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Discussion on: Best Buy Competitive Strategy

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Angel Paudel

Getting straight to the point, the strategy Best Buy employs is differentiation and not low-cost or best cost. As looking through their website and the products they offer in sell and comparing the same product with other similar rated websites like Amazon, and Walmart the pricing they have is not close but rather more than that in those comparative stores. However, Best Buy provides a price match guarantee such that they’ll provide you a refund on what you paid or provide a discount if you claim that you’ve another product at a similar store at a lower price. But not everyone goes this route of claiming for it so they can still get away charging a bit higher than their competitors.

Best Buy has also customized their website targeted towards people from a different country where they serve. Those being Canada, Mexico, and the United States. However, this is not true for Walmart and others as they have a single website and not targeted towards different customer segments. This gives Best Buy an edge when it comes to demographic targeting. They can customize the products as per the country first and then catered to the customer past history and visits.

The staff is another thing which is extraordinary as their staffs are not just a sales agent but an expert in the service they’re selling. They know where the particular item is in the self and also more about the product in detail. Those staff will also set those products at your home and provide any troubleshooting if required. That gives the customer a peace of mind as the ones selling is expert on the area, and know exactly what they’re doing. Started in 2002, they have got a total of over 200,000 of such staffs to service the customer and install both hardware and software to the customers across the stores they service from (Best Buy, 2018).

Walmart is rated 44 in the United States and 174 in the global ranking as per the web traffic as of September 26, 2018 (Alexa, 2018). While Best Buy falls a bit behind at 73 in the United States and 273 in the global ranking as per the same ranking (Alexa, 2018). Even while falling behind on the web traffic, they’ve still managed to amass more reviews on the store based on the way they operate calling the customer to call to action to provide reviews after the confirmation of the order. Seeing the sheer volume of reviews, it inclines customer to make a purchase from Best Buy compared to other stores.

Best Buy also has an additional service which no other store provides which is one-hour store pick-up service. If you make any purchase online, you can just go to the store and pick in it as early as within an hour time (Best Buy, 2018). Also, they do provide a free-shipping for orders over $35 (Best Buy, 2018). Also, those free-delivery can be scheduled so that it will arrive exactly on the date, time and venue that you state.

All those suggest that Best Buy being able to differentiate themselves from the mass and also suggest that they use differentiation strategy and not have a low-cost or best-cost strategy.

References

Alexa Walmart Ranking. (2018). Retrieved from alexa.com/siteinfo/walmart.com

Alexa Best Buy Ranking. (2018). Retrieved from alexa.com/siteinfo/bestbuy.com

Best Buy Geek Squad. (2018). Retrieved from bestbuy.com/site/services/geek-squ...

Best Buy Fast Store Pickup. (2018). Retrieved from bestbuy.com/site/customer-service/...

Best Buy Free Shipping. (2018). Retrieved from bestbuy.com/site/help-topics/free-...