Tag Archives: Best Buy

Haggling is New Business Mode

Consumerism, , ,
Black Friday
Black FridayDa

Consumers are becoming bolder.  Since they have access to prices of the same item in other stores at their fingertips due to smartphones, they are using this is as a bargaining tool.  Rather than getting hot under the collar about this, some companies are following the old adage, ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ and using this to their advantage.  For example, during the holiday season Best Buy, invited their customers to come bargain with them on items, as long as they provided proof of lower prices.  Other stores are doing the same – although they might not be advertising this outright.

Still, employers are actually now training their staff in the art of making deals.  Bargaining still has to be conducted with style.  As VP for Consumer Strategy and Insights at Daymon Worldwide, Virginia Morris notes, it must be “consumer-initiated,” and offers made need to be reasonable and done in a polite manner.  And the customer realizes also that the store does not want to lose their custom.  So they will try to be accommodating as much as possible, should the haggle be reasonable.

It seems a lot of work is still needed if the US is going to recover its peak on shopping sales from last year.  According to figures from the National Retail Federation, even though stores were open for four days over the Black Friday-Thanksgiving time span, sales dropped 2.9 percent from last year’s figure to $57.4bn.  It should be noted that this figure is the first decrease in seven years since the Federation has been estimating spending.

So what else are stores trying in the hope of drawing in potential customers?  Leigh’s Fashions in Breton Village were handing out glasses of wine or cups of coffee in an attempt to de-stress the consumer shopping experience.  According to one of the store’s co-owners, Rebecca Weirda, they did this in an attempt to distinguish their store from the mall experience.  They also offer free wrapping services and shopping parties during December.

The week following Black Friday the amount of store shoppers dropped by nearly 22 percent.  However, economically, this figure does not account for those who are shopping online.  Still, the figure is tough for those retailers who anticipate making 40 percent of their revenue in the last two months of the year.

Best Buy Making a Comeback

Companies, , , ,
Hubert Joly CEO of Best Buy
Hubert Joly CEO of Best Buy

After two long years of being in the duldrums Best Buy finally posted its best quarterly revenues, boding well for a turnaround which has long been in the making.

Best Buy, along with other “big box” retailers, have been facing fierce competition from the Internet, the place consumers have been turning to more and more for appliances and other electronic gadgetry.

Observers and investors were wondering whether the shift in venues was a permanent change. The fact that Best Buy seems to be making a comeback implies that retailers still have some clout with consumers.

The improvement can be attributed to the work of Chief Executive Officer Hubert Joly, who took over leadership at Best Buy one year ago. Known a s corporate turnaround specialist, Joly was brought aboard to specifically address Best Buys many problems.

High on the list of trouble spots were BB’s high prices. At the center of the issue is the phenomenon known as “show rooming” where potential buyers come into a store to view the product, but buy it somewhere else at a considerably lower price. Internet sites such as Amazon, which have very little overhead, can easily sell the same items for less money.

Joly instituted a price matching program, promising to match the prices of 19 on-line competitors and also local stores. Best Buy will also rebate money if the store lowers its price within 15 days of purchase. Joly wants to “eliminate price as an obstacle to buying.”

But he is not trying to undercut the competition either.

“We love the traffic on our site, in our stores, and we don’t want to lose a customer because of price. But we don’t feel that we need to be lower than (the) competition,” he said. “We just don’t want to be beat.”