MCV is reporting (via The Sunday Times) that Best Buy UK is to close its eleven stores. Parent company ‘Carphone Warehouse’ may make the announcement as soon as Tuesday, although the Best Buy name might live on with some Carphone Warehouse stores turning into ‘mini’ Best Buys.
According to Pocket Lint, Best Buy UK has generated losses of £83 million, with a further half-year loss of £35 million expected to be announced this week.
Source: MCV / Pocket Lint
Amphlett
Best Buy UK? I didn’t know they existed.
Kamokazi-UK
Well i got a great deal ( via TSA Twitter for Deus Ex for £25 ) never checked back to see any other deals sadly. They did give a great service. Pity really.
cc_star
Yeah Best Buy bought a 50% share in Carphone (not TalkTalk etc though) a few years ago, with a view to rolling out BestBuy around Europe under the new shared company ownership.
Either couldn’t roll it out fast enough, crappy economy, or just no appetite for a big box out of town retailer.
Lets be honest though people who know about tech, who may shop at Best Buy are savvy enough to shop online, whereas people who don’t know about tech just go to Currys & PC World.
Amphlett
Yup, I shop on-line.
carson321
I think the problem is market penetration so to speak, Best Buy is a good store and offers some pretty competitive prices, but in order to set up shop, I think they need to come in with many more stores spread out across the country, to compete with the likes of Currys/PC World
Mike
That was quick! I was hoping for them to open in my neck of the woods. I think the problem was they weren’t spread out enough. I’d have happily shopped in best buy if I could.
cc_star
Amazing opening week offers, but as prices normalised it was impossible to break a new brand with this economy, such a shame as now it leaves the Dixons group a free run in bricks & mortar retailers, and they are shit & undeserving of it.
shields_t
They also seem to have a really selected range, certainly from a gaming point of view. You can only ever expect a few big releases, and rarely anything older than about 6 months.
hazelam
they just opened a best buy near me a few weeks back.
Forrest_01
Yep, same here – Shame, as I wanted to see what their prices were like.
spurs78
Lol there’s one just opened at enfield near me. Shame they have some competitive prices such as uc3 for 32.99 and bf3 34.99. They were also advertising mw3 for 29.99 while stocks last if anyone’s interested, or sainsburys are doing it for 24.99 when bought with 30 quids worth of shopping.
Tuffcub
Best Buy are fantastic for day one deals, however the biggest loss is their staff as they dont work con comission (unlike PC World, Dixons etc) so there is never any pressure to sell or to buy extra insurance. And they’re all trained and know what they are talking about.
Nylon_Crash
I like best buy, got my laptop from there. And I was in there the other day and a lot of the prices of the ps3 games were really good. far better than game and play
bacon_nuts
I never noticed they opened :(