Rebuilding Empires: How Best Buy and Other Retailers Are Transforming and Competing in the Digital Age of Retailing

Rebuilding Empires examines, through retail giants Best Buy and Target, how big box chains are constructing a new future by utilizing mobile devices, social media, and the Internet, the same technologies that once pushed them to the brink of irrelevance. This book features interviews with industry leaders and experts, including Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly, Target chief marketing officer Jeff Jones, and several other key players in both companies. Bricks and mortar retailing is not dead, and Best Buy shows others how to capitalize on their own physical spaces. Lee shows how showrooming is an asset rather than a liability, how physical space and online space are complementary, and how others can learn from Best Buy's innovations including the Geek Squad, stores within stores, and creating non-traditional partnerships. In a readable narrative format, journalist Thomas Lee explores how the world's largest consumer electronics retailer is redefining what it truly means to be a "Best Buy" in the age of online retailing.

© 2025 St. Martin's Press (Ebook): 9781137474810

Release date

Ebook: 16 October 2025