Comments on: .com Strategy Musings

By: Best Buy CMO uses blog for candid conversation | Business Blogging Blog

Best Buy CMO uses blog for candid conversation | Business Blogging Blog — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:57:25 +0000

[...] Barry’s closing thoughts on a recent post epitomizes openness and transparency: “There are obviously different points of view on this. I am interested in hearing feedback and on mine and differing thoughts.” [...]

By: Cindy Malony

Cindy Malony — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:09:37 +0000

Hello, I am so mad about the way best buy has treated us very bad. My TV 42? Plasma has not worked in a month. I have made so many phone calls and worked so hard to get a technician it has been unreal. We were lied to and deceived and manipulated into buying this TV because they did not have the one we wanted. The sales man told us to purchase a warranty and if anything like if it fell off the wall, or a baseball went through it they would replace it immediately. WRONG. Now we find out none of that was true. My TV will not turn on now for a month, and now they don’t have the TV we have to replace the one we have. I have added this problem to ripoff report and realized 1,070 people has had bad experiences with Best Buy, I will never recommend them to anyone, also I will contact Attorney General in Illinois to let them know. When I called to get a technician here I was lied to again and was told they would be here on the 14th then spoke to a manager and said that wasn’t true It showed the 19th, This started the beginning of October. I feel this is a horrible way to treat customers. And at this point I am just mad as hell about Best Buy, you shouldn’t’t even have that name. So I also find out if the tech can’t fix it and I need another TV I have to wait up to 5 days more this is a bunch of crap. And now how can it be replaced with something they don’t even have anymore. Someone from the top needs to contact me or it’s only gonna get worse from here. I will contact every newspaper possible about customer treatment. At this point I don’t even wan’t this one fixed I want to be compensated for what we been through with a better TV. I would like to be contacted immediately before this has to go any further than it has. Today a Tech showed up and now you have to order parts and wait for help again. I would prefer this TV be replaced because I never want to go through this trouble again and now the TV we have Best Buy doesn’t carry anymore. We would like a TV for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Cindy Malony
Makanda, IL.

By: barryjudge

barryjudge — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:58:10 +0000

Skeet:

Right on.

By: Skeet

Skeet — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:57:29 +0000

Bottom line – ask the customer. Let customer insights drive your decision. If you think there is an opportunity from these insights, test it out and assess the results. Just make sure you haven’t put too much money into it if it hasn’t worked.

By: barryjudge

barryjudge — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:01:20 +0000

I really like the new category angle. Best Buy needs to focus on delivering on a consumer benefits like the ones that you ascribe above. And if we get good at being the Brand that can make these benefits come true, then consumers will want more from us as in the example of getting into more categories. For me, the only long term sustainable growth strategy for a retailer is to get more relevant via expanding the definition of what that Brand can do via new categories and services. You are spot on.

By: Linda

Linda — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:07:37 +0000

I’m late to the party on this one! I agree there are value props and strategies you can do online that simply aren’t feasible instore. However, I don’t think you need a dual brand strategy. Best Buy has such name recognition already, I think the question is more about how to give consumers what they want and probably to some degree EXPECT from Best Buy online– which is the cutting edge technology products and information but MORE than they can get in store. The key is extending the value Best Buy already has in the consumer’s mind– by providing products and services online that are connected to making life simpler through technology, the latest and greatest.

BBY could extend into tech clothing for example (stuff that holds your technology)
http://www.scottevest.com, or has technology buildt in.

Or into Health related technology http://www.yonex.com/tennis/technology/clothing.html, http://www.miowatch.com/, http://www.ingenious.carleton.ca/2005-10/78.htm

These are not products BBY typically sells but seems like a natural extension and fits with growing trends in “health”. Maybe its even not actually carrying inventory on these products but rather connecting the consumer to them somehow– direct links to the sites with cool stuff.

