CNBC Looks at How Best Buy Is Fighting Back
If you look around your house right now, I’m guessing you’ll find at least one thing you bought at Best Buy.
But if you’re like me, those purchases have gotten fewer and farther between thanks to places like Wal-Mart and Amazon.com. And that’s becoming a big problem for the company…
Tonight, CNBC’s Tyler Mathisen looks at how the company is fighting to stay relevant in the changing marketplace in the CNBC special, “Best Buy: The Big Box Fights Back.”
The hour is worth watching just to get a look inside Geek Squad City in Louisville, the place where items that need repair are sent. It’s also interesting to see how Best Buy was born from a simple music store.
But probably the most interesting part of the hour is seeing why the company has failed overseas. Turns out, it’s the same reason it’s in trouble here—savvy shoppers are doing more price comparing. And in China, it’s almost a sport to haggle stores for lower prices—and more often than not, the customers win. Wouldn’t that be fun here?
The one thing you won’t see during the special that I wish you would is some discussions about Best Buy’s customer service problems. The interview with CEO Brian Dunn—a guy you really want to believe in and root for—was clearly done before Christmas and the controversy over Best Buy cancelling Black Friday online orders. So all we see are the happy faces camping out in front of Best Buy stores Thanksgiving night. We don’t see the unhappy people who didn’t get the Christmas gifts they ordered. I would have liked to have heard Dunn’s response to that…
“Best Buy: The Big Box Fights Back” premieres tonight (Thursday, January 19th) at 9 on CNBC. You can see an encore tonight at 10…
