BEST BUY IMPLODES: Misses Revenue, Firing 400, Closing 50 Stores. Gaming clearance?

Glasscocked

Glasscocked

CAGiversary!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/best-buy-shutter-50-big-120457157.html

I am excited to expect BB to finally close up and clearance all thier games out ala Circuit City. Good job BB, even with Circuit City and all physical retail competition gone they still manage to go under. Now we wait for the store closings and hope our local stores are the ones that disappear and clearance out their games. Hell, even if they don't clearance out their games I doubt anyone besides employees even notices.
 
What would stop them from shipping out things to other stores? Nothing. I see no reason for them to do massive clearances here.
 
[quote name='Glasscocked']http://finance.yahoo.com/news/best-buy-shutter-50-big-120457157.html

I am excited to expect BB to finally close up and clearance all thier games out ala Circuit City. Good job BB, even with Circuit City and all physical retail competition gone they still manage to go under. Now we wait for the store closings and hope our local stores are the ones that disappear and clearance out their games. Hell, even if they don't clearance out their games I doubt anyone besides employees even notices.[/QUOTE]

Wow, Yahoo must really be hurting for page views. They missed their revenue by $500 million (they reported earnings of $16.6 billion) and they're closing 4% of their stores. Yep, Yahoo.. total company implosion. :roll:
 
[quote name='Scorch']Wow, Yahoo must really be hurting for page views. They missed their revenue by $500 million (they reported earnings of $16.6 billion) and they're closing 4% of their stores. Yep, Yahoo.. total company implosion. :roll:[/QUOTE]

Ditto. I read the same story in the Washington Post today, and it wasn't nearly as apocalypic. Basically, the move is an attempt to avoid becoming Circuit City. Don't know if they will make it, because Best Buy has greater problems than too many stores.
 
[quote name='Scorch']Wow, Yahoo must really be hurting for page views. They missed their revenue by $500 million (they reported earnings of $16.6 billion) and they're closing 4% of their stores. Yep, Yahoo.. total company implosion. :roll:[/QUOTE]

They are closing 50 retail stores and laying off 400 employees. That certainly sounds "implosion-ish" to me. I don't care about the bottom line, thier missed earning, or their business. I only care about them selling games for as cheap as possible and that's it.
 
Why do people talk about a possible BB closure like it is a good thing? They are by far the best B&M retailer of the last six months and with Amazon being as shitty as they have been lately I have purchased more games online from best buy then any other retailer so far this year.

Jesus christ.. sour grapes anyone? I too buy from the cheapest retailer and that this year has been Best Buy.. not Walmart, Target, TRU, Amazon and certainly not gamestop.

Missing your revenue by 500million when someone posted their sales exceed 16 billion and closing 4% of your stores isn't foreshadowing a massive closure.


Good try though and for your dumbass sake I do hope they go out of businses so you can get used to the other retailers being even less competitive and you can pay MSRP an even greater percentage of the time
 
[quote name='GBAstar']Why do people talk about a possible BB closure like it is a good thing? They are by far the best B&M retailer of the last six months and with Amazon being as shitty as they have been lately I have purchased more games online from best buy then any other retailer so far this year.

Jesus christ.. sour grapes anyone? I too buy from the cheapest retailer and that this year has been Best Buy.. not Walmart, Target, TRU, Amazon and certainly not gamestop.

Missing your revenue by 500million when someone posted their sales exceed 16 billion and closing 4% of your stores isn't foreshadowing a massive closure.


Good try though and for your dumbass sake I do hope they go out of businses so you can get used to the other retailers being even less competitive and you can pay MSRP an even greater percentage of the time[/QUOTE]

You are more than welcome to your opinion.
 
[quote name='Glasscocked']I only care about them selling games for as cheap as possible and that's it.[/QUOTE]

And how long do you think that will last once a number cruncher in HQ looks at the Gamer mag sales, sees that they're losing tons of money on each couponed game sold, and pulls the plug on that?
 
