Best Buy opens an inaugural mini-store as part of its "digital-format" pilot program

Best Buy is a major US consumer tech retail chain that typically operates out of brick-and-mortar spaces of 38,500 square feet in real estate on average. However, its latest pilot store might introduce the "new way to shop", it will support in the future.

The new, technically public-beta store is open from now, joining Best Buy's other experimental installations in North Carolina, with a location in Monroe to join those in Charlotte. It has only 5,000 square feet in floor space, yet might offer the services and products the corporation may have found consumers want and use most in the post-pandemic, online-forward era.

Accordingly, the new store contains a Geek Squad station, and also offers consultation services. It does also stock hardware, albeit in a a limited "curated selection" of in-demand products. Most will be of the more mobile consumer-tech variety, PCs, personal audio, smart home, home theater, wearables, smartphones and cameras included.

Essentially, the new "digital format" destination is a place to come to look at prospective purchases, besides large appliances (with the exception of big-screen TVs). Then again, they can be ordered on bestbuy.com for pick-up at the store.

The new Monroe small-format will also feature some of the newer "ways to get your tech that customers know and love", in-store QR-code ordering for same-day pick-up, Mobile Self-Checkouts and pick-up lockers outside included.

Essentially, the new pilot store is a cross between a scaled-down Best Buy and the experience those who have ever visited an Argos outlet in the UK or Republic of Ireland would recognize. This, then, may be how the major chain may keep its physical retail interests going in an increasingly virtual consumer tech market.