2012 100 - Networld Media Group
2012 100 - Networld Media Group
2012 100 - Networld Media Group
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54 BEST BUY<br />
EBAY<br />
Best Buy is taking its best shot at<br />
poaching some online market share<br />
from Amazon.com with a new service<br />
meant to challenge the world’s largest<br />
e-commerce company. Best Buy<br />
Marketplace substantially increases<br />
the selection of products and brands<br />
available at BestBuy.com. The effort<br />
addresses challenges shared by Barnes<br />
& Noble and all retailers committed to<br />
maintaining large bricks-and-mortar<br />
operations while simultaneously trying<br />
to flank Amazon online. Wall Street<br />
appears to have lost patience with Best<br />
Buy’s plans to overhaul itself. For the<br />
quarter ending May 28, 2011, the firm<br />
56<br />
LL BEAN<br />
posted a sales increase of only 1 percent<br />
to $10.9 billion. EPS fell by 3 percent to<br />
35 cents. Online revenue rose only 10<br />
percent in the U.S., not nearly enough<br />
to keep up with Amazon, which continues<br />
to grow by more than 50 percent<br />
per quarter.<br />
Never regarded as a retail trendsetter, L.L. Bean has responded to customer demand<br />
and now allows consumers to shop its entire inventory of outdoor gear and apparel<br />
using a new commerce-enabled mobile site powered by Usablenet. “It’s really to<br />
meet our customers where they want to shop,” said senior public relations representative<br />
Laurie Brooks. “We’re a multichannel merchant. We were responding to what<br />
our customers were asking us — to have a shoppable mobile site.” The company<br />
built a loyal following over the past 98 years with its liberal return policy and folksy<br />
sales staff. The $1.5 billion Freeport, Maine, retailer saw Internet sales top catalog<br />
orders for the first time in<br />
2010. The shift from catalog<br />
to Web sales led to a decline<br />
in phone-in order volume,<br />
requiring the retailer to<br />
close one of its four call centers.<br />
The company responded<br />
by allowing affected employees<br />
to work from home,<br />
winning the No. 1 spot in<br />
that year’s Bloomberg BusinessWeek<br />
customer service<br />
ranking.<br />
55<br />
In a direct rebuke to Amazon.com,<br />
eBay is offering consumers an incentive<br />
to shop in stores by offering those<br />
who spend $<strong>100</strong> online a $10 discount<br />
on purchases from designated retailers.<br />
To qualify, shoppers must buy on<br />
the Web from Toys R Us, Dick’s Sporting<br />
Goods, or Aeropostale using eBay’s<br />
PayPal payments servicer. The world’s<br />
largest online marketplace announced<br />
the incentive after Amazon drew<br />
heavy fire in December for offering a<br />
5 percent discount to those who used<br />
its new mobile app to compare prices<br />
with those in physical stores. While<br />
eBay also offers an app for price checking,<br />
it doesn’t actively compete with retailers<br />
on its site. EBay is “trying to be<br />
the anti-Amazon in a sense,” said Colin<br />
Sebastian, an analyst at Robert W.<br />
Baird & Co. The company is “positioning<br />
itself as a partner with traditional<br />
retailers, whereas Amazon is trying to<br />
accelerate that shift away from stores.”<br />
29
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