Best Buy is mixing up the look of some of its retail stores, positioning their product selection, interior design, and sales teams to appeal to their perceived “most profitable customer segments.”
Soccer mom: These stores featured brightly colored signage, play areas for children, educational toys, in-wall appliance displays and provided personal shopping assistants.
Swinging single: These stores placed greater emphasis on higher-end and more cutting edge CE, and featured separate rooms with full home entertainment vignettes and enhanced A/V assistance.
Cherry picker: Aimed at technophiles on a budget, these stores appeared to offer the most promotions and incentives, and the best financing packages.
Gadgeteer: Geared toward teens and twenty-somethings, these stores emphasized cellphones, music and movies, home theater, gaming and mobile audio.
Small business: Signed “Best Buy for Business,” these stores have an expanded computer section and Geek Squad presence, plus central help islands staffed by associates wearing blue collared (vs. knitted golf) shirts.
It’s a solid idea (although one does wonder how many ‘flavors’ an average city could sustain), but I find myself irked by this statement by Best Buy president Mike Keskey:
“The biggest bang comes from the store employees,” who are being instilled with an “owner/operator mentality” as decision-making is moved to the customer level, he told analysts.
Interesting, Mike. By owner/operator, do you mean you will be offering stock options, or bonuses based on individual sales performance? Or that employees will be required to push dozens of product replacement plans with no commission? ‘Owner/operator’ is such a murky term these days.
Best Buy will unveil its first store in LA on May 4th, with a continuing rollout over the next three years.
