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Business News Retail
Best Buy confirms closure of UK stores
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 8 November 2011
Best Buy is indeed retreating from the UK, shutting down its chain of eleven stores, all of which were only opened in the last nineteen months.
Following reports the Best Buy UK chain would close in the Sunday Times this weekend, the firm’s UK parent company Carphone Warehouse confirmed the closures yesterday, saying that the eleven stores had performed “exceptionally at the level of customer satisfaction, but they do not have the national reach to achieve scale and brand economies”. It is hoped many of the chain’s 1000 UK employees can be redeployed elsewhere within the Carphone Warehouse group.
Ambitious plans to expand the US consumer electronics, CD and DVD seller across Europe were part of a multi-layered partnership between the American Best Buy company and Carphone Warehouse in 2008, which also saw the two firms collaborate on an American mobile venture which Best Buy will now take complete ownership of, ensuring Carphone Warehouse’s shareholders a nice pay day.
The retreat from Europe is another sign that Best Buy is returning its focus on the US market. As previously reported, the firm recently sold its global digital music venture Napster to rival Rhapsody.