Best Buy to Resume In Home Services

Best Buy to Restart Sending Staff Into Customer Homes as Early as Tuesday - In Home Services...

Best Buy will direct staff willing to do so to resume work inside customers' homes as soon as Tuesday, according to an internal Best Buy email obtained by Motherboard.

The news comes after the company made several large-scale changes to limit the potential exposure of customers and staff to the coronavirus. Best Buy stopped in-home deliveries and closed brick-and-mortar stores after Motherboard reported the company was working at "full capacity" despite the pandemic in March. This latest move is a sign that some businesses are trying to resume services and emerges as protests around the country try to have states reopen. This comes despite health experts saying it would likely contribute to the spread of the virus if done too quickly.
www.bestbuy.com

Black Friday Shoppers Already Lining Up

At a Best Buy in Ohio.

Here we go again...

Conversation Corner No. 13 - Holiday Price Matching

For a few years now, retailers have been upset because customers come into their brick and mortar stores look at products then ultimately buy from the likes of Amazon, Newegg and others. This has now forced them to price match this holiday season.

This week, Steve and I talk about holiday price matching by retailers.

Is this good for consumers?

Have a listen:

Best Buy to do Some 'Price Matching' This Holiday Season

In an email I received from BFads/// heading towards Black Friday.

One story that received significant attention this week was Best Buy's announcement that they will be price-matching online retailers this holiday season while also offering free shipping on items not available in stores. The new policy is said to go into effect starting Sunday, November 4.

Unfortunately, this is not a carte blanche policy as Best Buy will only price-match a limited list of 20 online merchants (Amazon and NewEgg are included on this list), will not price-match the week of Black Friday through Cyber Monday, and most importantly, will allow Best Buy customer service representatives to honor the policy at their discretion.

The new policy appears to be an effort to curtail "show rooming" – the practice of testing out products in-store before purchasing the item online (usually from the lowest priced retailer).

Best Buy CEO: iPad Hurting Notebook Sales

In a report that suggests rumors of tablet computers could be biting into the notebook and netbook markets is justified, Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn told The Wall Street Journal that Apple’s iPad has “cannibalized” sales of notebooks by as much as 50 percent. Dunn told the paper that sales of smartphones and portable computers continued to rise, thanks in part to devices like the iPad. It's a very different environment now," the chief electronics analyst for market researcher NPD Group Stephen Baker told the Journal. "The real cool stuff now will be the tablets, e-readers and probably the higher-end digital cameras."

A July report from a Barclays Capital analyst said Apple would sell about 20 million iPads in 2011, negatively affecting lower-cost notebooks as well as the netbook market.

The iPad is expected to account for 74.1 percent of global tablet shipments, with the remaining portion going to “a mix of older PC-type tablet products and competitive slates.” In 2011, as the competition begins seriously filling out, iSuppli still expects Apple to command 70.4 percent of the market, and nearly two-thirds market share through 2012. At present, while a number of tablet devices are set to launch — running Windows 7, Android and webOS — iSuppli said it believes none of these are ready to be serious competitors to the iPad.

Attracting the interest of many, Samsung is showing off its Galaxy Pad tablet, which includes the Android operating system and features such as 3G and WiFi capability, a 16:10 screen ratio, a SDHC memory expandability, a DMB tuner for TV viewing and something the iPad lacks—a front-facing camera for video calling.  It looks like tablets have arrived and they are here to stay.