From PC Mag: In a letter sent to employees, Best Buy Chief Executive Hubert Joly announced that the company is set to close all 250 of its mobile stores on May 31.
As Reuters reports, Best Buy's decision to close the stores is due to a combination of much lower margins on smartphone sales and an increased cost of operations for these small stores, a cost Best Buy states is now higher than at its big box stores.
The numbers simply no longer add up for these locations, which have been around for more than a decade and only offer around 1,400 square feet or retail space.
Best Buy will continue to offer the same mobile products through its big box stores in the US, of which there are 1,000. We don't know how many staff are affected by this decision, but Joly said there will be help to find employees new positions within the company. If no new position is found, employees will be offered severance if they leave after May 31 and then help finding a job elsewhere.
As the big box stores will continue to offer a range of mobile devices we should expect the mobile stores to continue pretty much as normal right up to the end of May. After that, remaining stock can just be relocated to the nearest big box, hopefully along with a few members of staff from the smaller stores.
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