(BN) Best Buy Moves 2,000 Loss-Prevention Workers to Sales

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Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Best Buy Co., trying to reverse slumping store sales, is reassigning about 2,000 loss-prevention employees in its U.S. locations to focus on selling customers more merchandise.

Employees who greeted shoppers entering Best Buy's big-box stores and checked receipts when they left will join the ranks of the company's blue-shirted sales force, Kelly Groehler, a spokeswoman for the Richfield, Minnesota-based company, said yesterday. No workers are being fired, she said.

Chief Executive Officer Hubert Joly, who took over last week, is seeking to revive sales as customers defect to Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Comparable-store sales at Best Buy, the world's largest consumer-electronics retailer, have advanced only once in the past nine quarters, hurting profitability.

"Negative comps and declining margins -- you don't need to be an expert in anything to know that these are not great things," Joly, 53, said in an interview Sept. 6. "There's a significant investment in training at the front line."

Best Buy operated 1,062 big-box stores in the U.S. as of Aug. 4.

Complaints by customers, as well Best Buy's attempt to increase interactions between managers and consumers, led to the workers' reassignment, Groehler said in a telephone interview.

"Customers told us they did not like having their receipts checked when they left the store," she said. "It puts more emphasis on assistant managers and the general manager of the store engaging with customers when they walk in."

The focus on loss prevention hasn't diminished, Groehler said, while declining to elaborate on those efforts.

Wal-Mart Greeters

Wal-Mart earlier this year moved greeters from the entrances of its stores to near the cash registers to direct shoppers to products or shorter checkout lines. The world's largest retailer also has been seeking to boost sales and profit margins.