No 2 Electronics Retailer to Close 69 Stores

Since all of us on CPF are "flashaholics," there's also reason enough to believe that we are interested in other electronic gadgets and goodies. So with that in mind, do you shop with Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's Electronics or online or otherwise?

The news today is that the number 2 consumer electronics retail store is closing quite a number of stores. Here's the news link:

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/bus?guid=20070208/45caae50_3ca6_1552620070208453909493

Enjoy!

It's amazing how a store or chain can leave a lasting impression on a person. About 13-14 years ago, I went into a Circuit City store and the floor whores were so sleazy and it was literally a case of "you could tell they were lying because their lips were moving," that I've gone out of my way to avoid that company.

Circuit City aint looking to peachy thats for sure. I'm a joint venture manager here in Canada. Since being bought out, everything has been downhill. The company has lost its direction IMO. We have Steve Pappas running the show (former Radio Shack VP). As you all know that RS started focusing on Cell phones and now look where they are. Well guess what. Our main focus up here is CELL PHONES. I'm going to start working on my resume.....LOL

This is not the 1st time that Circuit City has closed a few stores.
More often than not, they seem to do good about opening up someplace else in a better place afterwards.

Heres my circuit city gripe:

Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. They don't have them out and displayed - like the DVDs, theyre in stupid little square displays in the TV section, unorganized and a mess. AND they charge MSRP for them - eg. $38/movie compared to bestbuy @ $25 and WalMart @ $26

I've been working at CompUSA for almost 3 years now, and over those three years, i've been getting the impression that the Electronics Retail business has been suffering quite a bit. So much so that I have turned down many offers into management possitions because of the instability in the retail business in general.

With the closing of Good Guys and many Tweater stores in my area, I just don't want to invest my time in a career that cannot gaurantee me a job month to month. I've seen managers and departments come and go every 6 months or so.

CompUSA (as I see it) isn't THAT big of a name when you stand it against likes of Best Buy and Walmart. In fact, in many of the company meetings, those two stores have been the dominant worries for CompUSA, Circuit City, and Frys. Best Buy, and Walmart are just so big....almost a houshold name to many. Also, another big worry looming in the horizon is the certain rise in online shopping. Our store is a central hub for Southern California, and the merchandise comming out of our warehouse during the last quarter of 2006 sometimes matches our daily floor sales! You should have seen the online sales during the holidays.

Anyway....I guess I just want to say that it is not a surprise that Circuit City is closing a few stores. With this news, and the current pay changes i've personally been seeing lately at work....i'm wondering if our company is bracing for something...

I guess i better hold off on my flashlight purchases for a while.

Sentiments are the same as with others here that have been into Circuit City (I'm recalling Federated Electronics). For the online electronics retail, I wonder if names such as Crutchfield and J&R World to name but a few, are on top of things. Time will tell. Then again, you've got that GIANT of a retail everything—Wal*Mart! ! !

I simply don't have a reason to shop Circuit City.

I can't think of Circuit City without being reminded of a competitor's commercial. In it, a group of youngters wearing generic Circuit City uniforms stand around un-infromed, one sips a soda through a straw. When shopping for an HD TV and home theatre in a box, the employees that "helped" me were so much like those guys, they must have been the inspiration.

It's bad enough how little they knew about the TVs, but when one was asked about home theatre in a box, he told me that's not his department. Another told me there was no such thing as "a home theatre in a box". While walking off he bumped into a mid-aisle display that was labled, you guessed it, Home Theatre In A Box!

I was foolish enough to buy a PC there, with two-year extended warranty. Six months later, the ethernet card went out. I had to deal with Emachines, because the warranty from Circuit City, which included home visits by a tech, didn't apply until after the manuf. warranty expired. So I had to wait while Emachines FedExed the part, and then install it myself. No, not a big deal, but not what I though I paid for. The sales guy, when touting the warranty, forgot that little detail. How convienant. I do blame myself for not researching better and reading the fine print. That two year extended warranty was really a one year extension over the manufacturer's warranty. A couple of months after the extension expired (which I didn't renew), the motherboard died.

I'm sure all retailers have some form of this, and again I say that not being better informed was my fault. Combined with the lack of knowledge and help, it has put me off of ever buying there again. It's ashame to see people lose their jobs and stores close, but how many people with my experience does it take to reduce repeat business?

Retail is a tough business to choose as a career these days. Most people will just work in it as casual employment for a paycheck. I worked at Macy's during high school and there were people that actually spent 25+ years there, but that was when they actually drew a pension from the company. Those days are long gone, now. People don't spend 25 years with most employers these days and in many cases cannot due to various personnel reorganizations and lay-offs.

Quite honestly, over the last couple of years, every time that I walk into a CompUSA store up here, I honestly find it hard to believe how they've managed to stay in business. There's hardly anyone in the stores, and that's on the weekends. It's been even worse the times I've gone in there during a business day. Quite a downhill ride since the days when they started as Soft Warehouse and the place was packed

LEDagent said:

I've been working at CompUSA for almost 3 years now, and over those three years, i've been getting the impression that the Electronics Retail business has been suffering quite a bit. So much so that I have turned down many offers into management possitions because of the instability in the retail business in general.

