This latest step in the wrong direction could not come at a worse time. Best Buy's new management team met with analysts last week to share the path to recovery and inspire renewed confidence in the company. But Monday's website crashes are giving me flashbacks of execution issues last year. Remember when customers did not receive their products by the time Santa arrived?
Not only is Black Friday just around the corner, but management just finished explaining to the investment community how they are planning to gain share online by addressing abandon rates and complexity. This is not the way to start a fresh relationship with investors or consumers.
Best Buy reports third-quarter earnings before the market's open Tuesday. After last week's analyst presentation and a less than inspiring same-store sales guide back in October — which said the decline in same-store sales would be similar to the first and second quarter, which translates into a decline in the range of 3.2 percent to 5.3 percent — we were not expecting any big news. Now, we have something to talk about.
Stacey Widlitz is the President of SW Retail Advisors Inc. She has worked at UBS, SG Cowen, Fulcrum Partners and in 2005 was one of three analysts to launch the Research Department at Pali Capital, where she covered Retail and Home Video for 5 years. Follow Stacey on Twitter @StaceyRetail.
