Early history On August 22, 1966, Richard M. Schulze and a business partner opened Sound of Music, an electronics store specializing in
high fidelity stereos in
St. Paul, Minnesota. Schulze financed the opening of his first store with his personal savings and a second mortgage he took out on his family's home. In 1967, Sound of Music acquired Kencraft Hi-Fi Company and Bergo Company. and Schulze bought out his business partner. Sound of Music operated nine stores throughout Minnesota by 1978. In 1981, the
Roseville location, at the time the largest and most profitable Sound of Music store, was hit by a tornado. In response, Schulze decided to have a "Tornado Sale" of damaged and excess stock in the damaged store's parking lot. In 1988, Best Buy was in a price and location war with
Detroit-based appliance chain
Highland Superstores, and Schulze attempted to sell the company to
Circuit City for US$30 million. Circuit City rejected the offer, claiming they could open a store in Minneapolis and "blow them away." In 1988, the company introduced a new store concept dubbed "Concept II". Concept II replaced dimly lit industrial-style stores with brighter and more fashionably fixtured stores. Concept III stores were larger than previous stores and included expanded product offerings, "Answer Center"
touchscreen kiosks that displayed product information for both customers and employees, and demonstration areas for products such as
surround sound stereo systems and video games. Best Buy launched its "Concept IV" stores with its expansion into
New England in 1998. Concept IV stores included an open layout with products organized by category, cash registers located throughout the store, and slightly smaller stores than Concept III stores. The stores also had large areas for demonstrating
home theater systems and computer software. In 1999, Best Buy was added to
Standard & Poor's S&P 500. The company acquired Magnolia Hi-Fi, Inc., an audio-video retailer located in
California,
Washington, and
Oregon, in December 2000. Later that year, Best Buy acquired the
British Columbia, Canada-based electronics-chain
Future Shop Ltd., marking its entrance to the international marketplace. Under the deal, Future Shop was purchased for about US$377 million and continued to operate as subsidiary independent from Best Buy Canada.
Brad Anderson succeeded Richard Schulze as Best Buy
CEO in July 2002. Anderson began working at Best Buy in 1973 while attending seminary school. In October, Best Buy acquired Minneapolis-based Geek Squad, then a 24-hour residential computer repair business with offices in Minneapolis,
Chicago,
Los Angeles, and
San Francisco. In June, Best Buy divested Musicland to Sun Capital Partners in exchange for all its stock and debt. Best Buy launched its "Reward Zone" loyalty program in July following an 8-month test of the program in
San Diego, California. Also in 2003, Best Buy's corporate offices were consolidated into a single campus in
Richfield, Minnesota. In January 2004, Best Buy hired Virtucom Group to revamp Best Buy's website and handle all of the company's online content. In May, the company launched its "customer centricity" program, which segmented its stores according to customer profiles. The program also called for employees to focus on specific customer groups rather than product categories. In October, Best Buy completed rolling out Geek Squad "precincts" in every American Best Buy store. In April 2005, Best Buy began eliminating
mail-in rebates in response to negative customer reaction against them, and instead started giving out instant rebates via notebook computers. In May 2006, Best Buy acquired a majority interest in Chinese appliance retailer Jiangsu Five Star Appliance for $180 million. At the time of the deal, Jiangsu was the fourth-largest appliance chain in China with 193 stores across eight Chinese provinces. In June, the company opened Geek Squad precincts at
Office Depot in
Orlando, Florida. In January 2007, the first Best Buy-branded store in China officially opened in Shanghai. In March 2007, Best Buy acquired Speakeasy, a
Seattle-based broadband
VOIP, data, and IT services provider. The acquisition was worth $80 million, and under terms of the deal, Speakeasy began operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of Best Buy. The company's products also became part of Best Buy's For Business program. Best Buy also expanded its Geek Squad market tests in March, opening Geek Squad precincts in
FedEx Kinkos stores located in
Indianapolis and
Charlotte, North Carolina. In October 2007, Best Buy became the first consumer-electronics retailer to exit the analog television market, carrying only digital products that became mandatory in June 2009 by the
FCC. In February 2008, Best Buy opened its first store in
San Juan, Puerto Rico. Best Buy's Geek Squad market tests in Office Depot and FedEx Kinkos stores ended by March. Also in March, the company began promoting the
Blu-ray optical-disc format over the
HD DVD format, a move which ultimately contributed to Toshiba's decision to drop HD DVD. In May, the company agreed to buy 50% of the retail division of The Carphone Warehouse, a
London, England-based mobile phone retailer. The deal was worth $2.1 billion. Best Buy became the first third-party retail seller of
Apple's iPhone in September. Later that month, the company agreed to acquire
Napster for $121 million. In December, Best Buy opened its first store in Mexico. In February 2009, Best Buy leveraged its partnership with The Carphone Warehouse to launch Best Buy Mobile, a Best Buy-branded mobile retailer. Best Buy Mobile standalone stores were opened in shopping malls and urban downtowns. These Best Buy Mobile outlets were also added in all Best Buy-branded stores. In June 2009,
Brian J. Dunn became Best Buy CEO. Dunn replaced Brad Anderson, who was retiring. Dunn had joined Best Buy in 1985 as a sales associate. In 2000, Dunn became senior vice president of East Coast operations and president of North American retail operations in 2004. His most recent position was as president of Best Buy since 2006. In November 2009, Best Buy partnered with Roxio's CinemaNow to launch an on-demand streaming service which allowed streaming from any Internet device sold by Best Buy. In December 2009, Best Buy opened its first Turkish store in
İzmir.
