Holy shiat.........

I don't really get how an electronics store can go out of business, unless it's management was spectacularly bad. No matter what else people cut out, they still gotta have their electronics.

Wow, so they finally figured out that selling INSANELY overpriced crap electronics is a bad business model? Hopefully Best Buy is next.

/can't wait to rummage through the "OMG, store closing!!1!" sale, where everything is 50-70% off (making the prices somewhere near the realm of reality.)

cryinoutloud: I don't really get how an electronics store can go out of business, unless it's management was spectacularly bad. No matter what else people cut out, they still gotta have their electronics.

They are so completely dominated by Best Buy. If the economy wasn't so bad, being #2 would be okay, but electronics is not recession-proof - especially on the big TVs and other high-margin items that they depend on people to buy when times are good. The pie is too small for two major electronics retailers.

At least this recession is getting interesting. I'm glad it didn't fizzle out and leave all us masochistic a$$holes wanting.

They will all be replaced by Migrant Worker City franchises.

The one by my house is no longer listed as the closest store so I guess they're gone. There's a Staples in the adjoining center and a Best Buy across the road (and a Target in the center next to that) so it is not a surprise. But that's the 3rd big electronics store in the area to close the last few years (The Wiz and CompUsa are the others) pretty much leaving Best Buy and various stores like Target, Sears, WalMart, Radio Shack, etc. as the only electronic stores. I wouldn't mind a PC Richard coming down here, but I don't see that happening.

/will hit the going out of business sale soon

Repeat but watching Circuit City go down the tubes is almost as fun as watching Best Buy go down.

just look at the sunny skies...their doin fine!

The scanned letter is from Steve Saunders...

damageddude: The one by my house is no longer listed as the closest store so I guess they're gone.

The one here in Charlottesville isn't listed on the Store Locator anymore either, so I suppose I'll be watching for their going out of business sale.

cryinoutloud: I don't really get how an electronics store can go out of business, unless it's management was spectacularly bad. No matter what else people cut out, they still gotta have their electronics.

Oh, Circuit City pooped in their bed last year when they decided the best cost-cutting measure was to dump their experienced sales staff and rehire a workforce at just-above minimum wage. That NEVER works for specialty retail. The reason people come to you and not Wal-Mart is they aren't electronic geniuses and want someone knowledgeable to talk to (and possibly help install). If you run your business with niche market product prices and big-box help you're going to fail.

Take that, ya DiVX-spreading assholes.

See yuh! God I farking despise that place. Best Buy always seemed to have more knowledgeable staff and oftentimes better products.

/riddance, it's good.

I like where this store is going. Suck it, polyester-clad Divx-pushers.

FishyFred:

They are so completely dominated by Best Buy. If the economy wasn't so bad, being #2 would be okay, but electronics is not recession-proof - especially on the big TVs and other high-margin items that they depend on people to buy when times are good. The pie is too small for two major electronics retailers.


TV's and other big appliances are generally pretty low margin. It's the accessories they nail you on. It's not uncommon to see a pair of nice AV cables go for a 1000% markup. If you want to compare, look at any HDMI cable at Best Buy/Circuit City and then compare it to a cable the same size at a place like Monoprice

wildrufus: See yuh! God I farking despise that place. Best Buy always seemed to have more knowledgeable staff and oftentimes better products.

/riddance, it's good.



The staff at both stores can really be hit or miss.


I'm a little crazy in that before I make a big ticket purchase, I will research my choices and then go into the store knowing exactly what I want.

Way too many bad experiences at CC during their commission sales days. Enought that I never gave them another look. It's been years since I've been in one of their stores.

That pic reminds me of Lampoon's Vacation

We here kids, Circuit city, we'll park the farthest away so we can be the first out.

//cue chariots of fire theme

Very few brick and mortar stores are able to compete with the internet. It's a nasty cycle: people who are tech-savvy buy online, people who aren't tech savvy buy their electronics at places like Wall-Mart and Sears. Best Buy and Circuit City have to offer website prices with the overhead of a brick and mortar store.

Are their sales staff still paid on commission? Gawd, I remember talking people out of buying Sony and Panasonic car stereos and stepping them into Korean made crap at the same price because it gave me 10x the commission...as per Their Training.

Don't even get me started on the extended warrantees. At least 25% of that action went directly into my pocket. I was taking home $1k a week when they moved me into TV's and stereos. For a 21 year-old in 1989, that was pretty sweet.

