Best Buy Continues To Thrive By Adding Another Store-in-a-Store

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Samsung products will now be features at Best Buy with store-within-a-store

While other major retailers are struggling to keep up with online retailers and other challenges to sales, Best Buy has found a way to thrive by embracing an omni-channel approach, looking for ways to create interactive and informative shopping experiences for customers.

In May 2014, Best Buy began redesigning stores to create an interactive home theater experience, where customers could see televisions, sound bars, and more on display. And in October of 2014, Best Buy partnered with Intel to create a new in-store exploration center for customers to learn about cutting-edge technologies, including four specific stations for customers to discover and test the capabilities of the latest innovative products provided by Intel—including tablets, PCs and other latest technologies.

Now, Best Buy has announced the creation of yet another store-within-a-store space, this one dedicated to Samsung home appliances.  The new space will include touchscreens with interactive tours and the ability to customize features on products.

This announcement deepens the existing relationship with Samsung; the retailer already has spaces for Samsung television and home-theater products as well as a Samsung mobile phone and tablet concession.

According to the Chicago Star-Tribune, The “Samsung Open House,” a roughly 20-by-20-foot area, was installed in Best Buy’s Maple Grove and Maplewood stores, as well as one in the Chicago area, in early June. Best Buy expects the mini-shop to open in approximately 200 additional locations by the end of the year.

“It’s a good partnership,” said Jeff Haydock, a Best Buy spokesman. “Samsung has done a great job in bringing technology into appliances.”

Appliances account for about 7 percent of Best Buy’s overall sales, but the category has been growing faster than some of its bigger product categories such as TVs and smartphones. Appliance sales at Best Buy grew 7.5 percent last year and 16.7 percent in 2013.

Best Buy has about 1,050 big-box locations in the U.S., where it deploys the mix of store-within-stores. It also runs about 350 smaller Best Buy mobile stores, chiefly in shopping malls.