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Brighteyez said:

Quite honestly, over the last couple of years, every time that I walk into a CompUSA store up here, I honestly find it hard to believe how they've managed to stay in business. There's hardly anyone in the stores, and that's on the weekends. It's been even worse the times I've gone in there during a business day. Quite a downhill ride since the days when they started as Soft Warehouse and the place was packed

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Brighteyez,

One thing to consider is your location. Up here in NY if we want a PC part that circuit city/best buy doesn't carry we have to either go to CompUSA or wait a week for it to get to us from California where almost all of the web-based tech places are - no doubt because of its proximity to china compared to NY =)

I don't think it's a matter of proximity, but rather that we do have stores like Fry's. There isn't much difference in time by plane between SFO and JFK if a plane goes the polar route, probably only one or two hours. And these days anything can go anywhere overnight. To think that the proximity of the West Coast to China isn't something that would even come into play. Otherwise we're pretty much relegated to mail-order these days as well. All of those Asian mom&pop computer stores that used to be on every street corner in just about every city are a thing of the past here as well. Odd as it may seem, one of the primary distributors in computer related merchandise these days, D&H is headquarted on the East Coast in Harrisburg PA.

Though I am aware that unlike out here, the CompUSA stores back east are known to surcharge some of the more popular items, that just wouldn't go out here. And many people out here pick up some of their computer components at Best Buy these days as well.

WRT to the web based tech places, other than places like Newegg and Zipzoomfly, the rest of them could be anywhere. Many of them are located on the wall in UPS stores anyway, there's nothing that prevents someone from opening a web store with an East Coast address and then having everything drop-shipped out of D&H.

myk said:

Brighteyez,

One thing to consider is your location. Up here in NY if we want a PC part that circuit city/best buy doesn't carry we have to either go to CompUSA or wait a week for it to get to us from California where almost all of the web-based tech places are - no doubt because of its proximity to china compared to NY =)

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IMHO there are way too many retail stores like that. Doesn't matter if its best buy, circuit city, hhgreg, etc, I can drive 15 minutes to another one of the exact name store. Its like the late 90's when there were 200 companies each with 10% of the market share of the telco market.

You mean after Judge Green broke up the AT&T monopoly and deregulated the phone industry? Isn't it a good thing that happened. Otherwise how could SBC ever have evolved to become the new AT&T?

Eugene said:

Its like the late 90's when there were 200 companies each with 10% of the market share of the telco market.

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I avoid stores which rely heavily on rebates.

Not going to find me shed a tear for Circuit City. Never walked out of there with a good shopping experience. They still owe me a $20 deposit I put down, that they won't acknowledge. Special offers they promoted (ie. free 5 DVD titles) that never materialize.
And let's not forget their DIVX fiasco.

CompUSA is another retail chain I no longer visit. Over $100 in rebates not honored.
The company treats its customers like suspicious criminals.
They once had good prices, no longer, no stock, and no service.
Microcenter customer service puts them to shame.

You must offer good prices, selection and service to compete. If you can't offer at least two of these, you don't deserve to be in business.

IMHO, Until the federal gov't interferes with suggested internet fees and taxation, the B&M, and mom and pop stores won't be making a return soon. Too bad, some of them
were excellent in my neighborhood.

Given a choice of doing business between Circuit City and Best Buy, I prefer CC because of a horrid BB experience but at least around here the Best Buy stores are much larger and have a more diverse inventory selection. I find prices are often time better at Circuit City because for a lot of items, you can order off the web where they often will have 10-15 percent off sales on many items and then pick it up at a store.

How could you not have plenty of computer stores in MASSACHUSETTS?
What has my former home state come to?

I cannot believe Circuit City has lasted this long.

A dozen years ago, Silo electronics had the same strategy of poor selection at full MSRP and went out of business in 1995. Best Products and Service Merchandise stores similarly followed in 1996 and 2002. Meanwhile other retailers with more promising strategies have also suffered the same fate: Tandy's Incredible Universe had a HUGE selection at MSRP and closed in 1997, while Future Shop had great prices with limited selection and closed (in the United States) in 1999.

Fry's electronics took over six Incredible Universe stores and seems to be doing OK with heavy advertising of loss leaders to get people into the stores (that's why the best offers aren't available online). Future Shop Canada was bought by Best Buy in 2001, and Good Guys! also had good prices but was absorbed by CompUSA in 2003, who closed all their stores by 2006. CompUSA had also taken over and liquidated Tandy's Computer City in 1998 in order to shut down a major competitor.

Costco is a successful, interesting anomaly: self-serve, very poor selection at middling prices... but a lifetime warranty on everything but computers. And Sears is still alive even after being bought by K-Mart in 2005, emphasizing full service and no restocking fees.

I miss the huge watch selection at Service Merchandise! The store layout certainly was weird.

bfg9000 said:

I Best Products and Service Merchandise stores similarly followed in 1996 and 2002. .

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