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Circuit City Closes Its Doors For Good
bsharma is amongst the hordes of people wanting us to share the news that long beleaguered retailer Circuit City has finally decided to close for good, asking for court approval to close the remaining 567 US stores. "Whalin said management mistakes over the past few years combined with the recession brought down Circuit City. 'This company made massive mistakes,' he said, citing a decision to get rid of sales people and other mismanagement. What's more, given the credit market freeze, Whalin added that no manufacturer wants to sell to any retailer who doesn't have money to pay for the merchandise. At the same time, Whalin said there's still a very slim chance that one or more firms that have expressed an interest in buying Circuit City could still buy it out of bankruptcy over the next few days."
The main mistake Circuit City made IMHO was that their prices were always higher than their primary competitors (Best Buy, CompUSA, etc.). They had a policy that they would match the price of any competitor; however, they wouldn't beat the competitor's price. Of course, their high pressure sales tactics didn't help either but my main gripe was their advertised prices.
Only matching a competitor's price (and not beating the price) meant they were basically forcing their customers to do their job, i.e. price shop their competition. If I find two stores selling the same item, and one store is less than the other, I'm going to the lower priced store. The only time I'd consider going to the higher priced store would be if they gave me a price LOWER than their competitor. A price match is meaningless.
Maybe they changed their policy in later years (after I stopped visiting their stores), I don't know, but the negative perception I developed about them persists to this day. And now they're gone. I wonder if they learned anything?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I guess the business model of high prices, unfriendly sales staff and poor quality merchandise didn't pan out for them.
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Good Riddance
But the management was the worst of the worst. I think there was a factory in Argentina where the union kept the shop going after the owners went bust. Too bad the 30,000 employees of Circut City that still have their souls couldn't do the same thing.
Make BestBuy next!
...what's to stop Best Buy from inflating their already-borderline-ridiculous prices even further?
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
I'd like to thank my coworkers, my ex-manager, and all of the other people at Circuit City Mechanicsburg, PA who helped make this happen.
Couple of years ago when they let the senior staff go, I knew it was the end.
The couple time I went in after that seemed to show me they were spiraling down
i had multiple warranties with circuit shitty. now theyre all gone out the door.
i used to warranty items and then replace em just before teh warranties expired. with brand new top of the line ones. circuit shitty was good at not testing returned items and exchanging them. what will i do now ???
But DIVX was just about to take off!
http://use.perl.org
If you've not seen the behind-the-scenes newstories on liquidations, essentially they raise prices to list and then slowly lower them back to the discount prices. So it's always a ripoff.
A few years ago, all the Radio Shacks in Canada were changed into mini "Circuit Cities," branded as "The Source - By Circuit City" - They were the same size as a Radio Shack, but under the Circuit City brand. I wonder what will happen to them...
Here's a picture of one:
http://flickr.com/photos/photofinderguy/2472113998/
Here in Montreal, we have a bunch of stores that are ran by Circuit City, dubbed "The Source by Circuit City". Basically a chain with overpriced items and clueless employees. Doesn't surprise me one bit that their doors are closing, especially with the aggressive market we're in now. Has anyone seen what Dell is selling these days? Pretty much everything, and their prices are the lowest of the low*. Disclaimer: I am a Value Added Reseller (VAR) for Dell.
Sorry for staff, glad for cheap electronics. Now if only I had money.
Seriously, who the hell keeps putting either of those two tags in stories that have no political connotation to them?
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Every industry has its version of Circuit City. Chrysler's a shining example. Screw bailing them out. They need to adapt or die.
I'd like to thank my coworkers, managers, and all of the other people at Circuit City Mechanicsburg, PA who helped make this happen. Seriously, folks. This needed to happen. Circuit City, in the past couple years, resembled a sick dog that was just asking to be put out of its misery. Now the healing can start.
We're closed now!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
When will I be able to buy a bunch of stuff at their liquidation sale for 80% off?
is hearing all of the stories that are going to come out of the liquidation.
I bet these employees have been holding it in for a long to come out. Now, with the store going away, they might give us a little insight to why they failed so badly.
import system.cool.Sig;
I didn't find that to be true. Not in the last few years, anyways.
I've purchased a lot of stuff from Circuit City in the last few years because their staff was always nicer and their prices were always a few percent less. If not, they'd match it and I'd buy from Circuit City on a price match over Best Buy.
This really sucks. CompUSA gone, and now Circuit City. No more Tweeter..
Best Buy bites, and it's going to suck when I want to buy a TV next time. It already sucks when I need to buy some computer part or something quickly, because since CompUSA went under, Best Buy and Circuit City pretty much stopped carrying computer components.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I stayed away from Circuit City stores for probably ten years because of the DIVX nonsense.
In fact even now I think the only purchase I've made at CC in years was a digital converter box because they were the only ones that had in stock something I could use my coupon on before it expired, but that's more because of crappy selection/prices.
The thing is, once you've been turned off of a dealer/manufacturer by some bad practice (hello Belkin, hello Sony), even once that's forgiven there's still a tendency to evaluate them negatively even where price on an item is comparable. (Of course in the case of Belkin, with their router fiasco a while back (inserting ads occasionally), it's not hard to never buy them because their prices are always ridiculous).
-- Alastair
Well, I have had experience with the old school way of doing things, Beast Buy, Comp Useless, and Circuit Shitty. The advantage they had over the smaller shops is a huge selection and usually steep discounts on big ticket items. The drawback was usually that you got raped on the peripherals and accessories ($20 printer cables you could buy for $2 anyone?) and their staff was usually pig ignorant and useless. Not only that but you also had to deal with scumfuck corporate tactics on returns, were treated like a thief every time you left the stores with mandatory bag searches, etc. Ultimately I both hated these stores but knew they were the only option when I needed something today and couldn't wait for a delivery. The other problem with buying online, especially electronics, is that returns become a nightmare. If I'm buying a big ticket product, I need a place I can return it to if it's broken and I don't want to eat S&H along with 15% restocking fees.
