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RICHFIELD, MN-Best Buy Co., the largest electronics retailer in the US, plans to open 73 stores in the next fiscal year, adding about 60 stores in the US and 13 in Canada. The locally based retailer, which has about 820 North American stores, also will relocate nine US stores in the next fiscal year and hopes to have 1,000 stores in North America in the near future.
Of the 60 or so new Best Buy stores in the US, about half will be in the 30,000-sf format with the rest split between the 20,000-sf format and 45,000-sf format. Most of the new stores are to be opened in markets where Best Buy already has a presence. The company also expects to relocate about nine domestic stores during the coming fiscal year.
Brian Dunn, Best Buy's president of retail for North America, says new stores will reflect "lessons from this past year's store openings," providing an "enhanced shopping experience for customers" while taking advantage of efficiencies that cut construction costs of new stores by about 10%. All new stores will be built to the company's "segmented, customer-centric business model," he says.
The store openings are similar in number to additions it slated for the current year. Its closest competitor, Richmond, VA-based Circuit City, has about 625 stores and plans to relocate or add as many as 40 stores during its next fiscal year.
Of the 13 Best Buy stores in Canada, seven will be in the Montreal market. These new stores are expected to be mostly in the 30,000-sf format. Future Shop, best Buy's Canadian subsidiary, anticipates opening two new Canadian stores, each about 25,000 sf, as well as relocating five existing stores.
Three years ago, there were no Best Buy stores in Canada and 95 Future Shop stores. At the end of the next fiscal year, the company expects to have 43 Best Buy stores and 116 Future Shop stores in Canada. By the end of next month, the company expects to operate 688 Best Buy and Magnolia stores in the US and 144 Future Shop and Best Buy stores in Canada.
The company estimates that its total domestic retail space, excluding distribution centers, will increase to about 30.1 million sf, up from 28.5 million sf. The company's international retail square footage will increase to about 3.5 million sf during the same period, up from about three million sf.
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