Best Buy Top CE Destination For 33% Of Shoppers: Report

By Alan Wolf -- TWICE, 1/11/2010

LAS VEGAS - Best Buy, which is mounting a major presence at CES 2010, also increased its profile with consumers in December.

According to a December Retail Ratings Report from market research firm BIGresearch, one-third of adults age 18 and over said they shop the No. 1 CE chain most often for electronics.

Best Buy's share of consumer preference grew 3.3 percent in December year over year, bested in growth only by Walmart, whose preference share in CE edged up 3.7 to 20.6 percent, BIGresearch said.

Rounding out the Top 5 retailers were Amazon.com, with a consumer preference share of 3.6 percent, up 1.4 percent in December; Target, with a 2.8 percent share, up 0.6 percent; and Sears, with a 2.0 percent share, up 0.4 percent.

The BIGresearch report is based on the firm's monthly Consumer Intentions & Actions (CIA) survey of over 8,000 online interviews.

Broken out by income, Best Buy is the leading destination (29.5 percent) for CE purchases among shoppers who report a household income of less than $50,000.  Walmart trailed closely, with 28.4 percent reporting they shop there most) for CE.

But Best Buy pulled ahead among shoppers who report an income of greater than $50,000. Some 41.4 percent of well-heeled consumers said they shopped there, while only 13.5 percent of that group chose second-place Walmart.

Although its overall share is small (5.3 percent), Amazon's appeal among the higher-income group grew 96 percent year-over-year in December, BIGresearch said.