What If Radio Shack Becomes Best Buy Mobile?
- Mar
- 26
THIS IS AN EXCERPT. TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON THE TITLE:
So the rumor is out there – Radio Shack could be on the market, and Best Buy’s name has been tossed out as a suitor – we wanted to share our perspective on what it could mean. Best Buy and other retailers are known to be taking learnings from European Retail and applying them in the US. Best Buy’s own acquisition of Carphone Warehouse in the UK in 2008 could serve as a model for a potential acquisition of Radio Shack. While there are approximately 61 Best Buy Mobile stand alone stores in the US today, there are over 6,000 Radio Shack locations when you combine company owned stores, franchies, and wireless kiosks.
read moreMobile Marketing In Minneapolis And What It Means For Your Brand
- Mar
- 15
This is an excerpt. To read the full article, please click on the title.
SUMMARY:
TARGET LEVERAGING MOBILE COUPONS
BEST BUY LEVERAGING SALES LEADERSHIP IN SMART PHONES
Finally, here are 3 things brands can do to improve their mobile marketing efforts:
Optimize your brands website for mobile. The goal is to help consumers find info about your products from their mobile phone, without regard for where they actually purchase it.
Improve / increase your presence on your retailers website. If you have a brand showcase on a retailers website, investigate its mobile appearance / functionality.
Optimize search on the retailers website. Yes you have to pay for this. Others are already doing it. It is only going to increase in importance.
Walmart and Best Buy Place Their Bets and Position Themselves For Their Next Battle
- Mar
- 02
THIS IS AN EXCERPT; TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON TITLE.
SUMMARY:
It started with Tivo’s announcement of a marketing partnership with Best Buy last July, and gained steam with Walmart’s recent acquisition of VuDu, and escalates with Tivo’s new big news on March 2nd. The next big battle in Consumer Electronics and TV’s is coming closer.
The reason I share this article with you is that you don’t have to be selling TVs or set top boxes to walk away with ideas that you can apply in your own brand/business.
HOW CAN YOU ADVANTAGE A PARTICULAR RETAILER?
The key lesson here in the pursuit of Retail Leverage is to ask (and answer) the question – “How can I advantage a particular retailer versus their competition?” Get over the battle you are fighting against other brands – THE RETAILER DOESN’T CARE. The real story is the retailers fight against each other.
read moreBest Buy Insider Provides Perspective On Fall Of Circuit City
- Feb
- 20
THIS IS AN EXCERPT; TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON TITLE.
SUMMARY:
I found a great resource that fills in the blanks on Circuit City’s demise from a person I follow on twitter, @DonEames . He is a former Senior VP of Best Buy, and now has his own management consulting company. Even though he was inside the key rival of Circuit City, I believe he had front row seats to the demise. His analysis would be politically tough for a Circuit City insider to provide, especially given the it was just a year ago that the final stores shuttered.
Check it out – it is called “CIRCUIT CITY SIX: Six Fatal Mistakes of a Once “Good to Great” Company”. It is a quick and to the point read. I found it to provide valuable insight to both retailers and brands alike, and for that matter, consumers who used to shop there (or avoid it).
read moreBest Buy Is Your Best Strategy To Gain Retail Leverage
- Feb
- 08
THIS IS AN EXCERPT; TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON TITLE.
SUMMARY:
Well the dust has settled and results from the Q4 holiday season are in. I realize that some of our readers are in the CE community and have ready access to retailer share. Note that I’m not quoting anything from NPD that I have access to for my job. I’m linking to a couple of public sources to point out that you can get a good idea of what is going on with a little digging (or you can get it from us)! The data I’m sharing is from consumer surveys conducted by 2 different firms, so take it with a grain of salt – it isn’t cash register data, but provides valuable perspective on where consumers look to purchase their electronics.
