Sam,
I'm a fairly new shareholder in BBY, but a long-time shopper. I can offer my first-hand observations.
Where I lived, we had a Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, and Media Play (books, music, software) right next to each other. Very easy to comparison shop. Circuit City had very high prices, pushy sales staff, and a very small computer section. CompUSA had decent to high prices, but I think the fact that they were "just computers" limited their foot traffic. Best Buy and Media Play always had the most traffic through their stores---most likely because of their diverse offerings---but Best Buy almost always beat Media Play on price, so they usually took my money.
Best Buy has decent prices, plus a computer section that is large enough to be a store itself, yet it includes music/stereo/appliances to bring in a variety of guests (who may wander over from the Pop Music racks to check out Tomb Raider!).
Hope this helps.
Jape |
