14 DAY TRIAL // Best Buy who currently operates more than 800 stores in the United States is planning to open its shelves to several computer hardware manufacturers that offer business and home use computers and other hardware parts. This move could transform the retail company into a very strong competitor against Dell in the small business market.
According to Jeff Dudash, spokesperson from Best Buy, who was cited by the news site InformationWeek, Best Buy will have the hardware components and computer systems, both desktops and mobile ones, in stores by the holiday shopping season. Among the hardware components that Best Buy will offer to its clients there will be desktops, notebooks, networking hardware, hard disk drives, digital cameras and other computer peripherals.
While Best Buy is already selling products from manufacturers like HP and Lenovo, now the computers intended for businesses will carry a special label "Professional Series" and customers will be served by specialized personnel. "There will be enough (people) to handle customers during the prime business hours". A number of the company's stores used to have a kiosk and staff dedicated solely to business customers, while a direct sales force of around 100 people scattered through the major cities targeted companies with less than 1000 workers.
Even if Dell is currently the market leader in the U.S. on the market dedicated to business customers, Best Buy's rapid expansion puts the computer company into the position to lose customers to a retail dealer. And according to Dudash, its success is mainly based on the convenience it brings to clients. "If you need a product right now, you can drive down the street, pick it up, and drive home". While the retail dealer company does not split the market into business and consumer sales, it still estimates that from the total annual market of $100 billion centered on computer hardware in the U.S., it has about a half of this percent.