Is Best Buy's gain Amazon.com's loss?
An article/discussion last month on RetailWire explored the why's behind Amazon's continued sales growth in states even after it has begun to collect sales tax. Now, a Best Buy financial report shows that while its physical stores didn't get a huge boost in states where Amazon has started to add sales tax charges to purchases, its website has seen a pickup in dollar volume.
"In California, Texas and Pennsylvania where Amazon.com recently started collecting tax, it is very early, but Best Buy has seen a four to six percent increase in online sales observed in aggregate versus the rest of the chain," spokeswoman Amy von Walter wrote in an email to Reuters last week.
Best Buy's improvement can't just be attributed to the Amazon tax factor. In an effort to be more competitive during the holiday season, Best Buy not only cut prices, but engaged in price matching, as well.
"One of the first priorities of our 'Renew Blue' strategy is to stabilize and then begin improving our comparable store sales. During the most important period in the retail calendar — the holiday sales season — we were able to improve our domestic comparable store sales trends compared to the performance of the last several quarters and continue our strong traffic growth in our online business. Our holiday selling strategy, backed by a compelling assortment, increased employee training and price match policy, allowed us to deliver these results," said Hubert Joly, president and CEO of Best Buy. "While it will be a journey with ups and downs, we are focused on becoming an increasingly effective multi-channel retailer and engaging with the tens of millions of consumers who shop us online and in-store."
Best Buy same-store year-over-year sales for the nine weeks ending Jan. 5 were unchanged.