Someone suggested that one of the ways Best Buy put the squeeze on Circuit City was to open up a new store in the same place every time CC would open up one. It worked, but now that CC is gone, there are a lot of BBs too close to each other that are unnecessary. Leases that were signed way back are just not being renewed.

I dont think its a big deal in that scenario.
 
I don't think It's a big deal either. Just way too many stores, kinda like Wal-Mart has done in my state though with Wal-Mart It's got everything and Best Buy, well, just has electronics.
 
[quote name='Glasscocked']You are more than welcome to your opinion.[/QUOTE]


Okay. What is your opinion?

Who has been the best B&M retailer for video games since last November?

Who has been the best online B&M retailer so far in 2012?
 
[quote name='GBAstar']Okay. What is your opinion?

Who has been the best B&M retailer for video games since last November?

Who has been the best online B&M retailer so far in 2012?[/QUOTE]

And why are they the "best" from the CAG perspective? Because they are good at providing loss leaders to get gamers to shop with them. Too much of such things isn't always good for the bottom line. What may be good for CAG might not be good from a business perspective. That is why one company doesn't win the CAG game consistantly, because if they did, either their competition is over charging, or the business won't last long.
 
This is pretty sensationalist. It's definitely not good news but OP you sound like you are ready to dance on Best Buy's grave. I don't think we are quite there yet. I doubt there are going to be many if any good deals to be had, as the store closures mean they will probably move inventory rather than clearance a lot of things.

Best Buy has definitely been better in the past year about cheap games and such, it would be a shame for them to exit the marketplace for the simple fact that competition is what gets us good gaming deals.
 
[quote name='TheLongshot']And why are they the "best" from the CAG perspective? Because they are good at providing loss leaders to get gamers to shop with them. Too much of such things isn't always good for the bottom line. What may be good for CAG might not be good from a business perspective. That is why one company doesn't win the CAG game consistantly, because if they did, either their competition is over charging, or the business won't last long.[/QUOTE]


That is a very easy question and I will provide you a very simple answer I hope you can understand.

They provide the widest range of video games, from older titles to new releases at prices lower then any one else offers them. Yes this sometimse involves a coupon which you have to pay $5 but even with that factored in the games are cheaper.

They are competitive with the pricing of their CE/LE/SE and they offer GC or RZ certs on new releases as well as cheaper prices on day 1 releases.


I don't understand how someone can have sour grapes with best buy for a bad experience three years ago yet still have a crush on Amazon when they havent' done shit in the last 6 months including the absolute worse black friday and deal of the day / lightning deals.
 
In my area we have 3 BBs within about 10 miles of each other. I could see one of them closing, but I would prefer they all stick around. I like shopping instore sometimes, even though I am a Silver member with free shipping. The store personnel at all 3 stores are very nice and those working in video games are great!
 
Best Buy actually closed a store by me already like a month ago, who knows if there were any others they already closed before this announcement. Best Buy is in deep deep trouble. Their overhead costs are too high to compete with Amazon. They are trying to move away from the store model of massive square footage and tons of employees. BB isn't going to die tomorrow but I believe they are a sinking ship and wouldn't go anywhere near them with my investment dollars. The one thing that could possibly help save them is legislation that requires Amazon, and other online retailers, to collect sales tax. Online retailers have a 5-10 percent pricing advantage that destroys BB profit margin and makes it very difficult for them to offer competitive prices. I don't see that legislation coming any time soon though.
 
[quote name='GBAstar']They provide the widest range of video games, from older titles to new releases at prices lower then any one else offers them. Yes this sometimse involves a coupon which you have to pay $5 but even with that factored in the games are cheaper.

They are competitive with the pricing of their CE/LE/SE and they offer GC or RZ certs on new releases as well as cheaper prices on day 1 releases.[/quote]

I think you missed the point of what I was saying, that being the cheapest isn't always good for business.