2010s In April 2010, Best Buy opened its first
United Kingdom-based Best Buy-branded store in
Thurrock. The company eventually opened 11 Best Buy stores in the United Kingdom, all of which were closed in early 2012. In November 2011, Best Buy purchased The Carphone Warehouse's share of Best Buy Mobile for $1.3 billion. Best Buy and The Carphone Warehouse maintained their Best Buy Europe joint venture, which at the time operated 2,500 mobile phone stores throughout Europe. The company closed all of its Best Buy-branded stores in China by February 2011, when it merged Best Buy China's operations with Jiangsu Five Star, which had become a wholly owned subsidiary of Best Buy in 2009. In December 2011, Best Buy purchased mindSHIFT Technologies, a company that provided IT support for small and medium-sized businesses, for $167 million. In 2012, in response to overall revenue decline, Best Buy announced plans to undergo a "transformation strategy". Stores began to adopt a redesigned "Connected Store" format, providing the Geek Squad with a centralized service desk and implementing a "store-within-a-store" concept for Pacific Kitchen & Bath and Magnolia Design Center. In April 2012, Brian Dunn resigned as Best Buy's CEO during an internal company investigation into allegations of personal misconduct stemming from an inappropriate relationship with a female Best Buy employee. Best Buy named Director
George L. Mikan III interim CEO following Dunn's resignation. Joly had previously been CEO of
Carlson, a hospitality conglomerate, since 2008. In April 2013, Best Buy exited the European consumer electronics market when it sold its 50% stake in The Carphone Warehouse back to the UK-based mobile phone retailer. The sale was worth around $775 million. On March 28, 2015, Best Buy announced the shutdown of the Future Shop chain in Canada; 65 of its 131 former locations were converted into Best Buy locations, while the rest (primarily those in close proximity to an existing Best Buy) were closed permanently. On March 1, 2018, the company announced that it would shut down its 250 standalone Best Buy Mobile stores in the United States by the end of May, due to low revenue and high costs. The Best Buy Mobile stores were reported to account for 1% of the company's revenue. On May 9, 2018, the company unveiled a new logo for the first time in nearly three decades. On July 2, 2018, Best Buy announced it was cutting the amount of store space devoted to selling physical music, citing the popularity of streaming services as having reduced sales. On April 15, 2019, Best Buy announced that in June 2019, its current CFO, Corie Barry, would replace Hubert Joly who held the position of CEO since August 2012. Joly subsequently became executive chairman of the company.
2020s Despite an increase in sales of computer equipment due to an increase in
remote work during the
COVID-19 pandemic, Best Buy
laid off over 5,000 employees in early 2021 and forced many others into part-time positions. In August 2022, Best Buy said it would be laying off employees across the country after warnings of weaker sales, and the company cut its forecast for the remainder of 2022. On October 13, 2023, Best Buy announced that it would phase out the sale of
home video on physical media in early 2024, citing changes in the market due to the prevalence of streaming
video on demand services. On January 18, 2024,
BCE Inc. announced an agreement with Best Buy's Canadian division, under which selected locations of its competing chain
The Source (originally the Canadian franchises of
RadioShack, which were later acquired by Circuit City and, in turn, Bell)—which primarily operates in malls and smaller markets—would be rebranded as Best Buy Express. The stores will receive inventory from Best Buy and integrate with its e-commerce operations, but will continue to otherwise be owned and operated by BCE under
license, and exclusively offer wireless services from
Bell Canada and its subsidiaries. The first location opened in
Surrey, British Columbia in June 2024; 167 locations were converted to the new branding, and the remaining stores were closed permanently. In January 2025, Best Buy announced plans to relaunch its online marketplace for third-party sellers by summer 2025. The retailer had previously operated a marketplace from 2011 to 2016. This time, Best Buy is partnering with
Mirakl, a marketplace software provider, to build the platform. ==Corporate affairs==