To keep growing, incoming Best Buy CEO first wants to go smaller

Best Buy is at a critical juncture as the consumer electronics retailer aims to revitalize its performance under incoming CEO Jason Bonfig, who spoke exclusively with CNBC about his strategy for the company.

The company has been struggling with slumping sales over the past few years, which it has attributed to lower consumer confidence, less tech innovation and a slower housing market. In an effort to refresh its products, improve the customer experience and drive more sales, the retailer announced Bonfig will succeed current CEO Corie Barry this fall.

As he prepares to take the helm, Bonfig has said he’s focused on four key pillars: advancing Best Buy as a retail and technology company, improving its reach, enhancing the customer experience and focusing on being a human-powered company. Bonfig has also said he’s looking into ways to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom and Best Buy’s spot in that next chapter.

This week, Best Buy opened two new stores, one in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and one in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which Bonfig told CNBC illustrates his strategy as he prioritizes returning the company to long-term and sustainable growth.

“What we’re finding is that there are markets that we just can’t be in with a traditional size Best Buy store, but they’re markets that absolutely make sense for Best Buy from a reach perspective,” Bonfig said.

To lean into those markets, the company is opening new small-format stores, ranging from 12,000 to 15,000 square feet, compared to its medium-format stores, which range from 20,000 to 25,000 square feet. Some of its largest stores, including its flagship location in New York City, exceed 40,000 square feet.

The new small stores tap into Bonfig’s priority of expanding the company’s reach, he said.

“We also know that when we put a store close to a customer, it doesn’t just change the customers’ behavior in the frequency of the visits of the store … it also changes their behavior digitally as well,” Bonfig said.

When Best Buy joins a new, smaller community, he said, the company has found more customers physically go to a store for the first time, but they also use the app and digital channels as well. The Jonesboro store marks Best Buy’s return to the town after a tornado destroyed its previous location.

“It’s a great example of a vibrant market, a place where customers are interested in our brand, but not a market that could support a 30,000- or 35,000-square-foot store,” Bonfig said. “An 18,000-square-foot store allows us to have the best of all of our different categories and meet the needs at that particular location.”

The second opening, in Cape Cod, is slightly larger than Best Buy’s normal medium-format stores, coming in at 28,000 square feet, but Bonfig said it’s another example of finding “the right size store in the right location in the right node.”

He added that Best Buy Canada, which can often do things faster than its U.S. counterpart, has been after the small-format store for “an extended period of time” and has seen success with locations as small as 7,000 square feet.

Still, Bonfig emphasized that the small stores are not a replacement for its more typical-format locations.

“It’s actually an enhancement of what we’re doing today,” he said. “But it actually allows us to reach more customers and more markets that we just were not in before.”

Over the past five years, Best Buy has seen its stock sink roughly 20% after hitting its peak in late 2021, trading at $138 per share.

For the current fiscal year, Best Buy has said it expects comparable sales in the range of a decline of 1% to an increase of 1%. Though its most recent quarter outperformed Wall Street expectations, it came on the heels of years of declines, like the third fiscal quarter of 2026, when Best Buy reported net income of $140 million, down from $273 million the year prior.