BCBusiness

36 BCBUSINESS FEBRUARY 2017 a coveted item at a store some- where in the U.S., Fallon cued the Best Buy video. "Single le!" he sputtered, incredulous. "Clapping!" Canadians are polite—we get it. But for Angela Scardillo, vice-president of marketing and communications at the Burnaby-based headquarters of Best Buy Canada, the video revealed the new strength of the company's brand. After Minneapolis-headquartered Best Buy Co. Inc. shut down Future Shop in March 2015—closing 66 stores across Canada and converting another 65 into Best Buy locations—the Canadian divi- sion of the big-box electronics retailer had to nd a new way forward. "That was the impetus for us to really focus on one brand and then create an entirely new culture that we all rally behind," Scardillo recalls. "So we focused on cre- ating an amazing customer experience." Best Buy encourages sta‹ to make small gestures to improve that experi- ence, Scardillo says. The recent show of goodwill in Halifax is a switch from the commission-driven ethos of Future Shop, where sales tactics included push- ing costly extended warranties. In 2001, when Best Buy entered Canada by purchasing Future Shop, it was widely expected to wind down that brand. Instead, the company stuck with Future Shop as it opened its own stores, often in the same malls. "There was kind of a motherhood rule of thumb back then that in Canada, with our con- centration of population around major markets, we could sustain two major retailers in any category," says David Ian Gray, founder of Vancouver-based retail strate"y rm DIG360. "So they kept Future Shop to give customers choice." A decade ago, Best Buy was one of the biggest global retail stories, highly protable and innovative, Gray notes. But over the next several years, the landscape changed for several reasons. The 2008—09 ™inancial crisis made consumers in the U.S. and elsewhere more budget-conscious. Apple Inc. had launched its own hugely popular stores in 2001, and in 2009, Microsoft Corp. followed suit. Meanwhile, online retailers, especially A mazon.com Inc., were stealing customers. Show- rooming—shoppers browsing prod- ucts in a store and then looking for better prices on the web— became a big problem. "All these things erode," Gray explains. "Best Buy is in a really tough category. They're continually trying to nd a formula to reinvent it. And it's hard." In 2012, Best Buy hired Hubert Joly, a veteran of the media and travel indus- tries, as CEO to turn the struggling busi- ness around. Joly's strategies included bringing in a price-matching policy to keep customers and introducing mini- stores within Best Buy locations, for companies such as Apple, Samsung and Sony Corp. He also improved online shopping by making each store capable of fullling orders when a distribution centre ran out of an item. Closing Future Shop in Canada was a cost-cutting measure. That decision and the focus on a single brand is paying off, according to Scardillo. Our Most Inžuential Brands survey seems to sup- port that view: Best Buy is No. 10, surg- ing nine spots over last year. Scardillo says Best Buy Canada, with some 1,100 employees at its Burnaby headquarters, plus 2,800 sta‹ at 22 big- box and 10 Best Buy mobile stores in B.C., has considerable autonomy over areas like marketing and purchasing. Geek Squad, a technolo"y help service set up by Joly, is managed out of the Burnaby o¢ce. One strate"y unique to Canada: o‹ering certain lines of merchandise, including luggage, online only. In November, Google opened a Vancouver mini-store at Best Buy's Cambie Street location; it's one of four žagship outlets across the country that were the rst for the search engine giant in North America. Visitors can try out Google's products, including the new Daydream View virtual reality headset. Portal, a multi-screen interactive dis- play, lets shoppers "žy" over anywhere on the planet via Google Earth. "As customers change the way that they've been shopping, our focus is on these stores that really work with our vendor partners to bring experi- ences to life," Scardillo says. "We know that technolo"y can be complicated, so we've focused on creating an emo- tional connection with our customer and showing how technolo"y can make people's lives better." —Marcie Good IMAGINATION. INNOVATION. INSPIRATION. BCBUSINESS EVENT Meet B.C's next big thinkers These young innovators began their career paths at a very young age. Now they are CEOs, entrepreneurs and philanthropists with amazing success stories. Come meet the 2017 BCBusiness 30 Under 30 winners at a special cocktail reception, where we honour the next generation to disrupt business in our province. The 2017 BCBusiness 30 Under 30 EVENT Thursday, April 13th, 2017, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. THE VANCOUVER CLUB 915 West Hastings St., Vancouver P R E S E N T I N G PA R T N E R E V E N T PA R T N E R S 30 UNDER 30 TICKETS: $99 GET TICKETS BCBusiness.ca/30under30Tickets

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