

[canyon]

I go to Best Buy pretty frequently, but only because it's attached to my local mall as one of the major stores that has a parking lot on the outside. One thing I notice that looks familiar to mine is you never EVER see an employee. They genuinely don't exist. No joke I once witnessed a woman walk out of the store with an Amiibo to trigger the anti theft alarm to get the employees to come out of hiding so she could ask one of them to grab her an iPad mini she was trying to buy

[namegoeshere]

I worked for Best Buy for about 6 months selling home theater stuff. Every manager and supervisor I had was very obviously bullied in high school and relished at the thought of now being a manager where they were now able to wield some level of power over people. The shitty sales culture sucked. I remember one manager pointing at some frail old man and telling me to "go take a jackhammer to his wallet." They wanted us to sign as many people up for credit cards as possible. The high pressure sales culture was pretty gross and whenever I was a customer, being bothered by overzealous pickup artist-esque salesmen was always the worst part of going into a store like this.

[KonaSuba]

Whenever you buy something at best buy they will try to set you up with their credit card, get you to buy their $200 total tech support and buy all the protection plans on every item you got.

[TheBigExclusive]

It seems to be highly location dependent. Locations near me are good. I don't think Best Buy will completely disappear, but they will trim the fat and get rid of stores that don't perform. We will always need a store where we can physically see the items and test them.

[SurpriseMechanics]

I recently bought a rather expensive computer monitor. Instead of buying it on Amazon and risking having it broken during delivery or stolen, I decided to buy it through Best Buy so I could pick it up myself. When I went to pickup the order, the store manager thanked me in person for buying it there. That definitely seemed odd to me. The store was totally empty though just like in this video. Maybe they’re headed in the same direction as Fry’s.

[bstanga]

I haven’t been into a Best Buy for probably 8-10 years. Once they stopped selling CDs and DVDs, I had zero reason to walk through the doors.