Best Buy Website - Research Paper Example

? Best Buy website Best Buy website: An Overview Part Overview: Website Characteristics & Marketing Implications Best Buy Company is a US based consumer electronics retailer that and operates in America, Mexico, Canada and Puerto Rico. Their business involves not only electronics but also other merchandise for example software, computers, music, DVDs, mobiles phones, digital cameras, video cameras, home appliances, musical equipment, health and fitness related equipment etc. There are also services which allow for the installation of the service on the spot, as well as a warranty in case of repairs and accidents. (Stopper, 2006) Part 2. Benefit, Cost & Value Creation – The Marketing Mix Best Buy’s marketing value comes from the low cost and good quality of products that it sells. They also believe in being the best while at the same time enjoying their work, and ingraining a customer centric approach as a routine part of the workplace. (Buy) Placement is in stores and selling through its website as well. Best Buy is a customer oriented business so products are those that customers actually need. The placement is for the customer who earns an income of about 75,000 dollars and possibly has kids, and has has an averga eage of 38 years. (Buy) And even though Walmart and Costco are its competitiors, Best Buy allows customers to shop online. And their recent strategy is to follow Walmart’s mantra of low prices everyday in order to be more competitive and cost effective. (Heller, 2011) Best Buy also offers other oppurtunities than just products and services such as the option of assissting business people in making their own websites, having an additional website called Best Buy On which helps further in making purchase decisions and has videos that help in making decisions. (Buy) However, there are certain disadvantages as well. Best Buy has a low customer service satisfaction rate. A survey showed that their customer service and satisfaction rate was lower than that of Amazons. (Mui, 2012) Also, their price sturcture has always been high, and is sometimes even higher on the website and therefore they either need to make their product more competitive or lower down their prices. (Mui, 2012) Part 3. Consumer Characteristics Consumers are divided into Angels and Devils. Angels are the core market of Best Buy. Devils are those who browse through the website, gather information and spend time on the website, but do not make any purchases. Best Buy wants to develop relationships with Angels, and that too a one-on-one relationship. The Angels ar divided into: Jill, which is a mother who is busy and suburban, Barry, who is a tech savy individual with some amount of influence, Ray, a family guy who needs to look out for prices, Mr. Storefront, who owns his own business and Buzz who is young and is obssessed with gadgets. The marketing strategy to each of these and the assisstance given to them vary as well. Online the formats cannot be changed and all types of products are offered however there are assocuates to help them get what they want. However, geographically, they follow a format, since Best Buy keeps a database and will analyze if a particualr segement lives in a particualrly locality and build their store’s format according to the segment i.e. Buzz store etc. (Buy) Part 4. Branding Strategy Best Buy follows a strategy of innovation which is found in its brand as well. They also have a large number of their own exclusive brands. (Buy) Best Buy has also set an example for brand consistency across online and offline media. Their branding on their website and in the stores is the same, except some prodicts online are more expensive. A marketing team is what brings about brand integrity and consistency across channels of communication. Over the years, in order to endure the test of longevity, brands went through a smash test: this meant that a brand was broken down to see that if such a scenario was to occur in practical life, the broken pieces of the brand could still be recognizable as part of the whole brand identity. This ensured a strong brand. Therefore since Best Buy has put ample thought in its logo, color scheme, products, placement, pricing, promotional strategies etc., if their brand was passes through the Smash Test, it would certainly pass it. (Lindstorm) Part 5. Other Website Analysis Other websites that sell products and services online are more happening than Best Buy’s website. This could be viewed as positively or negatively by customers depending on their concept of clutter. Amazon.com has better visual displays and best deals etc. on the cover page and best sellers which are updated hourly. Ebay is less happening bu it seems to be more convenient since it has why to and how to shop instructions on the cover, and the different payment options that customers can use as well, which are not immediately present on Best Buy’s website. They also have celebrity endorsements. (Amazon) For Best Buy, especially the CEO, who started off as a salesman, social media is very important. He believes it is about the people and connecting with the people, that makes a brand better. He is subscribed to Twitter, Facebook, and he caters to every query and every tweet his own self. This is because he considers it as an important platform to connect to people and find out what they feel and do in their daily lives and what their opinions are. And it is also believed that there is no overdoing it in Best Buy. It helps connecting employees in the workplace, and lobbying with major networking sites is beneath no one. Latly, it also helps promote CSR- Customer Service Responsibility. (Singh, 2011) Part 6. Business Model(s) The era of big box models is coming to a close. It started off with this model of the big blue and yellow stores and an expansion strategy that meant opening more stores frequently. In this world of e-commerce, they want to focus on that strategy and they are closing down fifty of their shops. Apart from that, 100 Mobile stores are opening up. Also, it still focuses keenly on it business model of results only work model. Regardless of the effort, if there are no results, then compensation of employees will also eventually suffer. Also they offer more of their own brands, rather than selling other brands such as GameStop, which is related to video games. The aim is to become more connected virtually, as well as through social media and online strategies, rather than offline strategies which are going out of business gradually Lastly, they are cutting down on products and prices, focusing more on core products while at the same time, trying to say customer centric. (Business, 2012) Part 7. E-marketing metrics Since Best Buy has e-marketing consultants and analysts, it is safe to assume that they follow the basic metrics. These could be: email list i.e. the size or the number of people or organizations in your list, new subscribers, which will increase the size of your list, unsubscribers, these are the people who drop out of your list. Also, Best Buy could be using Bounce Rate; that is the emails that will bounce back, either because of a technical error or because the recipient couldnt recieve the email due to some reason such as a full inbox. Growth Rates, Open Rates and Click Rates could also be used. Growth Rates is the rate at which the company’s online influence is growing, open rates is how many times the message or email one sent has been reviwed and lastly Click Rates could be the rate at which the website is opened or clicked to use. (Buy) Part 8. Other Analysis Internally, Best Buy has good international connections, has a strong although dipping financial strength, and is a strong player in the market of electronic appliances as well. However it only depends on a few sellers and it is facing a lawsuit as well. External factors considered, it has an affiliation with Apple, it is growing in terms of the appliances it sells and the market, and focusing more on the online strategies than offline strategies as it should in the new tech savvy market. However, it faces competition from other firms with lower prices, and consumers demands are rapidly changing as well. Best Buy’s three main competitors are Amazon, Walmart and Apple. They have a better market presence and are more widespread as well, especially Amazon’s internet presence has been around forever, so it is diffuclt to compete with it. Best Buy is also trying to cut down prices, focus on a narrower range of products and keeps updating its website as well. (Buy) Part 9. Conclusions and Outlook Most of the products on Best Buy recieve a good rating. Best Buy should focus on lowering their prices further before their competitors lure them in by offering better deals, better products and a better customer service than Best Buy. Bibliography Amazon. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.amazon.com Business, U. (2012). Is Best Buy's big-box business model dead? The Week. Buy, B. (n.d.). Best Buy. Retrieved July 24, 2012, from www.bestbuy.com Heller, L. (2011). Best Buy to Adopt Walmart's 'Every Day Low Price' Strategy? Daily Finance. Lindstorm, M. (n.d.). Smash Your Brand. Mui, C. (2012). Three Reasons Why Best Buy's Fight Against 'Showrooming' is Hopeless. Forbes. Singh, A. (2011). How Best Buy's CEO Uses Social Media to Push CSR. Forbes. Stopper, B. (2006). Best Buy: Customer-Centric Innovation. Human Resource Planning, 34+. Read More