Thursday, October 9, 2008

I really can't think of a title right now

Here I am, having a class on Project Management. The professor is in China, he is teaching online and I am staring at my laptop screen, thinking what can I do right now..so I decided to just share this thought on my blog, hoping that my professor will never read it.
So..let's talk about Best Buy. I went in there two days ago, just to look around..I love looking at the laptops and thinking which one I would buy if I had the money. In my 12 minutes in there, I had 5 or 6 salesmen approach us and and ask if we need any help. I appreciate their interest..but I also do not want to repeat myself.."No thank you, we are just looking around", "No thank you, we are just looking around", No thank you, we are just looking around" , "No thank you", "NOOOO".
What really struck me with Best Buy however was when I was doing some research last night and found out that Best Buy does customer profile segmenting. What do I mean by that? Best Buy identified 6 different customer profiles that visit their stores:
  • Affluent professionals
  • Active younger males
  • Family men who want technology to improve their lives
  • Busy suburban moms
  • Small-business customers
When Best Buy identifies a location to build a new store, they use their database to find out which of those customer segments is more likely to visit that store and they build the store in such a way to satisfy the needs of that specific segment and hire employees that are more likely to understand the needs of that segment. This technique has raised the returns of Best Buy. Brilliant, just brilliant! If you want more information you can read this article: http://www.cio.com/article/8094/Best_Buy_Counts_Customers

It is Thursday today, just 25 minutes before my last class and then the weekend startssssss..or maybe not..one more meeting for the day, work today, work tomorrow morning, then physiotherapy, then another meeting, then i will take a break for some alcohol and then getting ready for my very big day on Monday!

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