Best Buy Opening Health/Fitness Departments

By Alan Wolf -- TWICE, 11/11/2009

Minneapolis - Best Buy is adding health and fitness sections to 40 stores around the country.

The 30-foot-long departments will feature pedometers, heart-rate and workout monitoring watches, blood pressure monitors, books, headphones and MP3 accessories, and select locations will also carry elliptical machines, stationary bikes and treadmills. Devices are organized by activity, such as running, walking, swimming, yoga and fitness equipment.

The 40 targeted stores are located in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas. The company already sells a full assortment of fitness equipment online.

"We're constantly looking for the most innovative solutions to address our customer's lifestyle needs," said Steve Trier, Best Buy's customer research and development senior director.

Best Buy opened a pilot wellness chain called EQ-life in 2004, but closed one store and spun off the remaining two after a two-year trial.

The latest health and fitness effort will include a wide assortment of monitoring watches by Timex, Polar, Garmin and Sportline; headphones from Sennheiser; and conditioning accessories from Finis, GoFit and Gaiam.

Elliptical machines, stationary bikes and treadmills will include such brands as Lifespan, ProForm and Reebok.

In-home equipment assembly and related tech support will also be available through Geek Squad. Services range from downloading workout data to the home computer to creating a home gym complete with a TV and surround sound, the company said.

Talkback

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• *Sniff* Smells like a whole big pile of fail in the making. Their people can't even sell BB's core product, and now they'll have to sell treadmills, too?Got to love it!
  
  I feel esp. bad for Geeksquad. Corporate was already leaning on them heavily, but without giving them the resources to handle the increased workload. Now they'll be assembling exercise equipment, too. Wish I could have been there for that meeting.

  
  Aaron M. - 2009-16-11 15:37:32 EST
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