The Best Buy in Biddeford will shut its doors before the end of 2012, company officials announced Saturday.
According to a news release, a total 50 stores will be out of business by the year’s end.
Late last month, the company reported a $1.7 billion loss in its fiscal fourth quarter 2012, compared with net income of $651 million one year ago. Last week, Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn abruptly resigned the consumer electronics chain launched an internal investigation into his “personal conduct.”
Best Buy has struggled to compete in a market that has become increasingly dominated by online retailers like Amazon, and the Minnesota-based retail giant says the closings will allow the company to focus on its growing Best Buy Mobile store locations.
“This was not an easy decision to make,” the statement read. It also went on to say that the locations were carefully chosen and the company will ensure the impact to employees and customers will be as “minimal as possible.”
Employees will be offered other positions at Best Buy and transition severance packages will be made available.
The statement did not say how many employees would be affected.
The company announced last month that it plans on opening the same number of stores in China during the same time period.
Best Buy currently has 1,105 big-box stores in the U.S., not counting the pending closures, according to company spokeswoman Kelly Groehler. In China, there are 185 stores under the company’s Five Star brand, she said.
Other states affected by closures include six in Illinois, four in California, three in Virginia, two in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, and Ohio, and one each in Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas and Washington.
For a full list of affected stores, check out a list here.
(c)2012 KTLA-TV (Los Angeles)
Distributed by MCT Information Services
Their prices aren’t great and their customer service is horrible. A store that offers high tech items for sale but hires young, entry level people without proper training or product knowledge. That they are not finding success does not surprise me.
I totally agree with this. I feel bad for the sales people because everyone expects them to be experts but the company doesn’t hire techies nor train others to be knowledgeable. It’s pretty sad.
They deserve to go out of business.
Because if they hired people educated with any honesty they would not make money. Someone who know might tell the customers how bad they are getting screwed with the $100 HDMI cables or the $65 rabbit ears.
I was not very impressed with the quality of help or the store policies . Thinking back to the transition to digital TV and they were telling people the needed digital TV antennas when in thier is no such thing. Buy this one with this DB gain it better . I offered them $1,000 for them if they could prove to me they had anywhere near the gain the claim. No one in the store knew anything. The sad part is with retail is a person did know and was honest with customers they would not have a job long. Honest answer would be 50 db rabbit ears do not exist this product is a total fraud. Why is it most retailers have no integrity?
Don’t forget to pickup your 100 dollar Monster brand HDMI cable too because it works so much better than the 10 dollar HDMI cable I purchased off Amazon.
Well the gold plated stuff is where its at lmao . Copper is a much better conductor of electricity than gold. Just so much BS. to steal money form people who are not educated about the facts. I love to go to places like that and pretend i do not know anything . Then and can go into the resistance properties of gold vs. copper. . Silver beats copper . Why would a person worry about corrosion in the back of a TV set?
I am not sure where you where educated but gold is in fact a far better conductor then copper. This is a fact. Ask any science teacher or someone with a 3rd grade education.
actually dip…..pure copper is a better conducter than gold the only reason they use gold is because of its corrosion resistance. if you dont believe that than look it up in I dont know….google…
They are opening the same number of stores in CHINA as they are closing here in the United States…That should say a whole lot about the type of company they are..Good thing i WONT be spending another dime at that chain…thanks for the memories…NOT!!!!
I watch a stock investment program called Mad Money. The host of that program has been speaking about Best Buy for over a year, predicting that it will be soon out of business.
Did retailers overestimate Biddeford? It was Lowes in the Fall, now Best Buy an economic double whammy for the retail sector. No casino either….
Yeah Biddeford definitely isn’t catching any breaks as far as jobs…..
Best Buy had a great opportunity when C. City closed as a discount electronics retailer. Instead, they raised their prices to near or sometimes even higher than suggested retail. I guess they felt they had no competition anymore. Boy were they wrong! As someone who buys a lot of audio/video/computer equipment etc., I mostly buy from a fine retailer in NH. There are sometimes however, that I purchase from Amazon, Newegg, Vann’s and Crutchfield. I have been much more pleased with the level of service from all these retailers than BB.
A hard lesson to learn, but it’s not just about every dollar spent/saved but the quality of service. Something that BB doesn’t do either of particularly well.
Steve could you tell us the name of the fine retailer in NH?
While we are on the topic of computer’s does anyone know of a person or company that could help upgrade my computer. I need some help and I do not know where to turn.
Thanks for the help.
I buy whenever feasable from State Street Discount in Portsmouth. I have always had exceptional service there and thier prices are quite reasnonable.
I can’t figure out why Biddeford Crossing failed so miserably. Your only other collection of stores of that type anywhere ‘nearby’ is Maine Mall, and that’s not as ‘nearby’ as it used to be with tolls and the price of gas. So I’m at a loss to explain why store after store there collapsed.
In the end, Best Buy is where you go when you need it TODAY. If you can wait three or four days, New Egg, Monoprice (for cables) and Amazon are all much better choices. Besides, the only models of, say, computer monitors, the Best Buy stores have in stock are the big-budget ones. They reap what they sow by letting the on-line world pass them by.
Best Buy is biting their own bullet. Horrible customer service, I went in to Bangor store just to ask about a few PC’s there and the associate would not talk about the PC’s but about credit card and financing options. While I get it they are pressured to get credit applications, I must have a PRODUCT to USE the card on. The prices on TV’s and accesories are way too high. I believe the only advantage they have in the market is that they carry Apple computers and electronics. That’s it.
shut them all down time to go local like the mid 80’s when there were local tv and such shops in your local towns!!
Them days are long gone….
There Computer support that they have in the store is a rip off. They only want to make money. My brother lives out of state and my computer would not turn on. He said to take it in, I had him on the phone with me at the time. He said ask them a few questions, I did. They took my computer behind the wall and came back and said it had to be sent off, would be gone 3 weeks and cost over $200 or more to fix. I said no thanks. Took it up the road to CR and they took a look at it, said what was wrong with it, mind you…the other guys said NOPE that is not what is wrong with it. Had the switch replaced and bam cost me under 100 and I had it the next day.
No surprise seeing Best Buy doing badly. When your business model is to sell electronics but then shamelessly rip off customers on acccessories, that is bound to fail eventually. I watched an associate sell a man a $100 HDMI cable to go with a $120 bluray player, an equal quality cable would cost around $10 from Monoprice, Newegg, or Amazon.
Preloading their “geek squad optimization” onto computers that are advertised for one price and then jacking up the price with this “optimization” with no way to opt out, is just going to drive customers away.
There usually isn’t any time where I need something so bad, that I go to best buy, I’ll wait a few days and buy it online.
I hear you, HDMI cables are expensive at Bestbuy and even Walmart…. I stock up on them from monoprice…..2 to 3 dollars for one there..
And Monoprice’s customer service is stellar!
When I was buying a laptop the Bangor store tried to pull a bait and switch scheme on me. They had a particular model on sale and before I drove up there I checked their website to make sure it was in stock at the Bangor store (it said it was). When I got there (at opening time) they told me that they were out of stock but they did have the same model with “extras” for 100.00 more. I told the manager I was not going pay extra and went back and forth with him until he finally gave in and sold it to me for the sale price. I decided right then and there that I’d never step foot in that store again (and I haven’t).
More Maine jobs bye bye.
Let me guess, you are going to blame LePage for Best Buy’s decision.
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