Anyways, I think some of what you say is wrong. More variety than Amazon? No. Cheaper? Certainly better deals with new games, but not with older catalog titles. (I remember Metroid: Other M being at full price when other retailers had long since discounted it.)

I don't understand how someone can have sour grapes with best buy for a bad experience three years ago yet still have a crush on Amazon when they havent' done shit in the last 6 months including the absolute worse black friday and deal of the day / lightning deals.
Click to expand...

Well, I don't think you are talking about me, since I haven't said anything about that, but this is kinda what I'm talking about. From a CAG perspective, the deals aren't good, but it is good for Amazon since they do sell a lot.

Funny thing is, Amazon has been focusing on attracting customers to their PC game business, and many feel that they've been eating Steam's lunch. Thing is, I think all of this goes in cycles, with those who are looking to drum up business dropping their prices to attract customers. The leaders today aren't likely to be the leaders tomorrow, and the great deals aren't always going to be great.
 
[quote name='Glasscocked']They are closing 50 retail stores and laying off 400 employees. That certainly sounds "implosion-ish" to me. I don't care about the bottom line, thier missed earning, or their business. I only care about them selling games for as cheap as possible and that's it.[/QUOTE]

As of 2010, there were 180,000 employees. That's a total of 4% of stores and .002% of employees. How is that an "implosion"?
 
[quote name='Scorch']As of 2010, there were 180,000 employees. That's a total of 4% of stores and .002% of employees. How is that an "implosion"?[/QUOTE]

They arent laying of only 400 people-that number is how many people in management are losing their jobs. Also, if your numbers are accurate, 4 percent of stores is very significant and a very bad indication of their continued downward trend. This isnt the first bad financial data from best buy. They have been struggling for a while. Their overhead costs, combined with having to collect sales tax, are making it very difficult to compete with more streamlined online companies. This trend will continue unless management comes up with some new ideas. There current vision seems to be shifting the company to smaller, mobile phones, focused retail space. I personally am not excited by that from an investors stand point. Really, they need to be doing as much lobbying as possible to get legislation passed to force amazon to collect sales tax so that they can compete on equal footing.
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']What would stop them from shipping out things to other stores? Nothing. I see no reason for them to do massive clearances here.[/QUOTE]

Depends on what their goal of closing the stores is.

If they're closing the stores to cut costs and prevent future losses then you're right; there's no reason for them to do massive clearance sales.

If, on the other hand though, they're closing stores to generate revenue (ala the current Kmart/Sears situation) then they have all the incentive in the world to sell as much inventory out of those closing stores as possible.

I get the impression that in Best Buy's case their incentive to close these stores is to cut costs and "trim the fat" not so much that they need capital so I have a feeling you're right and we won't be seeing much in the way of massive clearances.


Sucks for Minnesota's economy (which is already in the shitter) as I'd imagine most of those 400 corporate job cuts are taking place there.
 
They aren't doing it to raise revenue, they have made it incredibly clear it's to cut costs. They are trying to downside their physical presence and are shifting from huge retail space to smaller mobile locations. There won't be a significant clearance sale. When the one by me recently closed they sent me an email and it did mention a sale on open box items. I never checked it out but I think that's the only inventory they were liquidating. The email mentioned the store would be closed for a couple days to "move inventory" and then reopen to sell the open box stuff.
 
Not shocked, every retailer does this now and again. On the other hand, I kinda wish they did take the time to evaluate their employees. Every gamestop near me has employees who are 10x better than the ones working at my Best Buy and it's sad. Best Buy however I like as a store, they have great deals and good tivs.
 
My biggest gripe with Best Buy is that I have terrible time finding someone when I actually need help. When I'm just there killing 20 minutes, videogame section dude won't leave me the fuck alone.
 
