Best Buy Salesmen Will Soon Recommend Gadgets Inside Your Home

Best Buy is planning to more widely introduce an ambitious way to get customers to buy more gadgets: in-home salesmen. The move will result in Best Buy associates traveling to a potential customer's home and recommending products they may want or need. The customer won't have to drive to the store to get this recommendation, instead letting the salesperson directly into their home.

According to the WSJ, Best Buy has already been testing this in-home consulting in some cities and it is currently hiring hundreds of people for an expansion it has planned for later this fall. The in-home salesmen will hawk gadgets and televisions — the kind of things people are most likely to buy — and may even install them if someone does make a purchase.

Best Buy's CEO recently talked about the business decision, revealing that consumers often spend more money on items within their own home than they would when shopping at the physical store. At the same time, lesser numbers of people are visiting physical stores like Best Buy, instead opting for the convenience of online destinations like Amazon.

The salesmen won't be paid based on commissions, removing the element of pressure that customers feel when visiting car dealerships and other similar locations. The Best Buy associates will look at what the customers need for their home, what may be useful to their particular situation, and recommend them.

The situation is described as the sales people being something like an on-demand gadgets dealer, offering customers their phone number so that they can ring up the associate when they need a particular gadget. It isn't clear how these in-home consultations will be arranged, though it seems the service will be free.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal