The company began operating the mini-stores in malls over a decade ago, but now has decided they aren’t worth the money it costs to operate them, reports Reuters. The stores contribute just 1% to the company’s revenue–and that’ll drop to zero when Best Buy shuts all the U.S. locations on May 31 (its 52 Canadian mobile stores will remain open). In a letter to employees announcing the closures, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly said:
“We began to open them more than a decade ago, before the iPhone was even launched. Fast-forward to 2018 and the mobile-phone business has matured, margins have compressed and the cost of operations in our Mobile stand-alone stores is higher than in our Big Box stores.”
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