I did some research on the internet because I was curious to see how Best Buy was doing as a company with this phenomenon plaguing their stores and it turns out indeed the above observation is true. Friday the Wall Street Journal wrote a similar article.
People 'shop' Best Buy with the intention to buy it somewhere else, ironically doing price scans with their iPhones that Best Buy sells, to find it cheaper elsewhere.
With the (electronic) retail landscape rapidly changing in todays time, more and more big stores go out of business, Borders, Hollywood Video, Circuit City and Blockbuster just to name a few. All because shopping is shifting to internet (think mobile online shopping, plays a huge part in this new landscape).
And it makes sense. If you have the ability to check with a few touches of your finger to do price check on a certain item you just scanned or looked up, and save tens, if not hundreds of dollars, wouldn't you?
So is Best Buy doomed? In my opinion, not yet, at least not anytime soon. They will probably experiment with adapting to smaller stores business models first before they go under like Circuit City. Even in that case this process will take a few years, however at the moment it is not helping their stock price. The crash that occurred in last December is proof Best Buy's outlook for investors is wobbly.
I'm very bearish on this stock. The only thing that is holding this stock price to where it is now is its market cap. Their business model is outdated, they treat their employees like crap (know this from first hand experience) and they are simply too big. Time is ticking to see BBY soon to be trading under $30, and that may just be the beginning of a slippery slope down.
What's your opinion on Best Buy? Do you see Best Buy surviving in the near- mid term? Post a reply.
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