By Paul Gray – Director, European TV Research, DisplaySearch
I visited the opening of the new Best Buy store in Southampton on Friday, the second Best Buy store to open in the UK, and indeed in Western Europe.
Best Buy has clearly done its homework and produced an attractive and distinctive store—in particular it gives off an air of quality, from the high standard of frontage, extensive staff training and generous areas assigned for help and service, especially the Geek Squad desks, which had queues even on Day one!
However, two things were new to me:
Firstly, there was a trade-in counter for old CE products. Best Buy will buy back my old TV (CRT excepted), and there is even a valuation service on its website.
Whilst in the UK mobile phones commonly have trade in sites—like http://www.mazumamobile.com/ and http://www.mobilephonexchange.co.uk/—a service that buys old notebook PCs and TVs is certainly new to me. They offered me £117 for my 42” 1080p, 100 Hz LCD TV which cost me £1140 in February 2008. While at this price I’m not going to bite their hand off, it’s an innovative way to offer a discount.
Secondly, the store has a dedicated area for green tech. Promotional staff were riding some very cool electric bicycles (e-bikes) around the car park, and there was a range of six or seven inside the store, including electric scooters. This kind of product has so far been sold through cycle shops, so it’s good to see a new and probably more approachable channel.
Figure 1: E-Bike at Best Buy
Amongst other green technology products on sale were energy monitors, which send a real-time energy consumption reading to a remote screen, solar charging solutions and power-saving PC plug strips to save on standby. Best Buy also provides energy sales, as in the UK you are free to buy electricity or gas from any supplier, as the power supply infrastructure is separate from the electricity generator.
Best Buy also has a dedicated area for premium AV including a dedicated area featuring Loewe products. Loewe is a high-end German set maker, who make gorgeously finished products with seamless functionality. If Mercedes-Benz made TV sets, they would be like Loewe’s. This exclusive store-in-store is the equivalent to Magnolia in Best Buy’s North American stores.
Figure 2: Loewe’s Products in Best Buy
Best Buy has been careful not to try to transplant a North American business model directly into Europe, and appears to have invested in understanding local tastes. All the ‘blue shirts’ were friendly and well-informed. The girl on the checkout said that she had had 11 weeks training, which is a lot by UK standards.
Look out for some new brands riding into Europe with Best Buy. Logitech featured heavily in the store, along with Bose and in-house products like Rocketfish. While nobody should under-estimate European retailers—German supermarkets forced Walmart to admit defeat in 2006 after losing money for 8 years out of 9—it certainly brings another powerful player into the arena.
