Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn, fresh from licking his wounds after retreating from comments that the iPad is seriously eating laptop lunches, told financial analysts that a stunning 40 percent of all products purchased online are picked up in-store. Buy-online / pickup-in-store is absolutely popular, but for a major site like Best Buy's to have two out of every five customers willing to drive to the store is startling.
It could suggest that the site is proving less effective at bringing in new business and is instead being used as a convenience point for existing customers.
Dunn also told analysts that 60 percent of the chain's U.S. store sales "are influenced by customers' experience on Bestbuy.com." But given the vagueness of "influenced"-which could include word-of-mouth from a friend who visited the site, a price comparison site, seeing a demo or even a mobile check of hours-that's a much less interesting figure.
