Best Buy Pushes Services

MINNEAPOLIS-As Best Buy grows, the electronics retailer is expanding its service and repair capabilities as a primary focus of the company’s business. That strategy involves the expansion of chains other than Best Buy’s electronics superstores as well as increased service offerings in its namesake units.

During the company’s first-quarter conference call, Darren Jackson, Best Buy’s chief financial officer, said that though the service branch of the business is growing, he warned that it is a “complex business” and that the retailer is “closer to the second inning than the seventh inning” in its roll out.

Geek Squad, for example, the company’s computer-support business, is offered in all 75-plus Best Buy stores, however, its stand-alone units only number 12, with the company opening one in the last quarter. This year the retailer will increase the number of Best Buy stores with its high-end Magnolia Home Theater concept from 127 to 300 buy the end of the year.