I wonder if Ron Johnson (the guy behind the Apple retail concept) could have turned around Best Buy, had BBY picked him up instead of JC Penney.
The Apple store philosophy seems to be "We think most people will be delighted with our products. But if we can't make you a happier person for buying this product, we're just wasting your time trying to sell it to you, and making it less likely you'll want to come back when we do offer a product you might enjoy."
Meanwhile every shopping experience I've had at Best Buy tells me their philosophy is "You need x, but we'll convince you to buy y, and we'll try our hardest to pack in a high margin accessory bundle too. So buy it and get out, so I can move on to the next sucker. Oh, and you had better be buying a service plan on that."
Then again, if you can't turn the place around by making it a place where people actually want to shop and reflect favorably upon their experiences, then maybe the big box electronics concept is just falling out of favor altogether.
The Apple store philosophy seems to be "We think most people will be delighted with our products. But if we can't make you a happier person for buying this product, we're just wasting your time trying to sell it to you, and making it less likely you'll want to come back when we do offer a product you might enjoy."
Meanwhile every shopping experience I've had at Best Buy tells me their philosophy is "You need x, but we'll convince you to buy y, and we'll try our hardest to pack in a high margin accessory bundle too. So buy it and get out, so I can move on to the next sucker. Oh, and you had better be buying a service plan on that."
Then again, if you can't turn the place around by making it a place where people actually want to shop and reflect favorably upon their experiences, then maybe the big box electronics concept is just falling out of favor altogether.