[quote name='Halo05']My biggest gripe with Best Buy is that I have terrible time finding someone when I actually need help. When I'm just there killing 20 minutes, videogame section dude won't leave me the fuck alone.[/QUOTE]
Believe me, 99% of those dudes don't want to bother you also, but management gets on their ass for customer contact. If it's slow in the dept, they'll have them contact you again in 5 minutes just to see if you have a question, or if it's busy, it's for any hint of "suspicious activity" to prevent shrink. I've worked there for 2 years, I know all about the shit all these workers have to go through. The other 1%? They're just assholes or new guys all gung ho about their job ^___^

By the way, Best Buy is obviously aware about it's losses, otherwise the associates nowadays would NOT harass you with 3rd rate sales techniques and bundles/services along with your purchases. They see their future hopes in Best Buy Mobile, which is why you see those mobile locations popping up all over the place and commercials mainly geared towards it.
 
As said on Reddit, these are stores that Best Buy rushed to the market to beat Circuit City and have leases ending, so they're killing them off.
 
[quote name='TheLongshot']
Anyways, I think some of what you say is wrong. More variety than Amazon? No. Cheaper? Certainly better deals with new games, but not with older catalog titles. (I remember Metroid: Other M being at full price when other retailers had long since discounted it.)[/quote]
Metroid: Other M I saw multiple times there for $5 during the holiday season. April issue is giving you $30 off it.

To those thinking it is a great deal for signs to come, hoping for Best Buy's true demise...
Without competition, the deals will not exist since they will already have your business.

The day I can't see a TV, prior to buying it, will be a very sad day in this consumer's eyes.
 
[quote name='Sir_Fragalot']Not shocked, every retailer does this now and again. On the other hand, I kinda wish they did take the time to evaluate their employees. Every gamestop near me has employees who are 10x better than the ones working at my Best Buy and it's sad. Best Buy however I like as a store, they have great deals and good tivs.[/QUOTE]


You must have some good Gamestop stores

At least it appears that Best Buy's have some what of a dress code and hygeine conduct policy.. can't say the same for many of the Gamestop's I've frequented... although I guess one of the perks to low pay is being able to wear jeans and old COD Promo t-shirts
 
I was thinking BBY is done for but someone on Reddit, who is a BBY grunt, made a rather thoughful post.

It basically said that back when CC was still around, BBY would basically prevent CC from opening new stores by outbidding CC on space. So that resulted in BBY having stores very close together or in low-volume areas (which are now dead areas). So now, the stores being closed are the one of two that are too close together or are in those dead areas.

BBY is also opening up 100 new smaller locations/mobile stores which are much more profitable (since they don't carry stuff like appliances). I guess the Yahoo article either forgot to mention that or the author didn't know about it.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...VMPF5A?docId=e7f03e532a7340da97cabefd01ce3e7c
 
I don't get why some people love to see a big retail chain go bankrupt. I don't like gamestop but I don't wish they close down forever. Its not like the executives up top, responsible for running the company poorly are going to be punished. In the end its the ones on the bottom that loses out, with people out of a job and less money flowing into your community. You as a customer will also lose out since you have one less option and one less competitor for another company to fear.

People were happy as hell when Netflix basically took out blockbuster. But that changed last year when Netflix decided to hike there prices by 60%. If blockbuster was on an equal competitive playing field as Netflix, I doubt Netflix would even consider such a drastic price increase.

Its basically the same thing happening with Amazon and Best Buy. One internet only company and one brick & mortar/internet company losing the fight. Amazon no longer sees Best Buy as a threat or other retailers in that case. They removed there price matching policy a few years ago. Now they price match other retailers when they feel like it. If Best Buy disappears like Circuit City, you can pretty much see Amazon never needing to price match another retailer again or offer competitive pricing. Don't even think about saving on tax cause Amazon has agreed to charging tax in more states starting this year.

With Best Buy gone, good luck getting Amazon to price match a decent video game deal from Gamestop/Walmart/Target cause they rarely do them.
 
