A Best Buy unlike any other.

This entry really has nothing to do with the above photo, I just thought it was clever and fitting to the title. The guy actually has a little story that goes with it, hilariousness ensues.

My story takes place this past weekend when I made a visit to the new Best Buy store in Blaine, MN. It’s a brand new store that opened about a month ago and I’ve been meaning to drop in and check it out. So I get into this store looking for an iPod FM transmitter for my car and right when I walk in it was like this geeky euphoria overwhelmed my senses.

This store was so nice and everything was set up and displayed in a matter that makes you want to play with and even buy anything you lay your eyes on. The notebook computers were on these low casual-looking tables and all of the floors were carpet. They had these ‘experience’ centers where you can sit down and play with some of the new products, the Apple display was like a miniature Apple store within the Best Buy, complete with its own Apple salesperson to answer questions. So many things that I haven’t seen in the other Best Buy stores but the most interesting addition I stumbled upon is the Best Buy CD burning center where you sit down in front of a touch screen computer with what appears to be a Best Buy branded Rhapsody music store and you can actually put together your own music CD and have it burned and packaged right there in front of you.

I easily spend an hour looking around but I eventually find what I came there for so I head up front to check out. After I’m done and I go to leave the store this lady in a suit pops out from nowhere. She says she’s from Best Buy corporate and she’d like to ask me a few questions about my visit. So I get pulled aside and she pulls out her tablet PC and starts asking me questions about the new store, what I noticed and thought of about all of the new additions and radically revamped layout. She later tells me that this Best Buy is ‘unlike any other in the country’ and they are testing the waters with the new look and feel, hence the reason corporate representatives are there doing these surveys. It only took a few minutes for the survey and I got a $10 gift card out of the deal which essentially covers what I overpaid by shopping there in the first place.

For those who don’t know, Best Buy is one of the many big retailers based here in Minnesota, so I wasn’t too surprised that they are choosing such a close location to do something like this. I was reluctant to mention to the lady administrating the survey that I actually know a couple people that work for Best Buy Corporate in Richfield. I didn’t tell her because I wanted to take the survey, I believe the new look is a needed improvement and some of the additions show potential. I’m assuming that if the new Blaine store does well (which I have no doubt it will despite there being another Best Buy in Coon Rapids, and a 3rd in Fridley both less than 10 minutes away) they will start changing the other stores to the new layout much like what Wal-Mart and Target have been doing the last couple years.