Best Buy Is Dead, Go Elsewhere (BBY, VZ, AMZN, TGT)

Best Buy BBY reported awful third quarter earnings this morning and lowered 2011 earnings estimates, as TV and mobile devices in particular were awful at the big box retailer. You know what I say? Good riddance. Best Buy has been fleecing customers for years and finally the consumer has decided to say enough. The Great Recession made customers smarter and competitors like Amazon. AMZN, NewEgg, and other big boxes like Wal-Mart WMT and Target TGT are taking market share away from the Minnesota-based company, and at least in my opinion, it isn't going to come back. Best Buy was a major beneficiary from Circuit City's Chapter 11 last year, as consumers needed a place to go to buy their products. Well after a few years, it looks like consumers purchasing habits for Sony SNE, Panasonic PC and Toshiba TV's has finally changed. Consumers are saying you can't compete on price, you better be offering an amazing in-store experience and something else that I can't get elsewhere. Best Buy is trying to do that with "Geek Squad", but no one in their right mind wants to pay some college kid $300 to set up their home theater for them. I do not see this as a negative for TV makers like Sony, or the mobile device makers like Apple AAPL or HTC, but as a positive for Best Buy's competitors. So long Best Buy. If you can't innovate, you'll no longer be known as Best Buy. It's starting to look more like Worst Buy. Disclosure: no position in names mentioned