Monday, July 28, 2008

Best Buy gets into the game

I know Best Buy has sold some Yamaha keyboards, and they had, it seems, a reasonable price on a Casio PX-110 Bundle, but now it seems they're going all-in, and opening a full-fledged music section in select stores.

Best Buy to open in-store music centers

A retail entity able to leverage the kind of scale BB has is bound to increase competition in the market. From the linked story, they are planning to stock Roland. That they already sell Yamaha and Casio boards suggests to me they might increase the breadth of their offerings there, too.

On first blush, I regard this as a good thing. I'm a little surprised, though, that they are going this route. For some reason, I thought it was hard to make money selling musical instruments. Guess not.

1 comment:

AnthonyB said...

They'll still have to contend with minimum advertised prices on gear. I can't see going into Best Buy to haggle out a deal of any sort with a not very helpful person in a blue shirt either.

As for the decision to get into the music instrument game? Well, it seems that the games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are quite popular as of late. Maybe they figure that some kids that like the games might want to venture into real instruments. Plus, I'm sure for a lot of people a best buy will end up being closer than the nearest guitar center or some such store.

It will be interesting to see what types of products they end up stocking.