Sure, the customer is King but that's about to change. Now the customer will become a real Dictator.

Retailers, already facing massive disruption to their business model from the Internet, will now be forced to confront further shifts of power into consumer hands.

Imagine if consumers knew exactly WHEN to purchase a consumer electronics product to minimize their spend? How many consumers would follow pricing cycles to buy cheaper-- and how much would that impact retailer margin?

Oren Etzioni's latest startup, Decide.com applies to consumer electronics and appliances the same science behind Farecast (Etzioni started this travel-fare prediction company and then sold it to Microsoft for Bing.)

Decide analyzes web sources (thousands of sources on the history of prices, the models in the range, even to rumors of new models) to answer the consumer's most important question: WHEN to buy or wait on their consumer electronics purchases.

According to The Telegraph, Kesa might be saying "addio" to the Italian market-- at least if it follows advice from financial services provider UBS.

“Sadly Kesa has been in the eye of the European storm,” UBS says. “The tough macro conditions in Spain are well documented and the austerity measures to be undertaken in both Spain and Italy are likely to constrain consumer demand over the next few years.”

Kesa has 24 stores in Italy-- and has already shut down "some" stores, The Telegraph says. Analysts Continue reading...

Russian electronics retailer M.Video posts strong results for Q1 2012-- with unaudited net sales growing by 18.8% Y-o-Y (or 30.6% Q-o-Q) to total €1 billion euro.

The results follow an equally strong 2011 for the retailer, when total net sales grew by 29.3% Y-o-Y to reach €3.4 billion.

During Q1 2012 M.Video also opened 7 stores, together with one closure in St Petersburg. It now has 267 retail outlets (with overall sales space of 492000 square metres) and plans to open 25-35 new stores in 201 Continue reading...

Canalys predicts "many more" CE retailers will follow the likes of Surcouf, Best Buy Europe, CompUSA and Circuit City to die from the high streets due to failure to survive in the current market.

According to the analyst, the city centres of 2020 will be a different sight from those today, with "many famous retailers" disappearing.

It reminds one of the dodo and its failure to survive after that most dangerous of hunters (man) invaded its Mauritius island home...

In our case, driving retailers out of business is the "perfect storm" of internet retail and supermarkets, as the competition undercuts on prices while offering a superior consumer experience.

Best Buy announces the sudden resignation of CEO Brian Dunn following investigations into allegations of personal misconduct.

A company statement says "Certain issues were brought to the board's attention regarding Mr. Dunn's personal conduct, unrelated to the company's operations or financial controls, and an audit committee investigation was initiated... Prior to the completion of the investigation, Mr. Dunn chose to resign."

The resignation comes at the worst time for Best Buy, currently struggling Continue reading...

ElectronicPartner and CE chain Medimax are combining buying activities, with a new purchasing structure aiming to increase efficiency and performance.

Heading the revised purchasing structure is board member Karl Trautmann, who describes the transformation as "an important step."

Former Medimax purchasing manager Olaf Heath will be responsible for Medimax distribution, while Michael Heller will lead ElectronicPartner sales. The two will report to ElectronicPartner CEO Jorg Ehmer.

"The restructuring Continue reading...

GAME manages to find a buyer-- Baker Acquisitions Ltd., an entity advised by investment company OpCapita, is taking over all remaining GAME UK assets including all 333 UK GAME and Gamestation stores.

The parties are not disclosing financial details of the sale and no statement is available on the future of GAME operations outside the UK.

Baker Acquisitions will be bringing the GAME business out of administration, saving nearly 3200 jobs. It will also re-employ a "small-number" of ex-GAME head Continue reading...

Best Buy might be better known for consumer sales, even if Best Buy for Business (BBFB) has been part of the B2B market for quite a while, selling peripherals and accessories-- and now it adds Dell to the business portfolio.

BBFB sells a number of major brands (including HP, Lenovo and Samsung) as well as products from enterprise vendors such as Wyse Technologies, NComputing, Lacie and Fujitsu.

Why is a consumer product retailer pushing further towards enterprise? One has to keep in mind traditional Continue reading...