The newer model seems to be represented by the reborn Comp Useless (purchased and owned by Tiger Direct) and the Apple Stores. In the Comp store by me, they're shucked the generalist crap and are tightly focused on computers and electronics. They carry a full range of parts and you can pick out anything you need to build your computer. The tech desks are at the front of the store and there's no walls, it's just you and them. If the people on the sales floor don't have a clue, you can go up and ask a tech and get an answer. I don't know what they're paid but they don't seem as unqualified as the Geek Squad. So far, I've not yet been disappointed but am still keeping a wary eye on them.
The nice part about the Apple store is how they're heavily staffed with people to answer questions and all the toys are out there for you to play with. The traditional big box stores leave you to find your product on your own. As a geek I can muddle along but I have no idea how Joe NotGeek can find what he needs. Apple also schedules classes, has the genius bar (yes, it is a stupid name) open for people to ask whatever questions they need, and tries to demystify computing as much as possible. I won't say they're entirely successful but they are a huge improvement over what you get at the traditional box stores which is nothing.
What it really comes down to is that some business models can be run along the lines of McDonald's and some simply can't. In the restaurant field there will be people who pay $100 for a fine steak and those who will be satisfied with a crappy burger spanked together by surly wage slaves. McDonald's has been enormously successful and will remain so, even as there's a market segment for higher quality fast food stand-in's like Panera's and Quizno's.
The big box stores were the McDonaldizing of electronics and big ticket consumer products. The funny thing is that I thought they would remain as successful as McDonald's and for the same reason. Oddly enough, it looks like the cost-cutting I took for making them profitable did away with whatever vestige of quality that kept people shopping there. It will be interesting to see if there's more of a trend towards competing on service and knowledgeable staffing. Hell, even McDonald's is trying to take a stab at entering the real food market with Chipolte.
One other factor that might also come into play is America's acceptance of cheaply manufactured disposable junk. In good times, people were content to buy a big screen that might be dead in five years because it could always be chucked for the next great thing. People didn't want reliability and durability in their cars because they were trading up every three years. When income is no longer quite so disposable, will people be willing to pay more for quality with the understanding that it costs less in the long-term?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I'm not sure what actual CC stores are like - since most here are bought out "radio shack" stores -, but the local "Source/Circuit City" store was the only bloody place that I could find that would sell desolding braid (used to suck up solder off of PCB's etc). Hardware stores, electronics stores, etc, plenty of them had solder and crappy soldering guns, but CC was the only one that actually carried the desoldering braid.
It also cost me $5.99 for a little 5ft braid, and the saleperson charged $6.99 (until I picked up the price sign, brought it to him, and got a refund at the cost of my contact info)... so I can see how their prices aren't helping them.
Back when CD drives for computers were just becoming popular, I went to Circuit City to buy one. I picked out the particulear one to buy but noticed that the package only mentioned that it was compatible with Windows 95.
I told the salesman that if it didn't work with Windows NT I would bring it back.
The manager was standing behind the salesman and overheard me. He told me in no uncertain terms that if it worked with any computer running Windows 95, they would not accept a return.
So I went elsewhere, picked out the exact same model CD drive, verified that I could return it, and bought it. It worked perfectly.
Since then, I've spent plenty of money at the store that would have accepted its return, if necessary, and not a penny at Circuit City.
In fact, at the time of the CD incident, I needed a new stereo system because my previous has completely quit. I had just what I wanted picked out at Circuit City, but just hadn't bought it yet. Their refusal to accept returns of the CD drive not only killed the CD drive sale, they killed the stereo sale as well. I ended up buying a better stereo for less money at another nearby store.
I don't feel the least bit sorry for Circuit City going under. As far as I'm concerned -- Good Riddance.
It's the same business model as Best (worst) Buy - and I never understood it.
1) Full Retail Prices
2) High Pressure Sales douchebags
3) Lots of products with unique model numbers to hinder comparison shopping
Did they just run out idiots to hose? Are the idiots that patronized that store chain just out of money?
Goodbye - Good Riddance - what took you so long?
Hey what is this internet thing? Can you buy shit on that?
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
As a consumer, why the staff does particular things is irrelevant; they still do them, don't they? Peculiar sales practices can be the fault of bad salespeople, or bad management. But it doesn't matter why. A bad sales practice is a bad sales practice. On a personal level, I can sympathise with good people being hamstrung by bad rules; but that isn't going to get me to smile, bend over, and spread my wallet.
If we are going to discuss this in detail, though, I would specify how you define service:
I don't care about salespeople *at all*, in fact, I would generally just like for them to leave me alone unless I ask is something is in stock, etc. I generally know what I want or can read the back of the package (or often just find the partnumber and read reviews online right there on my cellphone.) I don't expect some teenager to know nuances about RAID setup, PATA vs SATA notebook drives, or what webcam is compatible with linux, etc. After junior high I stopped asking pretty much any non-engineer/programmer/somebody-that-actually-made-the-device anything about computers, as I'm sure many of you did.
What I do care about is being friendly and helpful with logistics (delivery of the flat-screen TV) or returns / exchanges for defective parts. A few online companies are absolutely fantastic with this (Amazon, etc.), so I almost end up with everything online unless I need it immediately. FWIW, despite their adherence to retail (and rarely ABOVE-retail prices), Best Buy has always been pretty good in terms of my definition of service for me.
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
Liquidation sales usually suck. The Liquidator starts by marking up all items to full List price (or beyond), and then giving you a "sale" price off of that new inflated price (which nobody ever paid, and was never charged.)
By the time the "discounts" get down to a level that can significantly beat, say, a retailer that isn't going out of business, the store has been picked clean by the uninformed masses that buy stuff, and only when they get home realize they got a lousy deal. (All Sales Final)
OTOH, if you run a retail store, you can often get great deals on the shelving units. (When they say "everything must go" they aren't kidding. Everything not bolted down (and even some that is) goes out the door.
SirWired
It seems that no company has been mismanaged or made bad decisions in the past year - any lack of performance is instantly blamed on the "credit freeze"
Problem is, there is no credit freeze.
We had one of the first wave of store closings here back in December. The "going out of business" "20-50% off", etc prices were still higher than the BB across the street. I even visited the store on the very last day where even the fixtures were on sale and everything was STILL over priced, even the fixtures. ...and why would I buy a $2k+ TV, laptop, etc from a store that wouldn't even be there the next day?
Do yourself a favor and avoid the temptation to join the crowds of bargain hunters who think they are getting a good deal just because the tag says "30% off". What ever you're looking for will still be cheaper online or at Best Buy, Office Max, Fry's...
Circuit City...overpriced and useless to the very end.
Best Buy used to be a great store but they have been in a steady decline for years, with a smaller selection, higher prices and crappy return policies.
Now with Circuit City gone they have ZERO direct competition in the B&M space, they will be able to raise prices and cut service even further.
Sure you can (and I do) buy many things online but obviously you can't get anything same-day and bulky items such as TVs or appliances aren't always practical (I can't imagine trying to return a defective TV by freight).
CC was great because when you needed something same day it was quick and easy to order something online and pick it up in the store. I guess not enough people agreed with me though.
I have avoided Best Buy for a few years now, guess I have no choice but to go there now, I'll have to remember to bring lube when I go. :(
It's unfortunate that Circuit City didn't survive long enough to see the historic occasion of Obama being sworn in as president.
CC left a bad taste in my mouth back when they were still a new chain in my town. I had a friend who "knew a guy who worked in car stereo sales" who could "get me a great deal". So I headed over there, to see what he could do for me.
Well, to make a long story short, they took what should be a pretty simple process of picking out some speakers and turned it into high-pressure sales and haggling, like you were buying the whole car from a shady used car lot!
Much later, when the big deal was their dropping all the commissioned sales staff - I gave them another chance. Nope, still disliked the whole experience. They made you feel like you were already determined to be a shoplifter. Practically everything you wanted, they only had one "floor sample" of, or just an empty box, and you had to ask for someone to go get you the actual product. Not only that, but the way the stores were organized, it felt like you were running around in a big circle if you wanted to look at thing in a few different sections. It had a vibe of "Hurry up and pick out something so we can ring it up and get you back out of here!" instead of an inviting "Stay a while and shop!" feel.
and i can name a few other business that SHOULD HAVE been allowed to go under, no thanks to our dumb fucking government.
Large "box" tech stores AND small tech stores are both hurting. There's almost no profit in parts, unless you massively overcharge. Anyone can go browse online retailers and see prices way lower than any retail store can offer, even counting shipping.
People always act a little surprised when I tell them the store I work at doesn't sell parts. (They usually want to argue with me about it a bit too.) Sorry folks, parts can't pay our rent or salary. My best guess is that soon all the small computer stores will be out of business.
Meanwhile, I can happily hand out the few parts we do have for free, and not have to deal with people's whiny bitching or stinky money.
What's our secret? I ain't tellin'! ;)
I use Windows... like a two dollar wh.. why don't I just go ahead and not finish that sentence.
So below the article I see:
Circuit City â Online
Official Site. Free Shipping on orders $24 & up or pick up in store www.CircuitCity.com
El Oh El.
But anyway I'm reading this article and doing a /shrug, as I've never shopped there.
Ave Molech Setting
"citing a decision to get rid of sales people and other mismanagement."
So, sales people are a form of mismanagement? LOL!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Suddenly I'm glad that my wife didn't argue with me when I said "no thanks" to the $200 "extended warranty" Circuit City offered us when we bought a flat screen TV there last week.
Years ago I used to shop at circuit city, they had some good points, they had some bad points. A little over a year ago I started my official boycott after reading about Michael Righi. His 4th Ammendment rights were violated by Circuit City policy, and subsequently I chose never to support them again. Arrested at Circuit City
Back during the Thanksgiving break of 2007, I bought an HDTV from CC, after some research online (and some previous research in-stores) on what brand/model I wanted and what was the best price available. I probably overlooked the near-by (2 miles from home) Best Buy store, and instead drove to the nearest CC (Fremont, about 12 miles) carrying that model at that price.
Next day, when I wanted to get a DVD player, I looked up their prices, drove back to get it, only to realize that they have different prices online and in-store. I asked if they would match their online price, but they refused ("not on Thanksgiving weekend" was their excuse). To get the lower price, I was given the option to order online and pick it in 24 minutes from the very same store (which basically meant I had to drive back home to logon, order, and then drive up back 12 miles).
Thankfully, some wisdom dawned upon me, and I decided to check the local BB store on the way back home. They carried the same product, for a marked price of around $20 more. However, when asked whether they would match the competitor price, they gladly agreed. I thought they would call or go online to confirm the competitor's price, but they agreed to the price I quoted I had seen at CC.
Not only did CC lose my $80 business on that DVD player, but also the high-margin accessories I bought with it - a Monster HDMI cable and a Monster surge-protector.
Needless to say, I have never visited CC since, and not just because I have a BB much closer to home.
My only regret is spending my $100 saving on the Black Friday special on TV on their lame "Circuit City Extended Protection Plan" (which I'm sure doesn't cover most accidental damage anyway), which will now be useless, since they are out business.
I worked as a cashier in the Circuit City music department for the first couple years I was in college. It was a pretty low-key job and since CD's were really just a loss-leader to get people into the store there was really no pressure on me to sell. As long as I kept my work area clean and provided good customer service my boss was happy and life was cool. And every month I was able to take home any of the promotional CD's from the previous month - so on the plus side it gave me a chance to appreciate music I wouldn't normally be inclined to purchase (this was pre-napster, mind you). On top of that, the employee discount was pretty substantial. Overall it was a pretty decent gig as far as joe-jobs go.
The other departments were a different story. The salespeople were borderline sociopaths. There was tremendous pressure on them to sale -- and I would even see salespeople chewed out in public for underperforming -- but because they were usually such raging assholes it was hard to feel any sympathy for them.
After I quit (due to getting an internship) I never set a foot back in the store. I knew how much the markups were on were on everything, and I couldn't bring myself to actually pay for music.
Last week I was laptop shopping with a friend. I being a good consultant on such things of course, made sure she understood all the options, e.g., mail order, lightly used, Mac vs. PC, Intel vs. AMD, what kind of machine specs you need before Vista is happy, etc.
Anyway in this process I suggested that we should give CC a try before buying anything, the idea being they are going out of business (I've known this for a while, so why is it news?), and that surely they'd have fire-sale prices right?
So we go over there (across the street from BB), and sure enough, the car radio room is turned up so loud that I get a migraine just walking to the computer department, the computer stock has nothing at all in the performance range we're after (but they do have prices that SHOULD represent the upper mid-range!), and the only ones that would be worth considering, were Acer and something that looks like some OEM brand that starts with "I". I just checked the website to see what that brand was... wow. They shutdown the website? What if you had an order pending? Dang.
No matter what kind of "process" you apply to a retail business, if you don't have products that are attractive to your customer base, you're sunk. And maybe 20-30 years ago their strategy of taking mundane items but spreading the price and placement out so that your "low, middle, high end" look ok, even though you don't really have a "high", maybe that worked back then. People are savvy today, and even uneducated people know more than CC's sales force.
The only people who even seemed reasonably happy there, were actually contractors from Verizon. Probably sucks to work there as well, but at least they were immune to all the CC pinheads.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
worth noting that WalMart (I them them BTW)...
:-)
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It's ludicrous at this point to assume that the former stores will be turned into anything other than Yet Another Big Box Store. But, should that model ever wind up dying on the beach, what will come of the buildings? I'd love to turn the top of any one of them into a giant rooftop garden facility. Better yet, let me tear down the buildings and use the space for micro-farms. (I won't even touch the accompanying "waste" issues. This is a pipe dream, you insensitive clod.)
-- haaz.
All the stuff CC and any of the other box stores sell is foreign made for pennies on the dollar of the price. The rest is making you want to buy it (marketing), retail markup, and profit. Design and engineering used to be a larger cost, but that's all outsourced now too. Since the internet has made retail markup on competitive electronics razor thin, CC & BB will both be gone. Electronics have become commodities - cheap, interchangeable, and disposable.
The future of consumption is in crafted goods. They're generally made with quality materials, will last longer, and are more unique than mass manufactured goods. Case in point: furniture. My wife and I buy our furniture from a local store that either buys from US factories or the Amish. It may cost 3-5 times more than IKEA, but our hardwood furniture will last long after we're gone, instead of becoming unfashionable or falling apart in a few years.
Another good example is http://etsy.com/
The advent of DVD was a huge time for consumer electronics. And Circuit City tried to hijack it with their own pay-as-you-go scheme called DIVX ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX_(Digital_Video_Express) ), not to be confused with the video codec DiVX. To put it mildly, it pissed off legions of die-hard gadget junkies... you know, the ones who advise their friends and family about technology purchases. The way the company handled that left a bad taste in the mouths of the customers they needed most...the ones who actually buy the high-tech gizmos.
Thankfully DIVX failed, but I never forgave Circuit City for that and I never spent another cent in their stores and neither did many of my friends and family because of it. I'm not alone.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Frankly, a big box recipe may not work for discretionary items in a down economy. Your average circuit city is at least 30,000 sq. ft. That square footage needs to be heated,cooled, lit, stocked, insured and staffed. The real estate values of the stores have surely taken a hit just as our residential values have tanked. Even worse, many circuit city's are in less than desirable areas, or expanded heavily into newer space in the volatile exurbs (many of these areas are hit by heavy foreclosure) . Add to that, most of the customer visits are for smaller ticket items; dvds, memory cards, etc. While these may have a good margin built in, you have to move a LOT of them to cover your nut. Big ticket items are heavily advertised and many times have really LOW retailer margin. All those cheap home computers leave little profit for the OEM let alone the retailer. Add to that, no viable house brand for circuit city (a house brand can really help pad your margin since more of the revenue can be retained), and you have a really hard time making bank. Throw in an inexperienced and unknowledgeable staff and you have a failing business. The number to watch is the sales per square foot of retail space. Conversely, Apple stores are much smaller than their big box brethren. The average Apple store is about 1/5 the size, and usually in a very high traffic and high profile locations. Obviously their brand IS THE house band, so all extra revenue is gravy. All of their products have a healthy margin built in for both retailer and OEM. Add a dedicated staff and very smart merchandising and you have retail success. For the record, Apple Stores average $3000 of sales per sq ft. That exceeds Best Buy and Circuit City easily and even leaves luxury goods retailers like Tiffany's in the dust. Not every market needs a big box solution.
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
I was a regular CC customer, thinking of it for about 18 years. I saw them as a slightly upscale version of BB, so I guess I agree but I didn't see it as a mistake. They could be a pleasant shopping experience something is almost never the case at a BB. Pricewise they were in line with BB and I liked their warranties.
I have a bunch of their warranties, on GPSs and about 4 months ago I bought a widescreen with a 4 year warranty from them, hope it doesn't break.
I think if I were them I might have gone even a little more upscale in terms of amount and knowledge of staff. Oh well.
On the contrary, given that they're going bankrupt, getting rid of their sales people seems like a brilliant decision!
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
They give out guns to any one even homer simpson.
When they started pushing monster cables on everyone who walked in the door I knew it was only time before they'd fold. Imagine selling $125 cable to go with a $99 player. My gosh they'd never give up on the cable sale. I finally had to tell them either I buy what I want right or walk out. Didn't register on the sales dude, had to walk out.
When you're a pirate, and you take control of a ship, the idea is not to set up a long and prosperous shipping company.
A brain tumor does not worry about surviving its host.
The men who plundered these companies executed precisely their intended plan. They stripped the company, took outrageous bonuses, and ran, leaving the chumps holding the bag. You see the pattern whether it's happening to your department, that company or the country as a whole.