PS I think Eq life was an idea ahead of its time

By: JMA

JMA — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:42:17 +0000

Barry – I work in Finance at BBY. I developed a website located here: http://www.Jingletree.com. My target market is working professionals. The aim is to provide a website where people come daily vs. only when they are in the market for Best Buy electronics. Jingletree.com pulls in RSS feeds from news, business, entertainment, sports, magazine and online deal sites. These feeds provide a quick glimpse at many sites and easy links into topics of interest for the user (like a iGoogle). Now that it is set up it requires zero maintenance yet the information is continuously updated. Once a loyal following is created, this site would provide Best Buy with a new (and free) marketing channel.

Would you support this site & help get that loyal following?

By: Scott Pete

Scott Pete — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:15:01 +0000

I believe there are strategic advantages to a dual brand. By doing so, there are a number of opportunities that could be tapped that would be difficult to capture through the existing brand.

The obvious advantage is starting with a clean slate – no baggage or predispositions, good or bad, right or wrong with respect to brand.

But the real opportunity, as I see it, is in defining a new customer experience – leveraging a true customer-centric methodology. That will involve a change in the way customers are viewed, a new way of messaging to, communicating with, and building conversations with them. It will require new metrics, new thinking, and new methods of interacting with customers.

Amazon was mentioned above and provides an interesting example. I have been a loyal B&N customer for years – I love visiting their retail locations. This is the first year that I did not renew my membership with them, and my first year as an Amazon Prime member. I still love the B&N stores, like to browse there but find that I have access to a wider variety of merchandise at better prices through Amazon. They used to have 90+% share of my wallet, now they’ve got about 10-20%. And it just took a few compelling offers followed by a very favorable customer experience to switch me over. Granted, Amazon has tried for years – for me the value proposition has only recently clicked through Amazon Prime.

For Best Buy, I believe a similar type of opportunity exists. Initially a second brand strategy could by tailored for certain audience subsets and pesonas, tapping new markets and capturing long-tail opportunities. It could retain customers that may already be at-risk.

In my experience working with clients in this area, it is a very slow migration from a product-centric culture to this more customer-centric one. A new online brand would likely deliver customer-centricity in a much faster timeframe than with trying to shift the existing organization. By delivering that new experience, customers can be engaged in new ways. Longer term, this could ultimately facilitate the building of deeper relationships with customers and provide a huge strategic advantage for Best Buy through its new online brand.

By: Kevin Matheny

Kevin Matheny — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:14:11 +0000

I’m not sold on the idea that we need a second brand online to market to customers who don’t like Best Buy. For one thing, any connection would be hard to conceal, as pointed out above. For another, I don’t think that “dislikes Best Buy” is something we can build an effective marketing campaign around, although I’ll defer to you on that.

I do like the idea of additional brands, though.

A different brand could help us extend our reach into new product areas without creating confusion. We already have customers who are confused and frustrated that the online store does not have the same selection and prices as the store in their neighborhood. As we look into line extensions like fitness equipment, I think we increase the risk of muddying the image of the brand.

Also, a different brand can simply present a different image, and as you pointed out today, if it’s a separate legal entity might be able to avoid charging sales tax on purchases, which helps the value proposition. Might be some tricky legal gyrations on that one.

And to chime in on the personalization/Remix angle so dear to my heart: Yes, absolutely. We’re so close to being able to give customers the ability to define their own experience, I can almost taste it.

By: sbendt

sbendt — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:33:36 +0000

The big question is- what do people want? Good way to find out is let others build it. Now that we’ve opened the APIs (REMIX), we’ve essentially handed out the keys to let people take Best Buy’s dotcom data and make it meaningful.

If you look at what Google did with the Android Developer Challenge, they put out $10M in rewards for people who built the best applications against the Android APIs. Some pretty cool stuff came out of it.

http://code.google.com/android/adc.html

It got people interested, gave them a reason to develop against the platform, and ideas were produced that Google may never have thought of.

We could do the same…. Could be an awesome way to listen.