Best Buy Closures: The days of hopping in the car and driving to your local Best Buy to look at big-screen TVs may be numbered.
Best Buy’s CEO Corie Barry said Thursday during the Minneapolis-based electronics retailer’s quarterly earnings call that the company may close more locations than usual in 2021 as the move to online shopping intensifies and customers become less willing to venture indoors during COVID-19. The business expects to renew about 450 leases, or about 150 per year on average, in the next three years.
As part of the evaluation process, we’ve shuttered about 20 large-format stores in each of the last two years and anticipate closing many more this year,” Barry added. “We’ve also been shortening our average lease period, which allows us to maintain our flexibility.
Best Buy Closures Story
While the retailer’s online sales skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic as homebound consumers stocked up on laptops, TVs, and other goods, the number and hours of shop employees are being cut. According to Barry, Best Buy let off 5,000 full-time store employees earlier this month.
Our operating strategy
Addition to our physical locations, must be developed to match our consumers’ evolving shopping behaviors, which the pandemic has accelerated,” Barry explained. “The abrupt and long-term shift in customer behavior toward shopping more frequently and seamlessly across all of our channels has caused us to reconsider how we do business.
The corporation claimed
The corporation claimed that the job cuts were necessary because more customers shop online rather than visit its stores. It will hire 2,000 part-time workers to replace 5,000 full-time staff.
Barry also stated that hourly employees would receive a $500 “extra cash gratitude incentive” if they work full-time and $200 if they work part-time or on a seasonal basis.
Best Buy’s employment had fallen in the last year when the company had to furlough employees when it closed stores to the public in the early days of the pandemic. It now employs over 100,000 people, a decrease of 21,000 people, or 17%, from the previous year.
In mid-June, employees were brought back from leave. The corporation increased the minimum beginning salary to $15 per hour in August.
Workers are being retrained to assist with online orders. Additionally, extra space in stores is being used to ship orders or prepare them for curbside pickup, allowing customers to order online and pick up their orders in the parking lot.
A group of workers have launched an online petition demanding that Best Buy pay workers for missed wages due to the layoffs.
According to the petition, on January 10, the corporation began reducing employee hours at 150 locations. Shannon Falls, a petition organizer who works at Best Buy Closures in Omaha, Nebraska, reported that 792 of the roughly 4,000 signatures came from Best Buy employees.
Workers Grappled
Workers grappled with the unexpected loss of up to 40% of their pay and anxiety about what to do because they were not notified if the cuts would be permanent, according to Fulfs.
“Paying employees for hours they didn’t work, which is what a small number of people are asking for in this petition,” Best Buy added.
We reminded the petitioners that while we disagree with their claims, we completely support their right to do so,” the business said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Our business model, like any retailer’s, has always allowed us to modify workforce to suit customer demand.
Compared to the same time
Compared to the same time last year, Best Buy’s online sales increased by 89 percent from November to the end of January.
During that quarter, revenue increased by 11% to $16.9 billion. Its earnings increased by roughly 10% to $816 million. Its adjusted profits per share of $3.48 outperformed Wall Street projections.
Sales online and in brick-and-mortar stores, a critical indicator of a retailer’s health, surged 12.6 percent in the latest quarter and 9.7 percent year over year. It forecasts that figure to increase by 20% in the current quarter, but growth is projected to moderate this year, falling by 2% or rising by as much as 1%.
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