Go to a barbecue. Some people will worry that everyone gets enough. Others will run to grab the last piece. Watch a shipwreck. Some people will try to organize everything out in the open on the beach, others will horde secret stashes.
Some people think "We're all in this together." Some people think "It's every man for himself."
You're the first type. The people in charge are the second. Host and parasite.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Tiger direct is good and I go to there warehouse store for computers parts and not only that they will install parts for free that you payed that day and they have hassle free returns / replacements.
That's what's responsible for these bad boys. Well... low margins AND human stupidity.
My problem with them was their policy on restocking fees. I was having compatibility issues with video cards (I was running Win 95 at the time M$ hadn't completely fixed this issue). I was assured that I would have no problems with a card but I was suspicious because I was having problems with this type of card. I asked if I could return it if I had problems. The salesman said certainly I could return it but there was a 15% restocking fee. I went to BB which had the card for a lower price and I could return it without restocking fees. I never went into CC after that.
I was about to mention those (he said three hours later), I worked at BB corporate up until a couple of years ago and Circuit City et al. were completely off the map. They're sweating over exactly the retailers that you mentioned, especially Wallmart.
"You will soon be more aware of your growing awareness." - My first recursive fortune cookie!
Only matching a competitor's price (and not beating the price) meant they were basically forcing their customers to do their job, i.e. price shop their competition.
I'm not sure which products in particular you were looking for, but as I recall there were some areas where the retailers worked with the manufacturers to make price matching impossible (fridges and TVs come to mind).
For example there may be a 32" HDTV from brand XYZ at one store for price A. Same size and brand of HDTV with matching specs may be less at the other store, but getting a price match, even with an ad, was often nearly if not completely impossible, even if the TV really was the same between the two retailers. The reason for this was that when the manufacturer sent the TV to one retailer, it was given model number ABC12345, whereas the same TV for the other retailer was given model number ABCD1234.
So the price matching problem was not entirely the fault of the retailer in some cases.
That said, I was never a big fan of circuit city anyways.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Radioshack and (if you're on the West coast) Frys still sell niche components
I haven't seen a niche component in stock at a Radioshack in years. Unless you consider a Sprint phone to be a Niche component, anyways.
As far as I have seen, the days of going to Radioshack for circuit boards and resistors for home hobby projects are long gone.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I was talking to some people at circuit city today and it turns out they found out about this today too.
Looks like crap. Shelves are in a state of chaos. Sales staff chewing yelling at each other in the isle next to you. Even though it is huge and in theory should stock lots of niche items, most of the niche stuff is out of stock.
That said, if you need something quick and it isn't highly specific, Fry's is a good bet. If you need something *exact*, Newegg can't be beat.
The only reason I can think of for going to Best Buy or Circuit Shitty was for something heavy like a TV or Stereo. But even then, the Seattle area has a local vendor that is way better.
I'm not worried about them, I just think it reflects on their corporate culture. I wouldn't rely on them for specific models of anything though. They are good for "I need a new hard drive and I dont really care about the specs"
"...the first time I see the second personalities, I will kill her."
The breakup was that bad, huh? My sympathies.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I'd argue, yes. THey are a chain, but they aren't national. Neither Mom nor Pop owns it, but it fits the definition of "small scale outfit".
Here in Seattle, we have Dicks Burgers, also what I'd call "Mom & Pop", though not owned by mom and pop.
And to answer your question directly, using my definition of "Mom & Pop", these guys kick the ass of Best Buy or Circuit Shitty.
The only reason for Big Box is to give you an illusion of savings and some kind of "comfort" (i.e. you don't have to venture into scary new shops). Big Box stores are almost always big in size but incredibly weak in depth and selection. I have no idea how the "Mom & Pop" store manage to give much better service, a broader range of products and are located in much smaller stores.
To diverge, I dont see how this shakeout of electronics retailers would ever pan out to Target or something. Target is "Big Box" and there isn't really anything "Mom & Pop" that competes (at least in our area).
I ask about an ASUS laptop. Guy never heard of it. Thinks I said "Jesus(pronounced hey-zeus) laptop".
ya know what, I liked the sound of that... but the domain is already taken for a crappy porn site
The vender should be able to manually "delay capture" the preauthorized amount to utilize it for your purchase, or at least a manager should be able to. Also banks will typically release a preauth if you get their fax # and have the vender send them a quick letter giving permission to (unlikely for a measely $1, but when it is a sizable amount due to error on part of the vender this may be worth persuing)
Until I read this:
"Circuit City Closes Their Doors For Good on Friday January 16, @04:19PM"
*checks watch*
Darn!
Did I miss anything good?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I grew up with a Fry's nearby. we had cirtuc city's, best buy's and other smaller electronic stores around.
I have been buying components, A/V gear and about everything else any of these stores sells for well over a decade and this is my take (as a tech junkie) on why CC is going under.
They sell about the same stuff most other consumer electronic stores. They advertise in every paper, radio and TV spot they can get.
The very first time I ventured into a CC I was with my grandmother and we were greeted by a man twice my age with half my knowledge ( I was about 11 my Grandmother was 70ish). We were looking for a gift for my uncle ( he is mentally handicapped, epileptic seizure prone and diabetic to boot [I made a point to mention the seizures to the salesman]) and he led her straight away to the latest and greatest 3D0 consoles and told her some BS about them not having flashing lights. I let them talk while I tried some game out then when he walked off I filled her in on just what a risk that could be ( the poor guy goes into meltdown if you flicker a light switch 5 or 6 times ) and told her maybe a CD player would be more appropriate ( he loves Niel Diamond ). needless to say we walked out with a 10 dollar walkman.
The -only- other time I have considered going to CC was when they advertised a TV for some insane holiday deal and of course I was told they no longer had that model but the comparable model from Sony was just 3 times the price. For contrast Fry's will run a special each week and even if you go in the day before it was over there was still a pallet or two left.
CC can not compete for so many reasons it is almost laughable. The one huge thing I noticed in their last few years though is this. They price everything like a clothing store. Mark it all up 150-200% of market value and each week run numerous sales on the items they want to sell.