/they have it coming.

"Welcome to Circuit City, where service is state of the art!"

But I buy all my gizmos there!
And I always get the extended warranty (they always seem so happy when I get it so I know it is a good deal)
They will still honor my warranties, right?

Circuit City creeps me out.

I always visit the local Best Buy and Circuit City before buying anything from either. Every time I go to Circuit City there are probably about 1/4 of the people in their store compared to Best Buy. I have no idea why as their prices are always competitive and they pretty much have the same products as Best Buy. I guess the mob is fickle with their electronics shopping.

AntiNorm: The scanned letter is from Steve Saunders...

So are we putting his daughter into the Circuit City store at gunpoint?

Or is the wife of a laid-off worker going to shoot him?

BigSnatch: wildrufus: See yuh! God I farking despise that place. Best Buy always seemed to have more knowledgeable staff and oftentimes better products.

/riddance, it's good.



The staff at both stores can really be hit or miss.


I'm a little crazy in that before I make a big ticket purchase, I will research my choices and then go into the store knowing exactly what I want.

Yes, I generally am with you on the research aspect, especially when buying many-thousand dollar items. I just seemed to have better luck with Best Buy if I didn't first go to a local guy competitor.

xebeche_tzu: Are their sales staff still paid on commission? Gawd, I remember talking people out of buying Sony and Panasonic car stereos and stepping them into Korean made crap at the same price because it gave me 10x the commission...as per Their Training.

Don't even get me started on the extended warrantees. At least 25% of that action went directly into my pocket. I was taking home $1k a week when they moved me into TV's and stereos. For a 21 year-old in 1989, that was pretty sweet.

/they have it coming.

Look, it's an authentic Sorny! And magnetbox!

cryinoutloud: I don't really get how an electronics store can go out of business, unless it's management was spectacularly bad. No matter what else people cut out, they still gotta have their electronics.

The management was spectacularly bad. They laid off a ton of their experienced workers for cheap labor. This in turn led to a massive breakdown of their customer service.

sweet. I wonder what kind of "get this shiat out of our stores" sales they'll have?


/not sweet for all of the jobs lost

Approves

Good, fark 'em.

Bought one of their "we fix it no matter what warranties" on a PDA. They purposely avoided mentioning that it didn't start until the manufacturer's warranty (worthless) expired.

Bounced it off a store wall and never been back.

The CC's around me have actually been pretty decent. I prefer them to BB by a large mile. I can't get any of the stores to come up on the locator within 100 miles, nor can I get anything added to my cart for in-store pickup. I guess the KC area CC's are history.

I wonder what will happen with all of "The Source" stores in Canada.

Radio Shack stores in Canada, due to some sort of licensing issue with Radio Shack of America, or something, were suddenly rebranded as "The Source: By Circuit City" a few years ago.

Where, oh were, will I get terrible toys, headphone jack y connectors and Centrios-branded wall-projection alarm clocks?

When do we see those next to homeless people holding those big arse yellow signs at every intersection?

I just bought a new TV, and I wanted a PS3 to go with it. I got one last weekend with a $40 off coupon. I'm glad I did it then.

Of course, they tried to get me to get an extended warranty for it not one, not twice, but THREE times - once when I bought it, second time when I picked it up from the front of the store, and a third time by the security doorman who checks the receipt.

I had to stop myself from laughing.

Especially when I saw the "HELP WANTED" sign outside of CC. I mean, are you kidding me? EVERYONE who knew about retail saw this coming.

Crap.

If my TV had waited another month or so before going out, I probably could saved quite a bit at their going out of business sale.

Gaboo: /can't wait to rummage through the "OMG, store closing!!1!" sale, where everything is 50-70% off (making the prices somewhere near the realm of reality.)

Unlikely, when Compusa stores shut down they stopped honoring sales ads for the rest of the chain and just marked everything down 10% the first couple weeks, and a little bit more the last week. The rest was sold to a liquidation firm. The weekly sales in the flier were better than the store closing crap.

Gaboo: Wow, so they finally figured out that selling INSANELY overpriced crap electronics is a bad business model? Hopefully Best Buy is next.

/can't wait to rummage through the "OMG, store closing!!1!" sale, where everything is 50-70% off (making the prices somewhere near the realm of reality.)

