Best Buy Reopening Most Stores Next Week With Cap on Capacity

(Bloomberg) -- Gadget junkies soon won’t need an appointment to shop at Best Buy Co. anymore.

Starting June 15, the nation’s biggest consumer-electronics retailer will allow a limited number of shoppers inside most of its stores, moving past an appointment-only model that it had instituted in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The retailer will bring back about 9,000 employees to support the move, which will take place in more than 800 of its roughly 1,000 stores. In April, it announced plans to temporarily furlough 51,000 domestic hourly store employees, including nearly all part-time workers.

Best Buy will limit the number of customers inside the store at one time to 25% of capacity, which usually works out to about 60 shoppers, it said. The retailer will also resume in-home consultations, which it halted in favor of virtual support in March.

Best Buy is the latest retailer trying to get back to normal after a challenging few months for brick-and-mortar stores. A pandemic-fueled surge in demand for home office equipment like laptops and wireless headsets and a vibrant e-commerce business helped Best Buy retain 81% of its sales in the first quarter, even as its stores were shut for the last six weeks of the period.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.