And (shoot me grammar cops) well, tech buyers are not the same as someone looking for flattering pants, we will look for deals but we also know the exact model and price point we want and generally will not settle for something else unless there is a knowledgeable salesman there to point out something we missed.
Per subject.
But DIVX was just about to take off!
DIVX may be dead, but its earth-destroying relative is being sold at stationery stores, airport newsstands and truck stops across the US.
Well, I bought a video recorder recently and tried to get it at a CC .. they had several models on display but everything in the price range I was looking at was out of stock. So it starts to look like bait & switch to me: the sales person keeps saying, we don't have that one, and it's discontinued anyway, but you can buy this one for $50 more. Granted this was fairly recently, so they may have been having inventory issues already. But I walked out and got a similar model at Best Buy.
What? No snarky tags? Looks like the Lords of Slashdot have finally shown their mortality.
P.S. We strike at midnight.
Actually, all computer parts and electronics sellers are abusive, to some degree, in my experience. The problem was just that Circuit City was worse that others. My experience of them was that no one who worked there had any technical knowledge.
CompUSA was worse than Circuit City in my experience. (That's pronounced com-POOZ-a to show the proper low respect.) The predictable happened. The title of that article is: "CompUSA closes shop".
Incredible Universe had a unique formula. They abused their sales people; I was told that and observed that. The predictable happened: Incredible Universe crashes to earth. Actually it crashed to under the earth.
I remember Future Shop in the U.S. as being a confused place. The predictable happened in 1999: Future Shop closing U.S. stores.
Most of the problem with computer retail stores is the same as with any technology company: There are managers who think they can run a technology company without actually understanding their products.
Does anyone know of an online computer and electronics equipment seller that is not abusive?
I went there to buy a CD awhile back, (when I was in college, maybe 4 years ago, in a small town with no indie record stores) and they absolutely insisted on getting my phone number before they'd ring it up...I eventually just made one up...I wanted to buy the CD, why did they need a phone number...to telemarket me later, and get an exemption from the DoNotCall list because I'm a "client" is the only reason I can think of, it's not like there is some sort of technical support involved...that really turned me off as a customer and I don't think I'm the only one...
Yes, when I first read that, I thought, wouldn't "get[ting] rid of sales people and other mismanagement" be the RIGHT thing to do?
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
I worked for Best Buy two years ago, and even then Circuit City was not our competition (what our managers told us.) What Best Buy is worried about is people going to WalMart and Dell. Circuit City stopped being competitive a long time ago.
The "going out of business" "20-50% off", etc prices were still higher than the BB across the street.
Agreed. When the Circuit City I mentioned earlier in the discussion went out of business, I figured I could at least pick up a PC game or two, or maybe a DVD for my wife, on the cheap, as their sale progressed to "20-80% Off Storewide".
No such luck.
Their DVD racks were mostly empty by that time, and those that remained were $20 - $30 for titles I had never heard of. (I managed to pick up Juno for $5 at the adjacent Target, though). The PC games? They were even worse. Ten-year-old Starcraft was selling for $50 - 20%, TES IV: Oblivion had been marked up to something like $69.99 - 20%, and even bargain bin titles such as Roller Coaster Tycoon 2: WhoKnowsWhat Expansion had a ticket price of $30.
Circuit City...overpriced and useless to the very end.
I'll drink to that.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
Places other than Best Buy that you can get anything same-day:
Target, K-Mart, Sears, Wal-Mart, Frys.
Sears beats the hell out of Best Buy for TVs and appliances, both on price and on quality, every single time I've looked. TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc. And in the appliance space, you've got the behemoths: Home Depot & Lowes et al., in adition to the above listed companies.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Well duh, of course they went out of business. The main component of their huge deficit is the $$$ they owe to the paper company who supplies their register receipts. If they had printed much smaller receipts (they could easily get by with one about 1/8th the size) and spent the savings on quality sales people and price+ matching they'd still be in business. I'm sure of it. I know this guy who heated his house for almost an entire winter with just a wood stove and his CC sales and MIR receipts.
You must be from Cincinnati. the geography is familiar, as are the experiences.
I've seen it already. Went to buy a slightly unusual video cable.
Mini-stereo on one side, composite video/L+R audio on the other. Last time I bought it, it was $3.
I was willing to pay a premium to get it right then and there. I knew I could get it online for a good price, but I wanted it that day.
Local chain stores, nothing. Target, Walmart? No dice.
Best Buy had it. $30. But, I wasn't gonna pay 10x the price. Ridiculous.
Radio Shack had it. $28. Better, but still way too high.
Ciruit City had it, but only the Monster brand. $60. Insanity.
In the end, I went to Ebay, found it in two minutes and paid $5 with $1.50 in shipping. Still twice the price of what I last bought it for, and I had to wait until it arrived three days later. But honestly, I would have paid $10 to have it right away. I did ask for a better price, but was told no at BestBuy and RadioShack.
They're all working real hard at putting themselves out of business.
Circuit City's service plans were a joke. Circuit City stores can do nothing with a covered product. All they do is tell you to call their help line, and when you do, you are talking to an insurance adjuster, not tech support. I had a camera with a bad microswitch on the lens door (if you put any pressure on the door while the camera was on, it would turn off as if you were closing the door.) I explained the problem to them and the first thing they asked me to do was to remove the battery and wait 24 hours, then put the battery back again. Does that sound logical to you? Best Buy has hoops to jump through too when something goes bad, but you get to talk to a real person in the store, and the end result (may take a few tries), is always a brand new version of the broken item.
i worked for CCS in their richmond corporate offices in the early 90s. These were the rapid growth years when the greatest problem was finding talent in a small market city like richmond. this was before "dot com" strain of trying to find people that had technical know how to work for less than $30k a year. The job market by 1998, if you could grasp how to program a two tuner tv with picture in picture to record using VCR+ connected to a dual tuner DirectTV system, you cetainly had the know how to get paid $50k plus doing HTML mark up. In this period, the "trained" sales staff became less and less helpful and knowledgeable and CCS claim on a better customer service experience suffered. Service was no longer state of the art. More and more, dot com comparatively low salary sales people used their training to pressure sales rather than act as a customer resource for moderately complex consumer electronics purchases. The helpful sales nerd was onto dot com and the pressure commodity sale was filling that gap. So the old customer service as a means of getting repeat customers was simply a corporate mantra with no real substance. Circuit City's competitive advantage over Best Buy, Walmart, etc was poorly understood at corporate as a marketing mantra rather than a real driver for repeat customers and slowly killed the retailer.