I know, cant wait!
Fry's is a better store anyways

As someone who already lost his job to this cluster-farked economy when the century-old company I worked for completely dissolved last month, I'm just wondering how any of you who still have jobs have managed to sock away three to six months salary.

Bored Horde: Very few brick and mortar stores are able to compete with the internet. It's a nasty cycle: people who are tech-savvy buy online, people who aren't tech savvy buy their electronics at places like Wall-Mart and Sears. Best Buy and Circuit City have to offer website prices with the overhead of a brick and mortar store

I'm about half way to tech savvy, and I still like to look at my stuff before buying it if I have a chance. The more expensive the item, the more I like to actually see one.

My little brother works in a Circuit City in Sanford, FL. Says that his is probably going to be one of the ones around here that survives, as it's got the best numbers of all the Orlando area CC stores. I'll find out more later today when he gets home.

I feel bad for him, he has all kinds of performance reviews and pressure to push extended warranties, but none of the sales staff receives extended warranties. At least when I worked in Radioshack a few years back we earned commission for pushing that shiat. He won a department wide contest for pushing the most warranties and what not in a month and he got "The Happening" on DVD. They'd have to pay me to take that DVD.

cryinoutloud: I don't really get how an electronics store can go out of business, unless it's management was spectacularly bad. No matter what else people cut out, they still gotta have their electronics.

I'm in the computer business so, well, you know the rest..

The prices have dropped to a point where there's simply no money in this racket anymore. Believe me, it is a racket. Most computer places make used car salesman look good.

If you can buy a new computer for $200, why fix the old slow one?
This is the same reason the warranties suck. Computer makers can't afford warranties with such low markup.

It was a fun ride but now it's done. Only gonna get worse. If you're in this business, best keep an eye out for a different job.

Remember: Computer prices rarely go back up... usually down quickly until the new model comes out.

To ask the REALLY dumb question, why do people buy big-ticket items from Brick and Mortar stores anyway?

They are usually overpriced on a lot of items. For example, I just bought a TV.

BB and CC had it for one price - 2000.

I bought it, online, from a highly rated online retailer, (Fry's) for almost 600 dollars less.

Anybody?

But it's always fun talking to someone on commission trying to rip you off, by trying to sell you a cheap piece of crap with extended warranty for more money than the good product that you want, which is never is stock for some strange reason..

/But when you know more than a minimum wage earner.......
//And they get all glassy eyed when you ask for a particular product description..

UNC_Samurai: If you run your business with niche market product prices and big-box help you're going to fail.

This. Why do companies think they can compete with Walmart based on price and "customer loyalty"? Most of the loyalty these companies talk about is for the lowest price as there is absolutely no reason to go into most of these stores. The employees aren't that helpful as a) the parent company pays low wages, b) they are running around trying to meet their quota, c) there's not enough of them in a store so they can't adequately help anyone, and d) what they are selling doesn't really require any specialized knowledge to sell.

I frequently go to the local Ace Hardware over the Home "insane" Depot as a) it is much closer by (mainly as the store is 1/10th the size), b) it is staffed by knowledgeable people, c) those in there don't look like their only alternative job is flipping burgers, d) they typically only have one of an item but it is the one I need. Granted the prices are around 30% higher but I'll pay that not to wait in line. Or have the privilege of checking myself out at a self serve counter. Oh and e) the place isn't full of people who only shop based on lowest price and tend to be obnoxious.

I won't much miss Suckit City. Best Buy, while not particularly "better" for the sorts of things I need (nothing like selling $24 SODIMMS for $100) is somewhat more convenient from both home and work. Suckit City is harder to get to from both situations, and when you DO get there, you find they either don't have what you need, or (usually) the thing you need is in a locked display case and no one can find anyone who has the key... assuming you can get the sales droid away from the dithering 70-year-old lady trying to choose which shiatty digital camera to buy her granddaughter.

MattyFridays: To ask the REALLY dumb question, why do people buy big-ticket items from Brick and Mortar stores anyway?

They are usually overpriced on a lot of items. For example, I just bought a TV.

BB and CC had it for one price - 2000.

I bought it, online, from a highly rated online retailer, (Fry's) for almost 600 dollars less.

Anybody?

People without constant internet access, ie those who go to the library to surf the net come to mind.

That and no-proficient internet users like the elderly, are two categories.