It would be difficult to get further away from the business model of Argos and Currys.digital when defining the shopping experience of Best Buy, America's biggest electronics retailer, which is coming to the UK.

There are no grubby ball-point pens or bingo-like notepads to jot down an order, as is the case in Argos, or the fruitless hunt for a staff member in a Currys.digital store.

Best Buy stores are typically massive - often the size of a British supermarket - and brimming with staff in bright blue T-shirts and khaki trousers. They even smile.

In one store in Midtown Manhattan - open from 8am until 9pm - a new customer is greeted with a company pledge on a poster in the lobby. If a customer orders an item from BestBuy.com and subsequently arrives to collect his item, a waiting time of longer than one minute means the customer is compensated with a $10 discount.

If British shoppers conclude the experience of a visit to Argos helps the retailer to keep prices low, it is not a notion shared by its US rival.

Across the shop floor of Best Buy are smart banks of products - from CDs, fixed-line phones, laptops to try, printers to prod, and posh Bose speakers at which to marvel.

Yesterday, in one of Best Buy's Fifth Avenue stores, a Hewlett Packard TL-60 laptop was selling for $799.99, or $22 a month if financed through its credit service. An LG 19-inch flat screen LCD widescreen monitor can be bought for $199.99 and an XBox is priced at $360.

In the basement are more staff, hovering around the Studio Room where shoppers can hire a person to install television screens and speakers, hanging them on the walls and hiding the wiring. An assistant apologises that it may take “up to seven days” to install equipment.

Best Buy also provides “Geek Squad” - a 24-hour service that customers can use either by phone or in person - if a purchased laptop, camera or DVD player fails to function. To calm the nerves of frazzled technophobes, the techie assistant addresses women customers as “Honey”.

To the tourist, Best Buy is known for the queues of teenagers - usually boys - waiting at midnight for the latest gadget to go on sale. The store has a solution for them; in the cordoned-off area ahead of the tills are Coke and water machines to keep them happy.

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