Best Buy

We have been talking about appliances, appliance stores as well as appliance recycling… It seems to be possible to contain all these topics into one article dedicated to Best Buy.

It is not a secret to anyone that Best Buy is a global family of brands, an industry leader. Through more than 940 retail stores across the United States and in Canada, the company provides its customers with technology and entertainment products and services, such as consumer electronics, home-office products, entertainment software, appliances and related services. A Minneapolis-based company, its operations include: Best Buy (BestBuy.com and BestBuyCanada.ca), Future Shop (FutureShop.ca), Geek Squad…

However, the company is not only about selling appliances and other electronics.

From the smallest notebooks to the latest LED high-definition flat screens, Best Buy is also associated with almost antique items. If you manage to sneak to the back of the stores of the company you will be amazed at the variety of museum-worthy televisions, old desktop computers and outdated cell phones.

In 2009, Best Buy once again launched an in-store take back program. Consumers were given a chance to hand in their old gadgets, while mutually benefiting from the business the recycling traffic brings in.

This green initiative was started at 34 of the company’s locations. The program allowed two items per day per household, accepting almost all types of electronic devices, such as:

– Televisions and monitors up to 32 inches
– VCR and DVD players
– Cell phones
– Computers
– Accessories including mice, keyboards as well as remotes.

Televisions, CRTs, monitors and laptops were accepted for $10. The customer was not charged the $10 fee if the item was an exclusive brand (private Best Buy® label) item or in the state of California. However, as a reward customers received $10 Best Buy gift card for purchases at Best Buy stores.

Among the items which were rejected were TVs and monitors over 32 inches, console televisions, microwaves and items containing Freon other appliances of the kind. If someone wanted to recycle a desktop or laptop computer he was asked to extract the hard drive first. This could be done by the customer himself or by the Geek Squad specialist at the additional $19.99. to simplify the process, the company even released a video on how to remove the hard drive in order to cust costs for the clients.

Recycling program is a funds consuming enterprise. However, a customer is worth it: every person who came in with an old gadget is a new client at Best Buy store. This is a powerful marketing approach. The company invests into its potential clients which will surely be back at least to use their $10 Best Buy gift card.

According to CNN Money reports, “By offering recycling, Best Buy positions itself as the place to turn when customers need to dispose of their electronics, which often coincides with the acquisition of a new device.”

The company has been recurrently organizing these massive acceptance of pre-owned electronics as of November 2008. Since then, customers have ‘donated’ for recycling 110,000. Mutual benefits have brought positive feed backs and customer satisfaction, which was one of the prerogatives of Best Buy launching the program.