I could go on and on with story after story of misguided micromanagement and in store pressure sale tom-foolery but to me, the failure to retain the intelligent, helpful sales rep is the failure story the nut-shell.
-l
Newegg plays games with prices. Newegg often charges more for "shipping and handling" than it costs. So the listed price may be much higher than the actual price. In my opinion, that is abusive.
In my experience, Newegg carries EVERYTHING. That means products that don't work well, or are inferior. There is apparently no attempt to select the best products from a category.
Newegg apparently has no technically knowledgeable people. Newegg doesn't offer technical help. Quote: Does Newegg.com offer any technical support or advice? Answer: "Newegg.com does not offer any technical assistance."
Looks like I need to find another place to get on the Internet for free while on vacation in the U.S. from now on ... sucks, CC was always easy to find for quick look at my emails or stuff ...
LOL. MOD PARENT UP. That's funny.
"... a unicorn was stuck in a rainbow in appliances."
"... I accidently knocked over a display of pocket (camera) tripods that the salesperson had just told me they didn't have in stock."
I mean, I love them as much as the next guy, but...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
We all know that most of us use newegg anyway. Who really cares if CC is out?
Yes, but that it not what Newegg sometimes does, in my experience. Newegg often charges far, far more than the cost of shipping and handling.
Here's an example: A case fan costs 99 cents. Put four of them in a "shopping cart", the price for shipping is $13.28. The price for shipping one is $3.99. The fans weigh very little. The weight to ship 4 is still under 1 pound. Does it cost $9.29 to have a minimum wage person put 3 more of them in the same box? No.
The true cost of the fans from Newegg is (13.28-3.99)/4 = $2.32, the price after $3.99 shipping and handling cost is subtracted, not the 99 cents advertised price.
Put 10 of the same fans in the cart. The cost for shipping is $21.92. Now it seems that you are actually paying MORE per fan, because the shipping cost will not be $9.50, the cost of shipping and handling if you assume you are paying $2.32 for each fan.
There are many other problems. Newegg's web site is often very slow. Newegg does not pack hard drives correctly, in my experience.
...for your bending over from best buy
My rights don't end where your feelings begin.
Too bad those worthless warranties they pushed on the stupid and ignorant are now null and void.
Maybe people will wake up one day, but I doubt it. They don't know, don't know they don't know and don't want to know. Nothing will wake them up from the fog of the unknown.
short circuit city ?!?
Anyone know what happens to the extended warranties? I still have 2 years left on one for my TV.
Weight in this case has nothing to do with it, newegg will be charged by UPS or fedex for the dimensions of the box for a single fan, the fans are too light.
The shipping costs are also for UPS 3-day, which is not ground, and is a more expensive service. It should also be noted that your shipping cost per unit went DOWN when you ordered more than one item.
The fact that newegg can, and does, discount your shipping and handling fee on a bulk purchase does not mean they're ripping you off, or overcharging you when you've only purchased one. There are a variety of overheads involved that need to be covered, and newegg (like every company that does mail-order) tries to balance those costs over both the heavy and light items...this is not unfair, or even unusual, it's how the system works.
If you want to complain about price gouging, complain about the retail prices of cables in the world.
There is nothing abusive about a handling fee, you're not just paying some "minimum wage person" to throw one in a box, you're paying someone to verify the order, multiple someones to get the item from the warehouse, someone to prepare the item, which is the box/prills/packaging etc... there's a number of things to be covered here, not to mention cost of prills, box, tape, and labels. Also, the assumption that someone doing jobs like this deserves to be making only minimum wage is extremely foolish, insulting, and naive.
Shipping costs at newegg are calculated PER individual unit, and the price GOES DOWN with bulk purchasing. Which is why the shipping cost doesn't stay at $3.99 per unit when you order 4 of them.
You've already covered my warehouse manager and workers overhead for going and retrieving the items, and verifying the order for the most part with the purchase of the first item. Having them grab a second, third, or 10th one while they're already there doesn't cost me as much as the initial send, therefore the handling fee per unit goes down.
Shipping does the same thing, you are charged based on the general distance the item needs to be shipped, and the cost per pound goes down as the items weight grows...until you cross one or two particular thresholds.
Newegg is attempting to reward you by passing savings on to you for your bulk purchase, not ripping you off jackass.
When you work in a shipping dept. (as I have) you'll find firstly that Newegg does nothing different from anyone else regarding their shipping, with the exception of offering it *cheaper* than petty much anyone else on the market, and there's nothing unreasonable or manipulative about the process.
You will always find what appear to be outrageous shipping and handling fees on extremely small items unless they are shipped via the post office (and even then most of the time it's not any better), this is the nature of shipping companies and what resellers have adapted themselves to. There is nothing unusual about this practice, and you're going to have a difficult time finding any online company that does things differently.
I'll miss the old Circuit City. Once PCs became mainstream they (and many other electronics stores) shifted their focus significantly. But back in the day, Circuit City had it all - top of the line LD players, VCRs with S-VHS support, and of course the newest NES games. Nothing more impressive than going to their games section and having three monitors and three NES machines playing SMB, Kid Icarus, and Metroid. The salespeople would let you play forever, knowing if they could get you hooked, you'd beg your parents for the game.
But times change, and now electronics stores are known for cell phones, shitty PCs, overpriced goods, and staff that are clueless. The time of Circuit City has come and gone. It is a shame, but hardly surprising.
