Best Buy's ex-CEO: Damages Due To Website Crash 'Could' Be Significant

Best Buy Co Inc BBY received a lot of publicity during Black Friday, but due to all the wrong reasons. The company’s website crashed, letting thousands of shoppers to explore other options. So, can Best Buy recover from this embarrassing incident and still have a bumper holiday season?

Brad Anderson, Former CEO of Best Buy, was on CNBC recently to answer that question and elaborate on what possibly went wrong.

“When I was the CEO, this was one of the things I would worry most about in terms of the amount of pressure that gets put on every system in a company on Black Friday in particular. If you are Best Buy, where Black Friday is a huge part of the business, is a lot of pressure. So, it’s kind of thing that I always used to worry about. Thankfully right now I don’t know what the cause was, but I presume it’s the amount of pressure […]” Anderson said.

When asked about the kind of damage the crashing of the website would have done in terms of sales, Anderson said, “Well, it could be significant, but you know it’s not a lasting damage. It’s a damage that occurs just in the course of that day and the company has been doing so well going into Black Friday that I don’t think it’ll have any lasting impact.”

On holiday season sales extending to well over two months, Anderson said, “I think it’s more margins getting crushed over a longer period of time. It does stimulate a lot of attention and a lot of activity, but margins are under pressure […]”