Best Buy Tests Senior Assistance Service, Assured Living

Best Buy is testing out a new service aimed at helping to keep senior citizens healthier.

“We already assort a variety of health-related products and technology products designed for seniors, like specially designed phones and medical alert systems,” CEO Hubert Joly said on an earnings call last week, according to CNBC. “We’re also testing a service called Assured Living to help the aging population stay healthy at home with assistance from technology products and services.”

He added that one of the company’s main strategies is to address “key human needs in areas such as entertainment, productivity, communication, food preparation, security and health and wellness.”

“One of the things we’ve talked about is how technology can help people stay in their homes for longer, and there’s a lot of excitement around helping people do that,” Joly said, adding that technology “improves people’s health and wellness and reduce[s] healthcare costs for the country.”

While Best Buy reported profits that beat estimates, investors weren’t happy with slow online sales growth, as well as the fact that the company didn’t update its outlook.

“We’re not trying to increase the profitability, because we are trying to position the company for the future,” Joly said. “The returns for the winners in this space are going to be outsized, because there’s going to be greater and greater differentiation between winners and losers. And so this is the time clearly to invest.”

Earlier this year, Joly noted that the company had completed a five-year turnaround and is more than ready to compete with Amazon.

“We have turned around the business; it’s about where we go from here,” Joly said back in March. “We have not only survived, but thrived, and I don’t believe this is a winner-takes-all market.”

While Best Buy has had to shutter stores over the past few years due to increased competition from eCommerce sites like Amazon, the electronics retailer has spent the past five years investing in price-matching, boosting its online search functionality and improving customer service.