Comment by phendrenad2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phendrenad2 | Hacker News Reader

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Best Buy isn't long for this world. You can tell from their mobile app, which is extremely slow and has terrible UX. It's a bloated store coasting off of its former success and it's going to slowly suffer the same fate as Fry's if they don't get smart. Best Buy has a few things propping it up right now: PC repair services, home installation, quick availability of replacement items (SSD dies? Get one right now, rather than waiting 3+ days for Amazon), and in-store demos (sound systems and the like). None of these constitute a moat, and these four spaces are already full of competition. Everything else is just warehousing for the eventual liquidation. They should realize that their brand has become a luxury, and they should start acting more like the Apple store, selling fewer items and trying to develop their own brand more.

But really, the app is terrible. And an app is table stakes these days. It's just remarkable how bad it is.

Table stakes for which cohort(s) of people? Do you put an app on your personal device for every retailer you do any business with? Guess I'm just old and out of touch, but I would not spend any time considering putting the best buy or mcdonalds app or whatever on my personal device. Why would I?

If I'm going to a brick-and-mortar store, if I go online at all, it's only to check stock/availability or look up a product's specs/foibles. No, $STORE, I don't want to create an account. No, I don't want your app. A web browser should be all I need.

Once again I'm reminded that the HN crowd operates on a hypersolipsism where reality is continuously constructed from first principles based on one's own ideals.

For anyone who can see past their own mental blocks and reads this far, the Best Buy app has 1.5 MILLION ratings on the App Store and is #18 in worldwide shopping apps. The Walmart app has SEVENTEEN MILLION ratings. But yeah, nobody uses shopping apps. Silly me!

I mean, you're up there positing that a company is definitely failing because their app is terrible. Accusing others of constructing a reality based on their own principles is a bit of glass house stone throwing, no? Practically every company with an app that isn't a tech company has a terrible app.

Eh, yeah, there are a lot of factors and I'm probably just focusing on one that annoys mer personally.

I could never figure out why people would rather install an app than visit a web page. Many apps are just containers for websites that give the app more permissions than it needs.

That's an interesting curiosity. Why not ask them? There's an extremely high probability that someone you talk to on a regular basis has shopping apps installed. Hey! We could do some research, maybe write a paper. But first, you gotta ask them.

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