Best Buy announces its first quarter earnings Thursday. 

The retailer has struggled to compete online against companies like Amazon and Overstock.com, which matters more as more people shop online.

The University of Washington’s Jake Thornock said traditional retailers like Best Buy are trying to take back what they’ve lost from e-tail companies.

“What we’re seeing at a higher level is unfettered competition in the retail space,” he said.

“There was this sort of fragmented perception that consumers would always go towards an online only company if they wanted to make an online purchase.”

But Ravi Bapna, who teaches information systems at the University of Minnesota, said it’s tough to compete against a digitally sophisticated company like Amazon.

“Best Buy being a traditional company, I don’t think it has that sort of mindset or that sort of infrastructure digitally to be at that level of sophistication right now,” he said.