Anaheim, CA–After noting that it has a small portion of highly profitable customers and a small portion of destructive customers, St. Paul, MN-based Best Buy is beginning to use segmentation to boost its online and in-store sales. In a keynote address on Oct. 7 at Shop.org’s annual summit, the consumer electronics retailer’s vice chairman/CEO Brad Anderson said the company is on a path of “creating customer segments and looking at their unique needs and not congeal needs.”
With five main customer segments–from “Barry,” the high-end customer, to “Jill,” the time-compressed mom, to “Buzz,” the young, edgy, tech-savvy customer–Best Buy is altering stores across the country to cater to these customers. For instance, “Jill” will eventually have a store of her own in Pasadena, CA, in addition to a Website with a personal shopping assistant; Best Buy will also use e-mail and personalized marketing to cater to this segment.
Anderson stressed that it’s important to listen to the people who are in touch with your customers. Sometimes the best ideas do not come from the creative team, but from part-time employees who have “much more experience than me in what customer needs are,” he said.