I share his exact opinion. I would rather have all the @gamer deals now than a slim chance at a lousy liquidation sale[quote name='Glasscocked']You are more than welcome to your opinion.[/QUOTE]
 
[quote name='shadowkast']I share his exact opinion. I would rather have all the @gamer deals now than a slim chance at a lousy liquidation sale[/QUOTE]

And liquidation does tend to be lousy for those looking for deals, as Circuit City and Borders prove. It is rare you actually find good deals, since the good stuff usually goes before it gets cheap enough to be worth it.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']Depends on what their goal of closing the stores is.

If they're closing the stores to cut costs and prevent future losses then you're right; there's no reason for them to do massive clearance sales.

If, on the other hand though, they're closing stores to generate revenue (ala the current Kmart/Sears situation) then they have all the incentive in the world to sell as much inventory out of those closing stores as possible.

I get the impression that in Best Buy's case their incentive to close these stores is to cut costs and "trim the fat" not so much that they need capital so I have a feeling you're right and we won't be seeing much in the way of massive clearances.


Sucks for Minnesota's economy (which is already in the shitter) as I'd imagine most of those 400 corporate job cuts are taking place there.[/QUOTE]

Sears is ultimately going to become a holding company. So that's a completely different situation. I don't think BestBuy has any interest in doing that. Having said that, BestBuy needs to figure out how to fend off Target and Walmart. They are the real competition. They are never going to beat Amazon in the long run (because of overhead costs) but if they can fend off Target and Walmart they might survive. We shall see.

Good luck to all the folks who are being laid off.
 
Will be interested to see the list of stores closing. Not because I wanna pick the closest corpse clean, but I'm pretty sure the St. Peters, MO location will be on there. Place is stocked for squat and employee count is wavering... Can't be long before it closes.
 
Here's an idea for future BB success:
Get ALL your store managers/LoDs to actually follow company policy. Novel concept, I know.
 
[quote name='Glasscocked']They are closing 50 retail stores and laying off 400 employees. That certainly sounds "implosion-ish" to me. I don't care about the bottom line, thier missed earning, or their business. I only care about them selling games for as cheap as possible and that's it.[/QUOTE]
They haven't even filed for chapter 11 and they're imploding? ROFL, you have no clue how business works.
 
[quote name='pitfallharry219']This is probably because IATCG reported them for selling penny guides.[/QUOTE]
Yep. That's it completely.;):booty:
[quote name='Sir_Fragalot']Not shocked, every retailer does this now and again. On the other hand, I kinda wish they did take the time to evaluate their employees. Every gamestop near me has employees who are 10x better than the ones working at my Best Buy and it's sad. Best Buy however I like as a store, they have great deals and good tivs.[/QUOTE]
The people at the mall store in WB are great, especially the manager there since he used to be the manager at the mall store here. He's very personable and always willing to help you out. On the other hand, the guys at the store by Target are a buncha district manager kiss asses who are only out to show their lord and master how many refurb fees or PUR sell throughs they can get while being the biggest dickwads in the area.

As for BB, I hope that the stores around here are safe, but certain employees at the WB store(one bitch dept manager) and the Stroudsburg store(these African-American chicks at the customer service desk that go by the book 100000% of the time:roll:) get the axe.

Otherwise I have started to like the BB stores in the area and the gaming people at both are really good at what they do and very friendly. Moreover, all three managers at my closest store are super friendly and helpful, so I definitely don't wanna see them out of a job.
 
[quote name='Glasscocked']http://finance.yahoo.com/news/best-buy-shutter-50-big-120457157.html

I am excited to expect BB to finally close up and clearance all thier games out ala Circuit City. Good job BB, even with Circuit City and all physical retail competition gone they still manage to go under. Now we wait for the store closings and hope our local stores are the ones that disappear and clearance out their games. Hell, even if they don't clearance out their games I doubt anyone besides employees even notices.[/QUOTE]


Some of you folks are just awful...
 
