Best Buy Canada executives say part of the reason their store chalked up stellar retail sales during the 2010 holiday season was because the chain now has an iPhone app that enables shoppers to bypass lineups.
More than 350,000 people have downloaded the free app from iTunes since it was released four months ago, said the chain’s communications director, Christopher Bennett.
“You can buy and order items to be shipped all from your iPhone. You can browse and compare prices,” Bennett said.
“It’s a pretty secure app. We have the best encryption and we haven’t run into any security problems. A lot of people wanted to get the deals early so they could avoid the Boxing Day lineup.”
On December 21, Statistics Canada released retail numbers that showed British Columbia was trailing the rest of Canada for sales growth. (See “B.C. retail sales growing slower than other provinces” – BIV Business Today, December 22.)
The national number cruncher pinned retail sales growth in B.C. at 2.1% in October compared with the previous October. Nationally, retail sales grew 3.3% in October, compared with the same month in 2009.
Bennett, however, said he believes his chain’s B.C. sales growth is as strong, if not stronger, than sales growth in the rest of the country.
“The month of December was healthy for us. Canadawide, on Boxing Day, we had more than 50 stores that did over $1 million in sales,” Bennett said.