Business

Best Buy: Oops! It’s our bad

Best Buy Co. is scrambling to stem public relations damage after it was forced to tell some customers it couldn’t deliver by Christmas the merchandise they ordered online on Thanksgiving weekend.

The world’s largest electronics chain by revenue stepped up its discounts on Black Friday and offered free online shipping this holiday season in a bid to stop losing sales to growing rival Amazon.com Inc.

But it was apparently unprepared for the crush of customers that followed, which executives said was greater than anticipated as the retailer reported its first sales increase in six quarters earlier this month at stores and Web sites open at least 14 months.

Angry customers flocked to Best Buy’s online message forums in recent days, complaining they received notices informing them that the purchases they had made weeks earlier were being canceled.

It was Best Buy’s second online problem of the holidays: the company also flubbed a pre-Black Friday special for its Reward Zone Premier Silver loyalty program participants, angering some of its best customers, who were unable to check out and complete their Web purchases.

Best Buy is not the only brick-and-mortar retailer struggling to keep up with online sales growth: Target Corp. experienced problems in September when its Web site proved unable to handle the rush of customers trying to buy its Missoni clothing collection.