Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

Circuit City’s announcement that all of their remaining electronics retail stores are closing exposes a fundamental but often overlooked lesson that all small business owners need to know and understand.

Before reading on, ask yourself a simple questions – does my business respond to the actions of our competitors, or do we make our competitors respond to us?

Best Buy’s Changing Plans – Background

A massive Q3 2008 downturn in Best Buy’s sales forced electronics retail giant to reassess their plans of placing new stores within 5 miles of Circuit City locations in an effort to grab more market share from their rivals.

Best Buy was aggressively working to choke off competition from Circuit City by saturating only the markets where Circuit City had a retail presence.

Mid-2008 Walmert and Dell teamed up in an experiment across 15 of their Dallas-area super centers to create a competitive answer to Best Buy’s Geek Squad. The experiment was called “Solution Station.”

The experiment is old news, but I think it is interesting that there has been no mention of the effort since its launch.

Google searches for “Solution Station” only bring up spammy sites and a few press releases dating back to the project’s launch. Normally you at least find a few complaints online, but there is not a single one.

A new commercial questions the quality of Geek Squad’s technicians by highlighting their willingness to hire warm bodies over qualified technicians.