Can Best Buy Do PNDs?
I saw the news recently that Best Buy plans to introduce its own line of personal navigation devices under its Insignia brand expected to be available in stores October 19.
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I saw the news recently that Best Buy plans to introduce its own line of personal navigation devices under its Insignia brand expected to be available in stores October 19.
One interesting difference in this announcement is that Best Buy is looking to go after the higher end of the market with a $399 price and functionality not found in most other devices in the U.S. (except DASH) … specifically a built in cellular modem which will allow for a variety of services including Google search and real time traffic among other things.
Previous Best Buy house branded products have largely targeted the low cost + comparable functions marketing angle… (the consumer electronics version of those Eckerd’s branded asprin or White Rose Macaroni and Cheese.)
Best Buy is obviously hearing a lot of interests on the sales floor about customer wanting these connected features, and since none of the major OEMs are yet stepping up to the plate to deliver one, they probably figured why the hell not them. With GPS devices sales seeing triple figure growth and Best Buy seeing recent margin declines, you can’t blame them for wanting to try to keep a bigger piece of this lucrative market for themselves…
Although I can’t understand how this will turn out to be a big success for them for two reasons:
- There is a reason why existing OEMs haven’t gone down this path, and its because being an MVNO is not a great business to be in here in the U.S.
- Best Buy is an expert in retailing, not high tech, so I’d expect everything besides the connectivity feature to be subpar, so as a result they will deliver higer price + lesser overall functionality rather than lower price + comparable functionality which doesn’t seem like a winning proposition.
Garmin and TomTom have been doing this for a very long time and I am in the camp that believes that building a great navigation experience is not as simple as pulling together 12 different off the shelf pieces and putting them together in a black plastic casing, as can be done with say televisions or DVD players, where the consumer interaction is no more complicated than sitting back and pressing the play button.
But if nothing else, maybe the Best Buy PND initiative will be a demonstration that consumers are willing to pay a monthly service fee for their PNDs in exchange for a world of new services… and if successful it will open up the floodgates for TomTom and Garmin to make more progress with similar initiatives.
