Best Buy Store Associates to Make Home Deliveries

Best Buy is bolstering its delivery options with just a few weeks left in the holiday shopping season. The Richfield, Minnesota-based retailer has for years used its stores as de facto warehouses for its e-commerce business; it's one of the ways Best Buy has held its ground against rivals like Amazon.com. Now it's taking the idea one step further, using store employees to make actual deliveries, in addition to the company's current partnerships with Instacart, Shipt, and Roadie. Best Buy employees in almost all of its stores will deliver online orders directly to customers within their own communities. The company is providing vehicles for employees to complete the deliveries.

Total Retail's Take: With the nation's largest parcel carriers at or near capacity and struggling to keep up with surging e-commerce sales during this pandemic-influenced holiday shopping season, Best Buy is taking matters into its own hands — quite literally. The consumer electronics retailer is trying to get ahead of the anticipated surge in online order deliveries in the final two weeks before Christmas, and is using all resources at its disposal to do so. Best Buy has effectively leveraged its store staff previously to fulfill online orders for ship-from-store; buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), and curbside pickup. Now it's going to send those workers out on the road for last-mile delivery, ensuring customers receive their gifts in time for the holiday season. Challenging times call for innovative solutions, and Best Buy has proven adept at that. This is just the latest example.