Remember those standalone Best Buy mobile stores you would see at the mall or other outlets? They may not be around for much longer. According to various sources, Best Buy will be shutting down all the 250 mobile-focused stores it has around the US. The company first put up the stores back in 2006 to take advantage of the growing mobile phone industry, but since the phone business is no longer as lucrative as it used to be, they will be shutting down.
Best Buy chief Hubert Joly, in a letter, told employees that those small outlets are now more expensive for the company to operate than the bid stores. Here’s what he said in the letter:
“We began to open them more than a decade ago, before the iPhone was even launched. Fast forward to 2018 and the mobile-phone business has matured, margins have compressed and the cost of operations in our Mobile stand-alone stores is higher than in our Big Box stores.”
It should really come as a surprise that Best Buy is looking to close all 250 of its standalone stores because they only make up for one percent of overall company revenue. For example, Apple has been building more and more retail media outlets and it’s easier to just buy phones from their locations than to go into Best Buy. People might be more inclined to purchase from a 40,000-square-foot retail location than a 1,400-square-foot shop that only sells mobile phones.
Best Buy didn’t state hoe many employees are affected by the closure of standalone stores, but the letter did say that they will help them find other jobs within the company over the next three months. If
