John Thompson
BestBuy.com, No. 10 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, grew web sales by 20% in 2009 to $2.45 billion, according to <I>Internet Retailer</I> estimates. Underlying that growth was a desire to understand local consumers and then to design and deliver new marketing programs and tools to help online shoppers find what they seek, says John Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, BestBuy.com.
“One of our key focus areas is what we term local growth,” Thompson says. “It’s where we have local insights into customer markets that we couldn’t see here on our corporate campus.” For example, associates in a Best Buy store in Atlanta noticed the area had a fairly large number of Korean shoppers who were interested in Kimchi brand refrigerators.
To better assist Korean shoppers, stores and their respective local microsites identified Korean-speaking associates, when they worked and their company cell phone numbers, Thompson says. Then when Korean shoppers had questions about products they found online, or if they wanted to visit an Atlanta store, they knew when the Korean-speaking associates would be on duty.
BestBuy.com also conducted extensive testing and analysis in 2009, Thompson says. “There was a lot of A/B testing and competitive analysis around our relevance with our consumers. We wanted to make sure we had the customer experience, products and services, and delivery and support mechanisms to support the customers who were choosing our brands,” he says.
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