Best Buy trumpets UK store openings
Five big box outlets in 2010
Best Buy opens its first UK outlet, a superstore with with a 50,000 sqft shop floor, in Lakeside, Thurrock, in May.
Best Buy, America's biggest consumer electronics chain, has also pencilled "big box" store openings in June for Southamption and Merry Hill, West Midlands, and later this year for Aintree, near Liverpool, and Croydon.
The company aims to open up to 80 big box UK stores, creating 8,000 jobs over the next five years.
This will give homegrown players DSGi and Comet their most serious competition for years. Is it too much to ask for a price war? Just a little one?
COMMENTS
Race to the bottom
There will be no customer service war with Best Buy in the sense you are hoping for. What you will have is one more sadistic tech mistresses who will take all your money, make you feel inadequate and angry, and leave you feeling hopeless.
Now the Britz can get ripped off!
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Trust me, my UK brothers and sisters.... you are about to get no lubrication as you are bent over at BB. While I am not familiar with your options on the isle, I can tell you that BB is consistently 25%-35% higher than most E-retailers here in the USA. One good thing, at least here in the USA, BB is not commissioned sales but they do make money on selling their horridly expensive "service plans" which are outrageous and are consistently beaten by SquareTrade and other after-market insurance plans.
While competition may seem the best order for the day, I would be VERY surprised if BB was not in collusion with other retailers about price fixing and bait-and-switch routines that BB does on a regular basis.
I am anxious to learn if BB in the UK is OK or NO.
Odd bunch..
The store in Southampton has been built for months, but just sat there all lit up but closed. Meanwhile the currys / pc world just round the corner has gone through a total overhaul and re-opened as one of their mega store type places.
Why best buy didn't open up then I don't know - would of been a good time as currys had limited stock and even shut totally for 2 weeks.
Still not going to open for another few weeks yet..
Competition in the UK
'Is it too much to ask for a price war?' - we don't have competition in the UK (compared to the US), the variation in prices between the majority of suppliers is usually only a few percent.
The price isn't the problem...
Never mind a price war, how about a customer service war?
