On August 22, 1966, Richard M. Schulze and a business partner opened Sound of Music, an electronics store specializing in high fidelity stereos in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In 1967, Sound of Music acquired Kencraft Hi-Fi Company and Bergo Company.
In 1969, Sound of Music had three stores and Schulze bought out his business partner.
Sound of Music operated nine stores throughout Minnesota by 1978.
The company also expanded its product offerings to include home appliances and VCRs, in an attempt to expand beyond its then-core customer base of 15- to 18-year-old males. Later that year, Best Buy opened its first superstore in Burnsville, Minnesota.
The Burnsville location featured a high-volume, low-price business model, which was borrowed partially from Schulze's successful Tornado Sale in 1981.
In 1983, with seven stores and $10 million in annual sales, Sound of Music was renamed Best Buy Company, Inc.
Best Buy was taken public in 1985, and two years later it debuted on the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1988, Best Buy was in a price war with a Detroit-based appliance chain and Schulze attempted to sell the company to Circuit City for US$30 million. Circuit City rejected the offer, claiming they could open a store in Minneapolis and "blow them away."
In 1989, the company introduced a new store concept dubbed "Concept II".
In 1992, the company achieved $1 billion in annual revenues.
In 1994, Best Buy debuted "Concept III" stores in several new markets including Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
Concept III stores were larger than previous stores and included expanded product offerings, "Answer Center" touchscreen kiosks that displayed product information for both customers and employees, and demonstration areas for products such as surround sound stereo systems and video games.
Best Buy launched its "Concept IV" stores with its expansion into New England in 1998.
Concept IV stores included an open layout with products organized by category, cash registers located throughout the store, and slightly smaller stores than Concept III stores. The stores also had large areas for demonstrating home theater systems and computer software.
In 1999, Best Buy was added to Standard & Poor's S&P 500.
In 2000, two Florida consumers brought a lawsuit against the company, alleging that it engaged in fraudulent business practices related to the sale of extended warranties (or, more accurately, service plans).
In 2000, Best Buy formed Redline Entertainment, an independent music label, and action-sports video distributor.
The company acquired Magnolia Hi-Fi, Inc., an audio-video retailer located in California, Washington, and Oregon, in December 2000.
In January 2001, Best Buy acquired Musicland Stores Corporation, a Minnetonka, Minnesota-based retailer that sold home-entertainment products under the Sam Goody, Suncoast Motion Picture Company, Media Play, and OnCue brands. Best Buy purchased the company for $425 million in cash and the assumption of $271 million of Musicland debt.
Later that year, Best Buy acquired the British Columbia, Canada-based electronics-chain Future Shop Ltd., marking its entrance to the international marketplace.
Brad Anderson succeeded Richard Schulze as Best Buy CEO in July 2002.
In September of that year, Best Buy opened the first Canadian Best Buy-branded store in Mississauga, Ontario.
In October, Best Buy acquired Minneapolis-based Geek Squad, then a 24-hour residential computer repair business with offices in Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Best Buy stores in the U.S. surpassed the 600-store mark and the company opened its first global-sourcing office in Shanghai in 2003.
In June, Best Buy divested itself of Musicland in a deal with Sun Capital Partners under which Sun Capital received all of Musicland's stock and debt.
Best Buy launched its "Reward Zone" loyalty program in July following an 8-month test of the program in San Diego, California.
Also in 2003, Best Buy's corporate offices were consolidated into a single campus in Richfield, Minnesota.
In January 2004, Best Buy hired Virtucom Group to revamp Best Buy's website and handle all of the company's online content.
In May, the company launched its "customer-centricity" program, which segmented its stores according to customer profiles. The program also called for employees to focus on specific customer groups rather than product categories.
In October, Best Buy completed rolling out Geek Squad "precincts" in every American Best Buy store.
In April 2005, Best Buy began eliminating mail-in rebates in response to negative customer reactions against them, and instead started giving out instant rebates via notebook computers.
In May 2006, Best Buy acquired a majority interest in Chinese appliance retailer Jiangsu Five Star Appliance for $180 million. At the time of the deal, Jiangsu was the fourth-largest appliance chain in China with 193 stores across eight Chinese provinces.
In June, the company opened Geek Squad precincts at Office Depot in Orlando, Florida. The market test was later expanded to Denver.
In January 2007, the first Best Buy-branded store in China officially opened in Shanghai.
Best Buy also expanded its Geek Squad market tests in March, opening Geek Squad precincts in FedEx Kinkos stores located in Indianapolis and Charlotte, North Carolina.
In March 2007, Best Buy acquired Speakeasy, a Seattle-based broadband VOIP, data, and IT services provider. The acquisition was worth $80 million, and under terms of the deal, Speakeasy began operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Best Buy. The company's products also became part of Best Buy's For Business program.
Best Buy was one of several companies named in a 2007 report by Greenpeace for purchasing raw materials or manufactured products derived thereof from logging companies that in the opinion of Greenpeace, contribute to unethical deforestation of taiga in Canada.
Since that time, however, the company launched what it calls Greener Together to increase the energy efficiency of its products, and reduce consumer waste through more recyclable packaging and proper disposal of certain electronic components such as rechargeable batteries and empty ink cartridges.
