Hanging on the wall of the Best Buy store in Edina across from Southdale Center are three identical-looking signs that read: "Thank You for Making This Store the Best," a distinction the company bestowed upon the store for performing well in 2009.
What a difference three years makes. The Richfield-based retailer said this week the store, along with four others in the Twin Cities and a total of 50 nationwide, will soon close its doors. Neither past financial performance nor sentimentality spared the Edina location, first opened in 1973, as Best Buy seeks to cut $800 million in costs over the next three years.
"We are deliberate and thoughtful when we make such decisions," the company said in a statement. "We are working to ensure ... [we serve] all of our customers in a convenient and satisfying way."
Best Buy Co. Inc. CEO Brian Dunn emphasized the company was not retreating from its home market. True, the company will reduce its retail square footage in the Twin Cities by 20 percent. But in that void, Best Buy plans to increase number of locations by 20 percent with a mix of smaller-format stores including Best Buy Mobile and its experimental "Connected Stores" remodels.
"We're going to have more doors and less square footage," Dunn told investors.
Dunn is doing what's necessary for the company's survival, as more consumer electronics shoppers migrate to the Internet, said Dave Brennan, the co-director of the Institute for Retail Excellence at the University of St. Thomas.
"Call it what you want," Brennan said. "They have too much space."
The 50 stores slated to close are probably the worst-performing of the company's 1,100 U.S. stores by way of sales and profits, said retail consultant Flora Delaney. Those closings will lead to the loss of thousands of jobs, as each outlet employs about 100 people. Delaney said Best Buy most likely will shut down many more stores over the next few years as store leases begin to expire.
