re: What has happened to Best Buy?

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A company like Best Buy, who will likely always be beaten on price by Amazon and the like, can only survive if they quick, outstanding service. People will pay a little more for solid, quick service.

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The problem is, they won’t pay more if the same thing exists cheaper somewhere else. At best, they’ll use you as a showroom to leverage your amazing customer service and never pay for it. This is literally what happened to them over the past decade.

Even if people were willing to pay a premium and buy from Best Buy, it would have to be a huge premium for them to be profitable. Even in their heyday, the margins are shite. Their profit is in accessories (a $2.50 HDMI cable that they would sell for $49), or the true golden goose: protection plans and financing. I worked there for a while during college. One time I sold a guy 7 TV’s for his new beach house, and got chewed out because I didn’t get him to buy a protection plan, or put them on a Best Buy credit card. It actually made the home theater department’s metrics go down for the day.