Dive Brief:
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Best Buy is testing a free, in-home tech consulting program in San Antonio, Austin, and Atlanta, reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, where Geek Squad agents help customers with anything from increasing their home's WiFi internet speed to connecting wireless speakers.
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The project’s slogan is “You'll be surprised what your home can do” and is reminiscent of Ron Johnson’s Enjoy effort, although that startup provides its concierge service to customers who have ordered something from the retailer.
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Best Buy already operates its popular Geek Squad in-home installation and repair services as well as its more upscale Magnolia Design Center for audiophiles who want expertise in bigger projects like surround-sound theater systems.
Dive Insight:
Best Buy is under pressure to find ways to uniquely appeal to consumers, who can readily find many of its products at Amazon and elsewhere. In fact, Amazon accounted for a whopping 90% of the $5.6 billion growth in consumer electronics sales posted nationwide in 2015, Deutsche Bank analysts said last week.
Of the top 25 consumer electronics retailers, just nine saw actual dollar growth last year, and only Costco and Amazon picked up market share, the analysts said.
Despite this competition, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly told Fortune last month that the company is in a unique position to help customers make sense of an increasingly complex technological environment. The in-home consulting program is just one of several pilot programs the retailer is testing to ramp up its service offerings.
“The pace of innovation (in tech) is very extraordinary, but for the customer it’s a bit confusing knowing what to buy,” Joly said. “There is a growing gap between what technology can do and what we as consumers understand what technology can do.”
Faced with competing on price and convenience and with few ways to differentiate its merchandise, Best Buy has to differentiate its shopping experience. The retailer does have its own exclusive lines of electronics, but Amazon—more willing and able to forgo profits in its retail operations thanks to its hugely profitable cloud computing business—is often able to meet or beat its prices, and Prime members enjoy free two-day shipping on many items and same-day delivery in many areas.
This expansion of Geek Squad could be just the thing, Jason Goldberg, senior vice president of commerce at digital consulting firm Razorfish, told the Star Tribune.
"We've evolved from products to systems of products, and the decision-making process has gotten much more complex," Goldberg said. "It's very smart of them to try to invent services to address that."