Best Buy Hires Starbucks CIO to Boost Online Sales

March 16th, 2012 by Trefis Team
-9.53%
Downside
99.06
Market
89.62
Trefis
BBY: Best Buy Co logo
BBY
Best Buy Co

Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) recently hired former Starbucks’ (NASDAQ:SBUX) CIO, Stephen Gillett, in order to boost its online sales. While at Starbucks, Stephen led the Digital Ventures business unit that was responsible for revolutionizing mobile payments at the coffee chain and created some very engaging smartphone apps. At Best Buy, Stephen would lead the e-commerce business, information technologies and global shared services. Best Buy competes with general retailers like Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and Costco (NASDAQ:COST) as well as other specialty retailers like Radio Shack (NYSE:RSH) and GameStop (NYSE:GME).

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Online Retailers like Amazon Dominate the E-commerce Market

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Online retailers like Amazon and eBay enjoy a dominating position in the e-commerce market given their much wider product offerings. According to comScore, Amazon.com was the sixth most visited website in the U.S. in July, with 97.1 million unique U.S. based visitors. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target were also among the 50 most visited sites while Best Buy failed to make the list. [1]

According to Best Buy CEO Brian Bunn, e-commerce is one of the fastest growing businesses for the company. This segment witnessed strong sales over the past two quarters, up 13% and 20%, respectively. Best Buy is looking to leverage Stephen’s experience in bringing retail and digital technology together to build strong relationships with its customers.

We are optimistic about this development and believe Stephen could bring in the desired technological revolution at Best Buy which would drive online sales, and will allow Best Buy to emerge as a stronger player in the growing e-commerce market.

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Notes:
  1. See: Can Best Buy’s New ‘Market Place’ Poach Customers from Amazon?, Daily Finance [↩]