In November, Best Buy's vice president of merchant computing, Jason Bonfig, claimed that supply issues for touchscreens were part of the reason behind the slow sales of Windows 8 PCs with those kinds of monitors. Now that we are well into 2013, it appears that those issues have been resolved but Best Buy is now trying to grease the sales of Windows 8 PCs with a discount offer.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, starting on Sunday, Best Buy will offer a $100 discount on all of its Windows 8 desktop and notebook PCs with touchscreens. The discount will last for two weeks but will not include Windows 8 tablets, such as Microsoft's own Surface product. Best Buy will help to absorbe the costs associated with the discount, along with help from Microsoft, Intel and PC makers.
In explaining this move, Bonfig said that the retailer conducted a survey of over 6,000 Windows 8 customers in December. Of that number, 74 percent of the people who bought a touchscreen-based Windows 8 PC indicated they liked the OS "somewhat” or “very much.” Only 53 percent of people who bought a Windows 8 PC without a touchscreen had the same reaction to the new OS.
Bonfig would not disclose current sales of Windows 8 PCs at Best Buy, saying only, "We continue to be pleased with our computing business." He did say about 35 percent of the Windows 8 PCs they sell have touchscreens and they hope to increase that to 50 percent by the end of 2013.
Source: The Wall Street Journal | Image via Best Buy
21 Comments - Add comment