Best Buy has reinvented itself to survive in the modern retail landscape dominated by e-commerce. It closed underperforming stores, reduced other store footprints, and modified its approach. These changes helped ensure the survival of Best Buy's brick and mortar presence. Best Buy started its transformation in 2012 by evaluating its successes and failures. It developed a new retail model to address gaps and appeal to current and future customers. Best Buy's changes resulted in improved customer experiences, better services and solutions, and superior customer service. These strategic changes have allowed Best Buy to thrive against Amazon by holding its own in the electronics market and increasing its domestic sales.

1. 01 retail
Retail is
not going to
die.
Having worked with many consumer electronics brands and
seen the impact e-commerce has had on this industry it is
refreshing to watch Best Buy’s reinvention. As mentioned
above, it did not come without a business case. Best Buy
closed non-performing locations, reduced the store footprint,
modified its approach to consumerism. All of these tactical
steps came at a cost. An investment the company had to
make to ensure survival of Best Buy Brick’s & Mortar and a
house of brands for the future.
With the speed at which technology is shaping our
lives, what was once considered new at retail is now
considered table stakes and fundamental to the
shopping experience. It is encouraging to see brick
and mortar retailers taking the necessary steps, an
offensive position, in the transformation of retail and
assert themselves in the new wave of innovation.
One of the traditional retailers who took the leap
and started their transformation early was Best Buy.
It started with the Renew Blue program in 2012, an
introspection of the company’s successes and fail-
ures. Best Buy internalized the feedback and learnings
gleaned from Renew Blue, then tested and developed
a new retail reality and landscape that sought to fill the
gaps that were discovered and introduce new mea-
sures to appeal to the customer of today and tomor-
row.
A transition of this magnitude, however, does not come
without some significant infrastructure and supply
chain modifications and cultural lobotomy. Every step
Best Buy took had to be calculated and analyzed to
ensure there was an ROI and consumer benefit for the
changes.

2. November 2017
What needed changing:
- Improving customer experience
- Fixing what was broken
- Why? ‘Helping customers pursue their passions &
enrich their lives with the help of technology’’
How?
- Offering newer technologies – Smart Home
well curated and demonstrating technology in a
meaningful way.
- Services and solutions market
- Superior customer service
- Ease of return for e-commerce
- See and Try
- Points of distribution for online sales, Warehouse,
faster shipping and fewer stock outs
- Challenge Amazon’s ‘marketplace’
Best Buy 2020: Building the New Blue, is a
new playbook and one brand’s will be watching
to see what impact it has on consumers.
It’s hard to believe with the number of doom and gloom
articles written today that Brick and Mortar can survive
against Amazon, but survive and thrive Best Buy are.
A ‘4.9% increase to $8.94 billion vs. an estimate $8.66
Billion in domestic sales underlines that the company is
more than holding its own in the electricals market and
should put pay to the oft repeated fiction that retailers
of its ilk will struggle to survive in the era of Amazon’.
Managing Director Neil Saunders, Global Data Retail.
In the Canadian marketplace Best Buy renovated 23
stores to a more connected and interactive model.
The Retail Council of Canada reported that the
company has embraced an approach where online
and B&M are regarded in the same way rather than
distinct ‘channels’ that compete with one another.
This redesign has brought a 20% higher per-store
sales on average. (RCC/NationalPost. Hollie Shaw).
gorrie.
Customers are telling us what they want and how they
want it. Today more than ever they are demanding authen-
ticity and want brands and retailers to acknowledge they
are human not a pre-defined demographic. Technology is
embedded in our lives as a natural extension of making our
lives easier, enriched, entertained and efficient.
Retail is no exception.
02 retail