With its own surveys showing that more than 8 in 10 Americans want "a better way to buy a mobile phone," Richfield-based Best Buy Co. Inc. is making a hard play to expand its reach into the mobile market.
Best Buy's latest effort will venture into shopping malls, a rarity for the big-box consumer electronics giant, where it will test three stand-alone stores aimed at helping people navigate their "mobile life," the company said Wednesday.
MOA is one of the first
On Friday stores open at the Mall of America in Bloomington and in Fairfax, Va. Another opens by month's end in Schaumburg, Ill. Best Buy opened a 45,000-square-foot general merchandise store at the Mall of America in August.
The new stores will use the Best Buy Mobile banner, the same name as the "store-within-a-store" concept now available in all of Best Buy's 965 U.S. locations. But the new stores will sell a broader array of mobile devices, including smart phones, mp3 players, lightweight portable notebook computers and fashion-focused accessories, said spokeswoman Lisa Hawks.
Geek Squad advice and service contracts will help consumers do a better job of integrating everything from televisions to music to phones and computers, she said.
While the average Best Buy store has a footprint of about 40,000 square feet, the new 3,000-square foot stores will have a "boutique-like setting," the company said, and will be aimed at women, teens and "tweens" -- shoppers that don't visit Best Buy's big-boxes on a regular basis.
The company said it has no immediate plans to open more of the stores.
