A few days ago Cowboom which was founded in 2008 and a subsidiary of Best Buy suddenly announced that it was closing shop and becoming ‘Best Buy Outlet‘.
CowBoom is moooovin' on over to the Best Buy Outlet. Thank you for your years of support. https://t.co/jFMoS1HIrY pic.twitter.com/Nxc4OymVU6
— CowBoom (@CowBoom) February 26, 2016
Its unclear what prompted Best Buy to make this decision but the news was quickly greeted with reactions of disappointment, sadness and somewhat anger.
@CowBoom oh noes, I’m going to miss your sales 😭
— hsith (@hsith) February 26, 2016
@CowBoom This is devastating. If you don't believe me — just look at my order history. Thank you for your years of being there.
— William Woods (@dkfuel) February 26, 2016
@CowBoom damn. You were the source for most of the Apple gear in my house. Screw corporate bean counters.
— Mike Galicki (@mgalicki) February 27, 2016
@CowBoom noooooooooooo!!!!!!! What about the auctions?!?!
— Brad Faber (@bradleyjfaber) February 26, 2016
@CowBoom you'll be missed! Thanks for all the sales
— BB-8 (@rtsuD2) February 26, 2016
Cowboom was once the place for consumers to find affordable deals on Best Buy’s often overpriced products and likely helped keep the company afloat by allowing it to offload trade-ins, unsold, open box, and showroom items to consumers at a reasonable price.
That has now been replaced by Best Buy Outlet which is bland, hard to navigate and many of the so-called “deals” just link to regular priced BestBuy.com items.
I think this move will be looked at as one of Best Buy’s biggest blunders and will lead to more store closures since they no longer have a place that many viewed as neutral to offload stock.
Its unclear what will become of Cowboom’s employees or what is Best Buy’s long term goals are under Hubert Joly but Cowboom undoubtedly made a huge impact on the online retail industry and will be sorely missed.