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Can this young, hard-working, friendly Best Buy employee eventually take the place of more senior-level A/V sales and design associates?
It’s no secret that Best Buy and its Magnolia Home Theater stores are eliminating positions and slashing wages of key personnel.
One employee suggests that the skilled veterans will be replaced by inexperienced “high-school kids.”
Let’s just say that some of the more experienced Magnolia sales and design associates must take pay cuts from $17 or $18 an hour to something like $12.56 per hour (as has been reported).
Certainly many of them will leave the company, to be replaced with less experienced personnel.
Will that necessarily lead to diminished service?
A disgruntled district-level employee of Best Buy called Electronic House recently, predicting doom for the home-entertainment chain.
He said that a wage of $12.56 is about on par with Best Buy’s “line-level employees,” aka the Blue Shirts.
“They’re going to lose their best people,” he said. “I imagine as people quit – you’ll probably have a mass amount leaving – their positions will be filled by PSAs (personal shopping assistants) or CAs (customer assistants) who are basically unskilled labor units – kids in high school who walk around the store with a broad knowledge of nothing.”
Our source explained that $15,000 media rooms are the “bread and butter” of Magnolia Home Theater. He predicts that these sales will evaporate because there won’t be experts left to sell and install those systems.
Not surprisingly, Best Buy disagrees with this assessment. Understandably, the retailer is reassessing its business and making cuts like the rest of us. But the big-box giant is more focused than ever on “face time” with with its customers, according to spokesperson Justin Barber.
Best Buy is creating some “leadership roles in the stores and giving them more face time with customers, so there will be an elevated experience for more people,” says Barber.
Moreover, he explains, “There are indeed some jobs being eliminated, also some being added, and some getting shuffled around. … Some people whose pay was affected, there are things being put into place so they have time to find other positions [within Best Buy],” he says.
Still, our source predicts that Best Buy, or at least its specialty Magnolia stores, will suffer the same fate as other A/V retailers who lost their most experienced employees and brought on lower-cost amateurs.
“It’s just crazy how similar this seems to what happened at Circuit City,” he says.
Indeed, Circuit City was widely criticized for replacing its experienced A/V salespeople and installers with more affordable, but apparently ineffective personnel.
What do you think?
If Magnolia Home Theater (along with other specialty divisions of Best Buy) slashes the wages of its most experienced and enthusiastic associates, will that necessarily mean the level of service will fall?
Or will the veterans and newbies alike rise to the occasion?
At least one (purported) Best Buy employee is happy just to have a job. “NC” writes:
What Best Buy had to do with the pay cuts sucks—no doubt about it. As a retail employee there and being one of the people affected by the change, I am quite frankly thankful that they didn’t just ELIMINATE our jobs. The economy is going through rough times, and the reason why Best Buy has not seen the fate of Circuit City is because it does re-organizations. Best Buy makes changes that makes current business sense.
I am a former electronics salesperson and manager for the now defunct “The Good Guys!” and currently a home theater installer. I paid close attention to the whole “trained sales staff vs. floor drone” debate that happened when Circuit City did the same thing. At that time the highest paid people left CC for greener pastures. Good Guys, Tweeter and others got some of them. Circuit City lost customers and struggled for years until they folded. In the mean time Good Guys changed their pay structure to a salary-centric model + small commission with the explanation that they couldn’t afford to pay more when BB was selling the same stuff but paying the staff much less. GG also folded.
This is a bad move for BB but it will go differently for them. There will be some loss because some will get motivated to go on to bigger and better things but in this economy, and with a lack of competitive employer the majority will stay(I think BB is counting on it and company morale will drop.
@Dan and Paul. You are both right. I always recommend finding a local installer, but make sure he is skilled AND honest. Honesty is just as important as skill.
Circuit City did a similar “save” of their company right before they went under. All the sales staff making over $45,000 per year (commission) were “let go”. Everyone else could stay for $14 per hour (no commission). After a couple years those employees were told, “We can higher 2 people for what we’re paying you…You can stay for $7 an hour or leave.”
It’s not that these “big box” stores aren’t any good. It’s that you could learn more about the product than their sales people just by reading the owner’s manual. Something most people (customer or employee) aren’t willing to do. Additionally, most people that still live at home don’t have much incentive to put any effort into their “careers”.
@Dan: If you’re a professional installer, you should take a little more time on spelling and grammar, it might help your credibility. Spelling aside, just because you’ve done it for years doesn’t mean you are any good at it.
As a consultant who regularly contracts out on behalf of high end clients with specialty AV installers, you might be appalled by the amount of businesses out there that have been in business for x years and have very little know how, or the correct skill-sets to design and build a theater. There have been numerous times I’ve asked for references, and made calls to former clients that tell me horror stories about service, or brag about their $100,000 theater that a knowledgeable and honest dealer could have done a better job on for $50,000.
One client invited me out to take a look at his home, very proud of his theater. I found at least $20,000 worth of serious problems on his $40,000 install, including several building code infractions, and a couple of wiring hazards. Not one of the walls was level or straight, one was over ¾ of an inch off vertical, with a 5/8 inch bow in the middle of the wall! In one spot 12 gauge speaker wire was used as electrical wire to connect a pot light! The specialty installer that did the install had been in business for close to 20 years. There were some excellent products used in the home, but the installer clearly had no clue how to design and build a high performing theater, or didn’t care enough to look after the construction of the room. The client, sued, and the company is no longer in business.
Best Buy Sucks!! Im a Custom Installer and I have had to fix many of there screw up’s. There techs arent trained properly, probaly because they arent getting paid much in the first place. Best buy is all about the sale and could care less that it gets installed right. My suggestion is to find a local specialist, you will save a lot of money and get proffesional service from the guys that have been doing this stuff for years.
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If you are going to spend $15k or more on a home theater system, why not get an ISF certified installer to consult on your job. Do your homework and research. There is no excuse these days with all the internet info out there.
Retail electronics is a race to the bottom. I’ve seen them ALL go out of business. Best Buy will in time too. Once they go under, another group of venture capital will come in and start the whole process over again. In the meantime, the minimum wage will be great experience for the young person building their resume.