Best Buy Research Paper

Throughout the years, Best Buy has become one of the most famous electronic retailer in the US, necessarily be the definition of “electronic store” for many of us. However, tracing back to history, music played a vital role to the company’s early days and helped shaped the company as we seen it today. In 1966, Richard M. Schulze and a business partner opened Sound of Music, an electronics store specializing in high fidelity stereos in Saint Paul, Minnesota (Weimer, 1998). By 1969, Schulze had bought out his business partner, Sound of Music had three stores and the company became a publicly held company listed on the NASDAQ exchange. Since then, Sound of Music operated nine stores throughout Minnesota by 1978. In 1983, with seven stores and $10 million in annual sales, Sound of Music was renamed Best Buy Company, Inc. The company shifted its focus and expanded its offers to cover almost all types of electronics ranging from home appliances to VCRs. The first super store in Burnsville, Minesota was opened later that year. By implementing the high-volume, low price business model, the Burnsville store outperformed all other Best Buy stores combined (Jackie, 2012). Best Buy replicated the business model of Burnsville store. Riding the wave of technology boom in the 90s, Best Buy has become the huge symbol in electronic retail. In 1999, Best Buy was added to Standard & Poor’s S&P 500.

In 2000, Best Buy formed Redline Entertainment, an independent music label and action-sports video distributor. The company acquired Magnolia Hi-Fi, Inc., an audio-video retailer located in California, Washington and Oregon, in December 2000. In January 2001, Best Buy acquired Musicland Stores Corporation, a Minnetonka, Minnesota-based retailer that sold home entertainment products under the Sam Goody, Suncoast Motion Picture Company, Media Play and OnCue