Retail ramifications: Best Buy and Apple seem a perfect pair ? except for Apple's store ambitions

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Apple isn't Best Buy's only challenge. The Richfield-based retailer faces fierce competition from discounters such as Walmart and Target. There's a huge threat, too, from online retailers that don't have the costs of brick-and-mortar stores.

Facing all those threats, Best Buy is rethinking its business model. Again.

"They're very proud of re-inventing themselves, and they actually do a good job of that," said Dave Brennan, a retail specialist at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. He notes that Best Buy began as a stereo shop in St. Paul called Sound of Music. From those humble origins, it became a Minnesota business success story and a $50-billion-a-year colossus.

Read more: http://www.twincities.com/business/ci_17426367

Originally published: 02/20/2011, Pioneer Press