Best Buy's efforts to combat showrooming and lure shoppers into stores during the holidays with aggressive promotions appear to have backfired.
The electronics retailer announced Thursday morning that sales at comparable stores -- stores open for at least 14 months -- declined by 0.8% for the nine week period ending Jan. 5. That came in well below estimates as analysts had expected Best Buy's sales to grow this holiday season.
Investors reacted by sending the stock down sharply. Best Buy was down by more than 30% at one point in pre-market trading Thursday.
In a statement, Best Buy's CEO Hubert Joly chalked up the disappointing holiday sales to several factors, including supply constraints, worse-than-expected mobile sales and "aggressive promotional activity" over the holidays, which he says "did not result in higher industry demand and had a deflationary impact on our revenue."
Each of these are cause for alarm as Best Buy continues to fight to better position itself against competition from e-commerce businesses like Amazon.
"Looking ahead, our holiday performance reinforces our resolve and our sense of urgency around our transformation," Joly said in the statement.