I would love to see the behind-the-scenes numbers crunched on that model. I don't see how that model works long-term unless the percentage of customers in the showroom walking out the door with online price-matched goods is a relatively small group, or they're successful up- and cross-selling on gonzo margin goods and services before and after they walk out the door, or their COGS is way better, or some other activity to make up their bigger overheads versus an e-commerce marketplace.
Can anyone offer any insight how BestBuy is long-term sustainable with the online price matching policy?
Long term sustainable simply because they've already baked it in and it's less widely known amongst the typical consumer and its honestly kind of a hassle, people pay for convenience.
And for many of their products they all sell at MSRP anyway (apple laptops say) so they’re already matching Amazon et Al. And things like hdmi cables are some off brand and so they don’t price match anyway.
They have a pretty slick setup going, also jumped in on the appliances market just as Sears et Al disappeared.
I've bought more from Best Buy in the past few years than I have in the decade before because they are often the cheapest option, including Amazon. They also offer same-day courier service on some things I've ordered.
Well sure. That’s because they have enough money to just toss whatever you returned in a landfill.
You got your money back, and we all pay in environmental damage.
I know this is off-topic, but the easiest return I ever made was an amazon return. I went through the return process on amazon's website and was given a QR code which took a few mins. I drove to the nearest Kohls, walked to the amazon kiosk, showed the QR code to the employee, and handed over the return. Took all of 30 seconds in store.
Anyway, back on topic. A hybrid model makes sense for Ford to compete, and it is a lot like Best Buy/Target in many respects. However dealers have made a living for a long time being the middle-men, I wonder how they will deal with additional competition. Best buy has a problem where people look at the product at the store then end up buying online, I could see people taking test drives and then ordering from the Ford website. Although I think the dealer will arrange commission if that happens.