BestBuy UK Closing Down

By Dan~
in Back Page News

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Grand Master

Hardcore Til I Die

Posted
Posted

We have bestbuy in the UK?

Something about a joint venture with Carphone Warehouse, and I think they usually use the same shops.. so you'll have a CPW store with a bestbuy section.

Apparently bestbuy isn't that cheap over here, so it kinda defeats the purpose.

Experienced

johnporter29

Posted
Posted

All Best Buys are closing. Our's opened in June this year. No major difference in price to Curry's/PC World and had bought a couple of things from there, but 1 thing I hated about them was the fact you had to get your receipt signed by security before you left the store.....

I've paid for the item, the item is in a Best Buy branded bag, I have the receipt...why do they need to sign it? Showed lack of trust in customers to me.

Grand Master

+jamesyfx Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted

I think Best Buys original idea was to open up larger stores wherever Dixons Retail opened up their new stores. But the recession came and mucked up those plans. Yeah they didn't last long at all.

As for the security thing, they do that in Costco as well. I don't find it to be an issue though. :p

Best Buys problem is that they WERE just the same as Currys/PC World. At least with shops like Maplin the range is different.

Grand Master

+jamesyfx Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted

Well we have Comet for that...

Probably not for long though. Kesa recently sold them off for ?2, and they've had like 3 major rebrands within a few years. That's probably a sign of a failing business.

Grand Master

jakem1

Posted
Posted

No, its Dixons, Currys, and PC World that are part of the same group, called DSG.

I'm surprised at how many people didn't know about Bestbuy UK, they had quite catchy adverts. :rofl:

Ah, thanks. I always get confused about who owns what.

I knew that Best Buy had started up in the UK but thought they only had one store somewhere in Essex. I never saw any advertising but I don't watch much TV. To be honest, the whole thing seems like a case study in how not to set up a business.

Experienced

bbfc_uk

Posted
Posted

Are all the Bestbuy stores in the UK closing? That means my local one is going too then!

Yes, they are pulling out of the UK. They reported ?62.2m (around ?10m per store) in loses during the last financial year.

Best Buy own 50% of The Carphone Warehouse's retail operations.

Grand Master

+jamesyfx Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted

I had a look in the Hedge End store a while ago and didnt see anything impressive, tech or price wise. Still a shame for those that wok there though.

I'm sure they'll offer them opportunities in Carphone Warehouse or something.

Grand Master

Vice

Posted
Posted

I went to the Best Buy in North London and I wasn't impressed.

The employees would bounce on you constantly. I spent half an hour in there just walking around browsing and I had at-least 7 of them come up to me and ask me if I wanted to know more about the thing I was looking at. This may sound like good customer service but it was just damn right annoying. And the one time I did actually follow up and asked them about the new Kindle models they had no clue what I was talking about. I asked them when the new Kindle would be in the ?89 one NOT the Kindle Fire (which is a US exclusive) and the guy had no idea what the Kindle was and we were standing right infront of the old model. But he came up to me and asked ME if I needed help with it.

Apart from the lion customer service people that pounce on you. All the electronics were tied down with zip ties. All the MP3 players, GPS devices, Phones had zip ties. Right across the middle of their screens. Why even have the devices powered on and usable if the screen is blocked by massive (and these were the really thick kind of zip tie) over the screen?

The whole store just made me feel like a thief. I needed to buy a remote control though so I went to that section of the store. I thought hey this has to be the one thing this store is good for and they did have the remote I needed in stock and on the shelf. Buy it was double the price of Amazon and Play.com (I price checked on my iPhone in the isle) and both of those online retailers offered free delivery with the item. But even if they didn't I could have chosen the expensive next day delivery and still be cheaper than Best Buy.

So yeah I didn't really have a good experience and I can see why their little UK experiment didn't work out to be honest.

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