Best Buy opens first UK store tomorrow
Website arrives in autumn
Best Buy is opening its first store in Thurrock, Essex tomorrow morning, but it will not have a working ecommerce site until autumn.
The Essex shop is one of four due to open this year. It promises 50,000 square feet of floor space.
But Best Buy will not have a functioning website ready until the autumn - a spokeswoman said it was busy reworking its website for the UK market.
As well as flogging a wide range of computing and electronic goods, Best Buy hopes to make cash from services like its Geek Squad who offer technical support as well as buying advice. The company stresses that the Geeks are not on commission.
Next on the list are stores in Hedge End near Southampton and Merry Hill in the West Midlands, due to open in June, followed by Aintree near Liverpool.
Given the moribund state of technology retailing in the UK we can only hope that Best Buy shakes things up - visitors to the shop's press day seemed impressed with the range of goods and staff knowledge.
The retailer also offers a price promise - if you find the same item for a lower price within 15 miles of the store they will match the price and give you ten per cent of the difference. Given Best Buy's out-of-town locations, this should reduce price matching problems. ®
COMMENTS
novatech
15 miles LOS or by road?
Because I think novatech is going to be just out of range - intentionally as I cannt see them beating NT on quality, sevrice or price...
Now the folks in the UK can suffer
Now you too can be screwed by unscrupulous business practices just like in the USA.
Geek Squad?
If they were REAL geeks and knew a decent amount about computers or software they'd be working in the IT industry... not on peanuts salaries for high street retailers fixing Joe Blogs virus infections...
I wouldn't trust them to use the on button, let alone fix the computer - at best they are kids who think they know something because they once re-installed Windows (badly) after one of their gamer mates told them they could get extra fps by doing so.
Why couldn't we export something good?
Definitely do your research on how BB acts here in the US. Between the craziness of the Geek Squad employee's behavior, getting caught having two sites (external and internal to the store) that showed different prices, 'optimization' of computers, and the nightmare around their price matching policy, I wish the people of the UK good luck.
As another poster mentioned, consumerist.com has a whole slew of stories about BB and their ilk.
Hmmm..
Just what small independent IT retailers need in a recession. Another PC World type business to give bad advice, rip customers off and undercut everybody else.
