Urban Planning Chair Chris Tilly spoke to Retail Dive about the internal reorganization of Best Buy following a recent large wave of layoffs. The company has been struggling to compete against generalist stores, such as Walmart and Target, as well as Amazon. Over the last decade, Best Buy said it prized a “human-centric approach” focusing on the company’s front-line workers, but it recently cut many full-time employees in favor of part-time staff who are expected to be knowledgeable about all areas of the store. “It’s clear that the entire store-based consumer electronics industry has faced incredible pressure from online sales,” Tilly said. “The fact that Best Buy survived and bounced back is miraculous, when a lot of other companies were going down.” The pandemic made competition even tougher by shifting more things online. “If you’re just competing with online sales, what is the difference between Best Buy and Amazon?” Tilly asked.