Best Buy

Best Buy Canada is deploying six Best Buy Express kiosks Friday at Toronto Pearson International Airport in both terminals. The company also has plans for expansion throughout the year.

During the 2011 holiday season, the top retail apps and websites combined — Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, Target and Wal-Mart — reached nearly 60 percent of smartphone owners, according to Nielsen. “The majority of smartphone owners used their devices for shopping this past holiday season,” said John Burbank, president of strategic initiatives at Nielsen. “Mobile shopping has reached scale and is only going to grow as smartphone penetration continues to rise.”

Best Buy has joined the Energy Department's National Clean Fleet's Partnership, a broad public-private partnership that assists the nation's largest fleet operators in reducing the amount of gasoline and diesel they use nationwide. 

shopkick has announced the success of Black Friday 2, an experimental initiative designed to significantly boost foot traffic to partner retail stores using holiday tactics during normal, nonpeak shopping days throughout the year. 

American Express card holders can use the Twitter online messaging service to get exclusive discounts and other deals from more than a dozen retailers under a partnership announced yesterday.

Best Buy is running a mobile commerce-enabled advertising campaign that offers consumers a free data transfer whey they buy a laptop. The company is running the mobile commerce ads within Pandora's iPhone application. Best Buy is enticing users to tap on the ad by offering the free data transfer — a $99 value.

Sam's Club was the top-rated company across all industries and only one of eight organizations with an "excellent" rating in the 2012 Temkin Experience ratings. Five other retailers were in the top 20 positions in the overall rankings: Amazon.com, Target, Walgreens, BJ's Wholesale Club and Lowe's.

Online sellers Amazon and eBay gained brand value last year at the expense of brick-and-mortar retailers such as Best Buy, according to an Interbrand report. Amazon's brand surged 32 percent in a year, the most in U.S. retailing, while eBay's increased 16 percent, Interbrand said in a statement. 

Some people insist that Best Buy is dying a slow death. Meanwhile, its CEO, Brian Dunn, maintains that 80 percent of consumer electronics sales still come from brick-and-mortar stores.

Best Buy decided to forgo the regular celebrity spokesperson for its annual Super Bowl commercial in favor of highlighting mobile technology innovators.