[quote name='Corvin']You knew the writing was on the wall when the CEO announced that his customers were "devil customers."[/QUOTE]


But, in all honesty... a certain percentage of people are devil customers. I think Best Buy was just tinkering with a way to remove a certain percentage of them from the store.
 
god this thread is awful, who would celebrate the closing of BB when lately they've been having some of the best deals, places like that should live on forever; not to mention the OP sounds pretty selfish and dickish at the thought of clearance games over the potential unemployment of these store workers
 
[quote name='InvaderZim']But, in all honesty... a certain percentage of people are devil customers. I think Best Buy was just tinkering with a way to remove a certain percentage of them from the store.[/QUOTE]

I don't doubt it, but it's not something you announce in the Wall Street Journal. Hell, you don't mention that outside the boardroom. That attitude trickles downhill to regional managers to store managers to employees that just don't give a shit about customer service.
 
[quote name='Corvin']I don't doubt it, but it's not something you announce in the Wall Street Journal. Hell, you don't mention that outside the boardroom. That attitude trickles downhill to regional managers to store managers to employees that just don't give a shit about customer service.[/QUOTE]

Outside of sites like this it didn't get much attention. Hell, the guy was right. I'm a devil customer for sure. I just spell it C-A-G.

The thing is, it used to take a lot more effort. It was somewhat of a sport for me and my circumstances gave me more freedom of movement than most people. In 1998, when BB blew out all of the Saturn stuff, I spent a whole day driving around to every BB in a big portion of Southern California. I got a call from my credit card company wanting to be sure this was all really me and not somebody going on an insane spree with my card. It was an insane spree, to be sure but a legit insane spree.

I learned that day that the Point of Sales software they had then could only handle 50 items or less in a single transaction.

So I had a bloody ton of Saturn games, all for $9.50 or less. I put about $2700 on my Discover Card that day, just for Saturn games and stuff at Best Buy. Then, the next day, I started making the rounds of stores like Game Dude that would buy the games from me for a considerable markup. IIRC,they'd buy Madden '97 for $25, giving me a 150% margin. I made about $7,000 after all was said and done, including gas and the games I kept for my personal library. That wasn't much since I already had most of them.

That bit of devilry, although I was kind of doing them a favor, depended on finding out about the blowout and being free to drop everything and go to every BB within a 200 mile radius. A lot of luck and semi-employment required. Today, all it takes is checking a web site occasionally.
 
I agree with a lot of the responses here. A one time clearance is not worth losing the ability to receive discounted products in the future. Very short sighted.

Nobody is forced to shop there and even if you don't shop Best Buy, remember that Amazon and others do price matching, so if Best Buy is gone, it's one less very large and influential store to price match with.
 
[quote name='GBAstar']That is a very easy question and I will provide you a very simple answer I hope you can understand.

They provide the widest range of video games, from older titles to new releases at prices lower then any one else offers them. Yes this sometimse involves a coupon which you have to pay $5 but even with that factored in the games are cheaper.[/QUOTE]

I beg to differ about variety. As much as I hate to say it, GS has a MUCH larger variety. Seeing as BB now sells used games, I'd safely say that GS has better selection. Pricing is a different matter

[quote name='deantjeep']In my area we have 3 BBs within about 10 miles of each other. I could see one of them closing, but I would prefer they all stick around. I like shopping instore sometimes, even though I am a Silver member with free shipping. The store personnel at all 3 stores are very nice and those working in video games are great![/QUOTE]
In Virginia Beach, theres two that are about 5 miles apart. I expect the most recent one, the one on Princess Anne Rd, to close. The older one, on Independence Blvd, was about the first one in the area and its always busy. Ironically the Independence location is store #420...
 
I fell down earlier today and got a rug burn on my knee. According to the OP this was a MASSACRE, with blood and guts splattered all over the room.

Best Buy isn't imploding, it's not even a sinking ship...yet. Right now it's more like they're getting rid of the decorative 200 foot-long wings on each side of the ship because they know that they're heading into some rough iceberg territory. That's a good analogy, right? Right.

I only care about them selling games for as cheap as possible and that's it.
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You have clearly never been to a closeout.

Ironically the Independence location is store #420...
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Well, it IS Virginia Beach...
 
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