Electronics retailer Best Buy is coming to the UK in 2010. They will be opening physical stores and also bestbuy.co.uk will be delivering the online service that has provided so popular across the pond in the US. They are currently the largest electronics retailer in the world. Raking in US$ 45 billion per year with over 150,000 employees.

Best Buy deal in most, if not all areas of electronics from music and video to GPS systems, as well as PCs, laptops, games consoles, TV and home theatre systems as well as home appliances being included.

The first two UK stores will be opened in locations around Southampton and Thurrock, Essex. However, they do intend on opening more than 200 stores nationwide with reports suggesting that they plan to take over two of the biggest current UK electronics retailers, Comet and Curry’s. It is yet unknown whether or not they will rebrand those brands they already own 50% of the mobile phone company The Carphone Warehouse.

This does beg the questions as to the future of electronics companies such as Dixons or PC World. They will be hard pressed to compete with this level of competition. Having said that, other electronics retailers in the US such as Circuit City and Wal-Mart do manage to survive whilst competing with them. Will we continue to see the likes of Tesco branching out into the electronics market with this sort of competition? We’ll have to wait till next year to find out.

My first impressions of this move are mostly good. I have never been a fan of PC World myself, however I know they are a hugely successful company in their field so for a lot of people it may be a shame if they are forced out of the market by Best Buy, but again we will have to wait and see if this eventuality ever comes about.

Having visited their US site, it appears they do offer good customer service with what they call their ‘Geek Squad’ giving online technical support via the site, as well as services such as battery finder which could be useful for locating the right battery for your mobile phone or laptop when trying to replace it. Their prices aren’t bad either. You can pick up a 42” Panasonic 1080p TV for $899 or just under £550 which after some research I found was usually around £700 at most stores here. However, most things are usually considerably more expensive in the UK than the US anyway so again, we can only wait to find if the prices are anything to write home about.

As you can tell, there are no real facts and figures released yet apart from time and place which isn’t much to go on if you’re getting excited. However, we have less than a year to go before the first stores are due to be opened. What do you think of these plans? Are you looking forward to something new in the form of Best Buy (UK) or will you stick to the likes of PC World when buying your gadgets and appliances? Who knows at ths rate we might even end up seeing Microsoft Stores opening up over here in the next few years too!

Via – Technology For The Soul

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