In October 2007, Best Buy became the first consumer-electronics retailer to exit the analog television market, carrying only digital products that became mandatory in June 2009 by the FCC.
In February 2008, Best Buy opened its first store in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
On April 26, 2008, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fined the company $280,000 for not alerting customers that the analog televisions it sold would not receive over-the-air stations after the digital transition on June 12, 2009.
In May, the company agreed to buy 50% of the retail division of The Carphone Warehouse, a London, England-based mobile phone retailer.
In July 2008, Best Buy announced that it would start selling musical instruments and related gear in over 80 of its retail stores, making the company the second-largest musical-instrument distributor in the US.
Best Buy became the first third-party retail seller of Apple's iPhone in September.
In December, Best Buy opened its first store in Mexico.
In February 2009, Best Buy leveraged its partnership with The Carphone Warehouse to launch Best Buy Mobile, a Best Buy-branded mobile retailer. Best Buy Mobile standalone stores were opened in shopping malls and urban downtowns. These Best Buy Mobile outlets were also added in all Best Buy-branded stores.
In June 2009, Brian J. Dunn became Best Buy CEO. Dunn replaced Brad Anderson, who was retiring.
In November 2009, Best Buy partnered with Roxio's CinemaNow to launch an on-demand streaming service that allowed streaming from any Internet device sold by Best Buy.
In December, Best Buy opened its first Turkish store in İzmir.
In April 2010, Best Buy opened its first United Kingdom-based Best Buy-branded store in Thurrock.
The company closed all of its Best Buy-branded stores in China by February 2011, when it merged Best Buy China's operations with Jiangsu Five Star, which had become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Best Buy in 2009.
As a way to improve its image and past environmental issues, the company introduced a recycling program in 2009 that has since collected nearly half a billion pounds of consumer electronics and e-waste and is available at all their stores for a nominal fee. These items are then handed over to certified recyclers in the U.S. for proper recycling. The company's goal is to collect one billion pounds of recycling.
It also has been named to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency top-50 list of the largest green-power purchasers. In 2011, the company purchased nearly 119 million kilowatt-hours of green power – electricity generated from renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biomass, and low-impact hydropower.
In December 2011, Best Buy purchased mindSHIFT Technologies, a company that provided IT support for small and medium-sized businesses, for $167 million.
In 2012, in response to the overall revenue decline, Best Buy announced plans to undergo a "transformation strategy". Stores began to adopt a redesigned "Connected Store" format, providing the Geek Squad with a centralized service desk and implementing a "store-within-a-store" concept for Pacific Kitchen & Bath and Magnolia Design Center.
In April 2012, Brian Dunn resigned as Best Buy's CEO during an internal company investigation into allegations of personal misconduct stemming from an inappropriate relationship with a female Best Buy employee.
Best Buy named Director George L. Mikan III interim CEO following Dunn's resignation.
The internal investigation was released in May 2012 and alleged that Best Buy founder and chairman Richard Schulze knew of Dunn's inappropriate relationship and failed to notify the Best Buy board.
Schulze subsequently resigned his chairmanship of the company. Best Buy Director Hatim Tyabji replaced Schulze as Best Buy chairman.
Hubert Joly replaced Mikan as Best Buy CEO in September 2012.
In April 2013, Best Buy exited the European consumer electronics market when it sold its 50% stake in The Carphone Warehouse back to the UK-based mobile phone retailer.
In 2014, Best Buy settled for $4.55 million in a class-action lawsuit filed against them in April 2010 by consumers who claimed Best Buy was making unsolicited phone calls in contravention of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
On March 28, 2015, Best Buy announced the shutdown of the Future Shop chain in Canada; 65 of its 131 former locations were converted into Best Buy locations, while the rest (primarily those in close proximity to an existing Best Buy) were closed permanently.
On March 1, 2018, the company announced that it would shut down its 250 standalone Best Buy Mobile stores in the United States by the end of May, due to low revenue and high costs. The Best Buy Mobile stores were reported to account for 1% of the company's revenue.
On July 2, 2018, Best Buy announced it was cutting the amount of store space devoted to selling physical music, citing the popularity of streaming services as having reduced sales.
On April 15, 2019, Best Buy announced that in June 2019, its current CFO, Corie Barry, would replace Hubert Joly who held the position of CEO since August 2012. Joly subsequently became executive chairman of the company.
In their attempt to combat child pornography, the FBI hired several Best Buy employees from the Geek Squad division to covertly work for them flagging potential targets.
In one incident, a customer brought in his computer for troubleshooting, which a Best Buy employee flagged as containing images of child pornography and reported to the FBI.
The customer was indicted for possession of child pornography, although the judge in the case later threw out nearly all the evidence against the defendant due to "false and misleading statements" made by an FBI agent while trying to secure a search warrant for the customer's house, and the government ultimately dropped the case.
During the lockdown and increased frequency of working from home, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Best Buy announced that its US online sales (increased purchase of computers, printers, tablets, fitness tech, and other gear) for the Q2 of 2020 had tripled.
Despite these revenues, Best Buy has laid off over 5,000 employees in early 2021, along with forcing many others into part-time positions.
In 1981, the Roseville, Minnesota, Sound of Music location, at the time the largest and most profitable Sound of Music store, was hit by a tornado.