1) AD AGE ARTICLE SHOWS BEST BUY GAINING GROUND (WITH 33% SHARE)
2) RETREVO PULSE ARTICLE SAYS BEST BUY LOSING GROUND (BUT WITH 40% SHARE)
TAKEAWAY: CONSUMER ELECTRONICS STILL REVOLVES AROUND BEST BUY
Best Buy is the dominant player in Consumer Electronics, a king maker that has influence with consumers beyond whatever its share actually is (33% – 41%). Even as Walmart and Amazon grow share in the CE space, it is ultimately because people get more comfortable NOT making their purchase at Best Buy. If you are a CE manufacturer, not having your products at Best Buy robs you of credibility with consumers and key influencers. If you are an agency with clients who sell products at Best Buy, you need to know as much about Best Buy as your clients because it is your best route to success. If the products you sell can’t succeed at Best Buy, you will have little leverage wherever else you go to peddle your wares. Conversely, succeeding at Best Buy paves the way for success in other channels. Best Buy does the heavy lifting for other retailers that sell consumer electronics. They just have to look at what Best Buy assorts as a baseline and start from there. So get it right in the first place and base your plans on success at Best Buy. Retail leverage will flow from there.
You Can Be Skeptical of MagicJack – But Not How They Got Retail Leverage
- Jan
- 06
THIS IS AN EXCERPT; TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON TITLE.
SUMMARY:
MAGICJACK: RETAIL AND DIRECT IN PERFECT HARMONY:
So you might ask yourself wasn’t MagicJack giving up something by tagging retailers, effectively pointing potential customers to stores?
Well they can start dialing back their Direct Response spend, or at least keep it flat. Plus after 2-3 years of hitting the airwaves hard with the same product, there are diminishing margins of return on the number of people who will buy your product direct. Chances are they saw the ad – if they were going to buy it direct they would have done so already.
Retail represents an untapped market. There are people who won’t buy direct, or maybe never even saw it on TV. And there is a good chance the retail margin they’ll pay is probably close to the cost per order to sell direct (media costs + fulfillment.
LESSONS LEARNED:
1A) Infomercials are a great vehicle for telling a story and building demand at retail.
1B) Marketers with a holier than thou attitude towards Direct Response TV (DRTV) are ignoring a viable tactic.
2) Take risk away from the retail buyer. This makes it easier for them to list / support your product. MagicJack wouldn’t be at retail if they didn’t have a success story from their direct experience, as well as ongoing aircover in the form of their DRTV spots they continue to run that in effect are ads for their retail placements.
3) There is less risk in balancing a direct and retail strategy than ever before. The battle lines have been blurred by retail consolidation, and the growth of private label. I don’t think the retail buyer spends much time worrying about where you are selling your product, as long as it is selling well in their stores. We spend way too much time worrying about who we compete against, versus just selling.
read moreWill Your Brand Be Up To The Challenge At Best Buy?
- Dec
- 14
We here at Retail Leverage are big fans of Best Buy, so we were delighted when BusinessWeek took a look at Best Buy in the post-apocalyptic environment after the demise of Circuit City. While Walmart and Amazon are worthy foes, Best Buy is the only large national consumer electronics player left standing. However important Best Buy was before as part of the buying process – regardless of the final point of purchase – Best Buy is now ready to take advantage of its position.
If you are a challenger brand marketer (or an agency working with one) there are lots of takeaways.
To read the full article, click on the Title.
read moreWhat The Bleep Is POWERMAT And How Did They Get Retail Leverage?
- Oct
- 06
When you start breaking down Powermat’s launch strategy, you’ll realize they are using a hybrid of retail leverage strategies. More importantly, they are doing it on a scale much more relevant to challenger brand marketers used to dealing with 7 figure budgets.
1) Offer Program or Product Exclusivity (sort of)
2) Have Something So Big “They” Can’t Ignore
To read the full article, click on the title link.
read moreHow Tivo Is Gaining Leverage at Best Buy
- Aug
- 05
EXCERPT:
TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON TITLE:
SUMMARY:
Tivo is gaining leverage at Best Buy but they both stand to gain a great deal. In July they announced a marketing and product development partnership with Best Buy.
read more
