No, the new business model they're working on is literally the old K-Mart business model... and being old I'll relate what that business model was for all those who don't know what the pre-Sears Holdings merger model was.
K-Mart originally operated under a somewhat brilliant idea of providing the retail store and employees, and product companies and distributors would sign on to lease product space in quantity "X" store locations thereby providing the product inventory for the various departments within the stores. This was the original model K-Mart operated under until the primary book distributor who leased space in nearly all of their stores went out of business. This was the catalyst which set off the domino fall that ultimately brought K-Mart to it's proverbial knees as it lead K-Mart's corporate to make the extremely unwise decision to buyout the nationwide shopping mall bookstore chain "Walden Books". Only K-Mart was absolutely clueless as to what to do with Walden Books once they had acquired it... and this has nothing to do with the business model we were just discussing, oh wait yes it does.
Enter Best Buy, and their connections with K-Mart. K-Mart, Sears, and most every other major retailer in the U.S.A. are members of what was originally a bulk purchasing group called the "
National Retail Federation" (or NRF). This group evolved as it were to become a self policing regulatory committee, or a trade association as they refer to themselves, with its' officials elected from the corporate offices of the member companies. Wal-Mart was kicked out in the early 1990's for member violations. Target at some point was either kicked out or dropped out, not sure which. But the point is that Best Buy is a member of the NRF, and these member groups share retail strategies amongst themselves, good and bad.
Best Buy is presently shooting themselves in the feet buying out "Service" related companies. Last year Best Buy purchased floundering home security technology company Vivent Technologies, which was floundering due to poor quality products and industry leading shoddy customer service. Best Buy promptly integrated "Vivent Security" departments into their major market stores, and it didn't even last a full year, with Best Buy literally firing all of the Vivent department staff at the retail locations and quietly flushing the brand and its products down the toilet. But alas, they plan to re-launch the brand next year (2019), hoping consumers will forget it had existed previously.
This year Best Buy purchased a California based health insurance provider, that was also floundering. And now Best Buy is a authorized medical insurance provider (creepy), and has been seriously pressuring all employees to sign up for coverage that costs more than their average non-management staff member makes in a month.
And they expanded the in-home Geek Squad staffing nationwide this year, now they can make double the mistakes they could before, and boy are they great at that. And next year they plan to double the number of in-store Geek Squad employees, so they can screw up twice as much with computers brought in to to be worked on. I regret to say this division is now a permanent stain on my resume, because every bad thing you've ever heard about Geek Squad services well...
And Best Buy doesn't give a care, because they view all "client" interactions as positive interactions. Got a "technician" (aka ARA) who keeps physically breaking costumer laptops because he refuses to take them apart the right way? Give the customer a gift card and hope they don't complain! Technician accidentally transferred data from customer A's computer onto Customer B's new computer? Offer the customers a gift card! Customer made very specific requests concerning scope of work they wanted performed on their computer, but technicians completely disregarded those instructions? Offer to check it in with a faster turn around!
Point being that when there is clear fault with anyone in the department over any kind of a screw up, no one is punished, no one is fired, no one is required to retrain for whatever it was they clearly screwed up on. Tra-la-la-la-la life goes on and Best Buy doesn't give a crap because they already have the customer's money. Best Buy doesn't care about making issues like this right for their customers, they only care about covering such issues up as quickly as possible and appeasing the customers who experienced the issues by buying their silence, and even then they rarely even try to buy their silence.
But going back to K-Mart, Best Buy's grand idea for 2020 is to have at least 90% of the products available in their stores products in spaces leased out to the manufacturers of the products being offered. They already have lots of spaces in their stores that are this way, and it all fits together in such a way that you, the consumer, are unaware. Samsung, Sony, and LG all lease massive spaces leased and dedicated exclusively to their own products in the home theater department, there is of course the Apple Department, which is not actually part of the general Computer department but being situated next to such makes it seem otherwise, companies like Dyson, Kitchen Aid, Calphalon, and so on all lease product space in the appliances department, and the list goes on and on. All of the leasing companies can opt to buy into a dedicated employee by "hiring" an expert from among the existing staff, said individual will undergo additional training from the company in question, gets branded polo shirts denoting the company for which they are a "product expert" for, and receives a subsidized pay increase compliments of that company, with additional bonus potential for achieving sales goals set for that location by the company they are now representing. Apple is the only company which is not participating in the "expert employee" program, instead staffing one of their own full-time employees inside of Best Buy... the only company choosing to do such. So in this way Best Buy is replicating the original K-Mart business concept model, and taking it up a notch with the addition of the "branded expert employee" program.
Word presently is that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have shown no interest in entering into this business engagement model with Best Buy for their video game divisions, which is why Best Buy abruptly ended their '
Gamer's Club Unlocked' membership discount club program. All memberships will have expired by the time the video game departments are removed from the Best Buy stores. While video games, systems, and accessories may continue to be available through Best Buy stores, it will be because they are merchandise offered through a leased space.
Best Buy has also decided they would prefer to not compete against Amazon.com, instead have now entered into a trial partnership with Amazon to allow consumers to be able to return products bought from Amazon.com (
with Amazon as the seller, so no marketplace items) the ability to return merchandise in person at any Best Buy Customer Service Counter in the U.S.A.. This trial program has already started, and word is that Best Buy corporate and Amazon have already green lighted this partnership for customer service to expand in January, though details of what that will entail haven't yet been revealed.
