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Sunday, May 9, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Best Buy: The art of expansion in Europe
Minnesota based Best Buy has been expanding over the past couple years. The expansions include heavy moves in the European market, under the vision and strategy of the new CEO Brian Dunn, see article here for more details. The most recent opening will be this week in the UK, though the opening is met with much fanfare, Best Buy is not exactly celebrating yet due to their non-existent web presence in the UK.
Expanding in Europe means a lot of things to Best Buy. The growth of what is already the largest U.S. electronics retailer, new markets to penetrate, and in some cases untapped market shares. But it also means a change in strategy. In the UK, e-commerce sites for consumer electronics account for around 12-15% of retail electronic sales. This means that even with five stores being opened in the UK there is still revenue and customers that very well could be missed.
Best Buy has delayed the launch of their UK website because they want to be sure it is properly tested and running at highest capacity due to its importance in the market. Though Best Buy believes that the store openings this spring and autumn should mitigate the lost revenue from their e-commerce site it might be a bit of a struggle, Best Buy will be competing against several retailers with strong web sales: Comet (KESAF), Argos (HMRLF), and Tesco (TSCDY).
It has been known that Best Buy was planning to enter the UK market giving other consumer electronics retailers time to prepare, revamp, and strengthen their sales. With the strength in competition and the lack of web presence Best Buy might have a harder than usual time entering this new market. Industry experts believe that Best Buy won’t make a significant impact for several years. See businessweek.com for more on this. One way Best Buy looks to compete is with its customer service. Their ability to provide their Geek Squad services and 24 hour computer technician call center should be one significant play maker for Best Buy. But also their new media marketing efforts such as their presence on Twitter, #Twelpforce among other customer orientated programs should bring a significant differentiation strategy to their UK presence.
Best Buy can chip out a significant share of the UK electronics market if they are able to get their web presence launched and performing in conjunction with their stores opening across the UK. Coupling the customer service strategy seen in the U.S. stores with their web and brick and mortar presence in the UK can make a significant impact in their continual market growth and should be a good start to their search for capturing the global consumer electronics market.
http://www.examiner.com/x-14446-Minneapolis-Business-News-Examiner~y2010m5d1-Best-Buy-The-art-of-expansion-in-Europe
Fast Food Makes Us Impatient, Study Reveals
Fast Food Makes Us Impatient, Study Reveals
Fast food is taking the rap for countless evils, no matter how hard fast food chains are trying to counter the attacks by releasing “healthy” options as well. A recent study cited by Times Online adds another evil to the very long list: that of making us impatient, by promoting a culture of instant gratification, even when we’re not in a hurry.
The very thing that made fast food popular (namely that it’s precisely what its name says it is, food that you can order and eat fast) is now being used to show that it has a rather odd effect on people. Though without as much as being aware of it, the mere sight of a logo of one of the biggest junk food chain restaurants makes us jittery and impatient, even at those times when he have no reason to be in a hurry.
These were the conclusions of a study to be published in the journal Psychological Science, conducted by Chen-Bo Zhong, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Toronto University in Canada. The study included 57 volunteers, who were monitored to establish whether even a slight connection to fast food had any effect on them. Apparently, it does, as only glimpsing a fast food logo (which they could not make out) made them read faster and act in an overall more impatient manner.
“Participants in experiments became jittery even when shown the logo of the McDonald’s burger chain on screen for such a short instant that they could not recognize it. Although each individual sighting of a logo has only a short-term subliminal effect, researchers fear that walking
Chen-Bo Zhong explains that by the effects the fast food culture has on us. “Fast food represents a culture of time efficiency and instant gratification. The problem is that the goal of saving time gets activated upon exposure to fast food regardless of whether time is a relevant factor in the context. We’re finding that the mere exposure to fast food is promoting a general sense of haste and impatience regardless of the context,” he says. The problem is we’re not even aware of it.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Fast-Food-Makes-Us-Impatient-Study-Reveals-140107.shtml
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