reveries - marketing insights and ideas

Best Buy's Boutiques. "We are in the process of reinventing what Best Buy means to its customers and finding new ways to serve diverse customer groups," says Bradbury H. Anderson, Best Buy's ceo, in a Wall Street Journal article by Gary McWilliams and Steven Grey. Translation: Best Buy is targeting women and young men with smaller, more intimate stores that are intended to create a sense of community and turn shoppers into advocates. For women, Best Buy's Studio D stores feature "warm lighting and cozy nooks" resembling "a women's boutique." For young men, Best Buy's Escape stores are all "glass-and-metal" inside, with "the feel of a nightclub."

Both stores were created by ESI Design, esidesign.com, a firm best "known for its work in interactive museums." ESI president Edwin Schlossberg says the idea was to create an environment where "you could expect to bump into friends rather than a place with every single variety of digital camera." Best Buy vp James Damian meanwhile terms the big idea as "community-centric" retailing, or the notion of "neighborhood stores that are closely tied to the interests and activities of area residents. He comments: "If we could build a network where our customers become evangelists, or become our sales force, what could that mean in terms of loyalty? We think that's absolutely huge." Studio D also emphasizes "how-to" classes on things like digital scrapbooking and special services, "such as printing large-format photos ... or creating a family calendar ... It also charges $40 for individual consultations.

Such activities can lead to customers inviting friends into the store to attend classes together, view a neighbor's photo exhibit or settle a debate on technology." Escape, meanwhile, "has a hulking Lincoln Navigator that can ferry customers to or from Wrigley Field ... and to clubs and parties." So far, the boutiques are less profitable than big-boxes, but ceo Anderson says right now the emphasis is on learning -- and some of that "has already helped shape marketing to women and young men at Best Buy stores." Best Buy's new boutiques would seem be the flipside of the retailer's controversial strategy of "shunning the 20 percent of customers who cost it money." That strategy also seems to be working: "In the quarter ended Feb. 26, sales at stores embracing the new strategy rose 8.4 percent compared with a gain of just 2.3 percent at existing stores."

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