Best Buy Specialty Retailer Case Study

Best Buy is an American public company founded in 1966, which is a specialty retailer of consumer electronics and a wide variety of related merchandise, in a non-commissioned sales environment accounting for a great percent of the market; in addition, since its beginnings Best Buy has grown into a powerful gigantic firm with over 1,400 hundreds stores in North America and over 2,600 in Europe and Asia of the market. Best Buy is the number 1 “big box” electronic retailer that offers a wide variety of electronic goods and products. Financially, Best Buy operates in two main segments, Domestic and International. The domestic segment accounts for most of its revenues. Best Buy's financial security depends on on their Best Buy stores, Magnolia Audio Visual Stores considered their high end store, and the Geek Squad which provides of in home computer repair, support and installation services.

Many factors have helped Best Buy to succeed; however, one of the most important is its ability to focus on understanding consumer behavior. Best Buys has used many types of consumer research to grasp a better knowledge of customers’ needs and wants and to guide its decisions about the operation of its stores. In which comes back to its not officially labeled mission statement that can be understood as Best Buy’s formula of success to be simple, Best Buy is a growth company focused on better solving the unmet needs of its customers. Some changes that were driven by Best Buy's understanding of consumers included its shift to discounted prices, the creation of superstores, and the elimination of commissioned sales representatives. Lately, Best Buy has embraced a "customer centric" approach in order to connect with customers. The approach has used research to improve store design, merchandise offerings, and services as it seeks to connect with customers and differentiate itself from competing companies like Wal-Mart, Costco, and other mass marketers and consumer electronics retailers. Therefore, Best Buy's strength is that they are a very large, well known company. They have always been on the forefront of carrying the newest and most technologically advanced products. They are known also for their financing and great customer service.

Some of the strategic issues Best Buy faces can be grasped with the increase of technology in which one side can be very helpful to Best Buy; however, it can also be very destructive. The increase rate in which technology is changing provides endless supply of new products, but also threats Best Buy of sitting on excess of unsold stock that is quickly obsolete, or it just