asianxcore

Best Buy to furlough 51,000 hourly employees

https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/best-b...ore-employees/

E Unit

Oh shit. Are stores fully closing?

whotony

Is furlough the new way to say laid off

DJariya

Furlough is temporary laid off. Meaning they won't pay your wage if you're full-time, but you will retain your benefits until you're needed again.

DJariya

The stores are shut down right now. You cannot enter to browse. So they can only take curbside pickup online orders. I went today to get some ink that I had to order online for pickup. They lose a lot of foot traffic and impulse buys with this kind of deal.

E Unit

I guess that's what I meant, will they start fully closing the stores and not even offer a pickup option.

fujishig

Plus, aren't a large part of their profit margin basically large appliances and services like Geek Squad? Both of those have to be suffering. It's not like the random media or software sale nets them a huge margin.

asianxcore

Definitely. The article mentions that (obviously) online sales were incredibly higher than they were at the same time last year, it did note that between March 21st & April 11th, sales dropped 30%.

While it stinks to see this amount of people out of work, when Curbside Pickup is the only way the store is functioning, each store in the Country can literally work on a skeleton crew and still function for what the current need is.

fujishig

The article is a little confusing, because they say there was an 8 day period where sales went up 25%, so it's unclear if the 30% drop is from that (which is only a 5% drop) or some month over month absolute drop.

asianxcore

I wonder if that 5% is what is mentioned at the beginning of the article.That sales have dropped 5% in the first two months of the Quarter.

cultshock

Even appliances don't have much of a profit margin (but more than the razor thin margins on media and software). Best Buy makes a lot of their money from protection plans, installations and accessories (that's why they always try to push extended warranties and Monster cables).

asianxcore

I'm not sure if this is all Best Buy stores but my local store is doing purchases as well as Curbside Pick-Up.

When I drove up today to pick-up a 4K BD, they asked me if I was purchasing something or picking something up.

DJariya

Best But cutting fulltime jobs

Twitter

milo bloom

We’ve been into our local one quite a few times during the pandemic and it’s always busy. This seems like an odd response.

Josh-da-man

At this point, isn't most of the Best Buy staff actually employed by the companies that run the little kiosks, like Apple and Samsung?

PerryD

My dream job after I retire was to work at Best Buy. Their employee discounts are ridiculous on the high end electronics they sell in their Magnolia wing, close to 50% off otherwise price fixed products like $2000 speakers for $1100.

dsa_shea

How much of their stuff are you wanting to buy to work there just to get it cheaper? There are only so many high end items that we need at once.

PerryD

well, I'd have to enjoy working there, but I need to upgrade my Denon 4308 receiver to an Atmos 4K capable receiver
Denon - AVR-X6700H 8K Ultra HD 11.2 Channel (140 Watt X 11) AV Receiver
my Velodyne F1500R subwoofer is very long in the toothSVS - 16" 1500W Powered Subwoofer
But, as a part of my hobby, I could easily save thousands every year, and certainly buy a level or two higher within my budget. How fun would it be getting these speakers just for the family room?
Bowers & Wilkins 702 S2
but yeah, maybe not a real fantasy job, I just like the concept of the employee discount savings

E Unit

I have the Denon 6500. It’s an absolute beast. Best receiver I’ve ever had.

I was wondering how much longer BB would be able to sustain. I guess we now know the answer.

whotony

I worked at a Best Buy from around Black Friday ‘07 (my first day) until 6 0r 7 months later.

The discount was great but after a couple of months there it became tedious at best to go in every day.

This was back when the dvd/blue Ray and cd area was half the store.
It just got boring to work there.
You clock in and just try to find something to do.

Most times I’d work my way to the back wall where the tv wall was and was the busiest part of the store.
It was such nonsense trying to talk to people about the great black levels on whatever the tv of the week was.

Trying to convince people to get the warranty.

Sometimes they would stick me in the home appliance section.
No one wanted to work there.

I was part time and was realistically unremarkable there but when I put my two week in they wanted to give me a raise and make me full time.

I wouldn’t have lasted a month.

Bluelitespecial

So I went in to Best Buy today and I honestly wonder how are they still in business. They had a greeter by the door asking you why I was there. I saw a bunch of employees just standing around doing nothing and it just felt like a sad place.

milo bloom

Must be regional. The ones by me are always hopping. When they re-opened during the pandemic and had people lining up outside, there was always a crowd. And when we could go back in, there were always tons of customers.

Bluelitespecial

The masks are gone and life has basically gone back to normal so something just seems off to me that I have to tell someone why I'm there. Plus the physical media is basically down to a few display fixtures. It just felt depressing being there.

The Cow

Maybe they were just helping to direct you where to go? First time I went back to one of the ones around here the store layout had changed quite a bit (even the returns and pickup locations).

PhantomStranger

I wander in there occasionally these days and just about the only traffic I ever see is in the smartphone/tablet areas.