Since they are going out of business, what will happen to the extended warranty that I bought? Can I get my money back, or was that money just thrown away?
Sometimes I wonder about some of the other folks that post replies on here. The attitude toward low-level retail and service industry people is almost staggeringly contemptuous. Here are some gems I pulled from other posts: "Salesdroid" in reference to a CC employee not knowing about IDE ---> SATA adapters "a crappy burger spanked together by surly wage slaves" in a parallel drawn by the reply-poster, who used a food analogy to compare a premium and a generic retail experience. Another one I recall reading (but can't find again) made a scornful reference to the folks that spend hours standing by a busy road, holding up liquidation signs announcing an ongoing store liquidation. OK, so... other than a frisson of "ha, I am smarter and make far more money than these people" what exactly is this accomplishing for you?
You said, and I quote: "... Newegg will be charged by UPS or fedex for the dimensions of the box" The size of the box doesn't change in this case. Newegg ships small items in rather large boxes.
/Network Cable Cat 6 White - Retail
Amazingly, you said: "If you want to complain about price gouging, complain about the retail prices of cables in the world." That encouraged me to investigate cable prices at Newegg. Here is a comparison of the price for 10 network cables, each 1 foot long:
Newegg.com:
Rosewill RCW-569 1ft.
According to the Newegg web site, this is Newegg's lowest price 1-foot Cat 6 network cable.
For 10 cables [Notice, NO discount for quantity order.]:
"Savings, -$0.20 Sale"
Total Price, not $8.90, but $6.90 because of the "Savings".
Subtotal: $6.90
Shipping: $21.92 Grand Total: $28.82
Monoprice.com:
CAT 6 500MHz UTP 1FT Cable - Black, Product ID: 2288
1: $0.75, 2-9: $0.68 10-19: $0.60, 20-49: $0.53, 50+: $0.46
For 10 cables:
SubTotal $6.00
S&H Cost $2.87
Grand Total $8.87
Newegg charges almost $20 more! Most of that is "gouging" for shipping. Remember these cables are only 1 foot long. They are very light.
I've ordered those cables from Monoprice.com, and they are excellent.
Note: These figures were accurate at the time this was researched, Saturday, January 17, 2009, 12:48 PM, PST. I suppose that it is possible that Newegg will have a "special", and change the prices above.
You talk as though you are a top manager at Newegg.com. You said: [My emphasis:] "You've already covered my warehouse manager and workers overhead for going and retrieving the items, and verifying the order for the most part with the purchase of the first item. Having them grab a second, third, or 10th one while they're already there doesn't cost me as much as the initial send, therefore the handling fee per unit goes down."
You said, and I quote, "Newegg is attempting to reward you by passing savings on to you for your bulk purchase, not ripping you off jackass."
I don't feel "rewarded". I feel abused, not only by the price, but by your extraordinarily dishonest argument and your abusive language.
We don't have a Fryes here on the east coast. So what's left? Comp USA went out of business a few years ago. Tweeter, a few months ago. Now, Circuit City. The only options left are:
Buy online --- not if you need something right away.
Radio Shack --- Small store used to be for electronics hobbyists. Now its just a small general purpose electronics appliance store.
Best Buy --- The only electronics superstore left and its 30-40 miles away from me.
Thanks George W. Bush.
They don't carry much of the higher capacity fans though - just a lot of the junk and silent stuff.
Yes, there are plenty of times when a Panasonic 12G12M will do the job when Antec's fans quit.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I'm actually sad that CC is closing. I've made a killing on thier open box items. Radio Shack re-packages returned non-defective items (depending on who takes it back that is). But Circuit City made some pretty deep discounts on thier items. I got my Canon EOS 350d from Circuit City, and a friend on mine got a 44 inch DLP and a Onkyo Surround sound system for 1500 (open boxes) 3 years ago. Best Buy's open box prices make me laugh, usually they take the price of the box off....
You're an idiot.
...and the reason Newegg tends to use large boxes is because the majority of items they ship are *LARGE*. They deal in large orders and large items. So you don't get a good deal if you buy a few 1ft cables from them, well whoopey-shit. Those types of orders aren't really their main business.
So in order to better accommodate the small percentage of business that wants to buy small, light, items that make up a relatively insignificant portion of their business, they would need smaller boxes, which means more warehouse space, more cost (buying a variety of bulk items is more expensive than buying only a couple), space for the boxes themselves, more indexing and management, which equals more overhead, etc... and isn't worth it.
You completely missed my point about the retail prices of cables.
The price gouging issue about cables I was talking about is the markup from cost that all retailers do. You know how much BestBuy paid for that $20 usb extension cable they have for sale? about 65 cents...this is true across the board, the MSRP for cables is generally in excess of 600-1000% I'm not talking about Newegg vs. amazon vs some local store cable prices, I'm talking about retailer cost to MSRP, the markup is INSANE.
That's what I was referring to there.
If you'd like to keep playing the comparing shipping prices game, let's talk about the 30 pound, steel antec case I just bought from newegg and paid $19 dollars in shipping for. Most other places were doing shipping at around $30+
Are you starting to understand how this works yet?
I agree that the shipping prices are exorbitantly high for extremely small and light items (in fact, that was my original point), but once again, what I am telling you is that this is not uncommon. Especially for mail-order houses that specialize in large items and large bulk sales.
Newegg isn't some evil company trying to reclaim all of their profits by overcharging you for shipping...setting a price (especially for an automated system) for shipping on especially small or light items can actually be quite difficult depending on what types of orders your store is really designed for.
So you found somebody who will make you a good deal on a bunch of 1 foot cables...great! Bully for you! But you're going to find a significant number of items from newegg (particularly larger, heavier items) that have lower cost than smaller mail-order stores, both in shipping, and in actual item price. The system is imbalanced, I agree, but Newegg isn't the devil...it's just the way it is.
I would also like to point out, that you aren't comparing equal shipping terms, Newegg uses 3-day shipping, for monoprice.com to do 3-day shipping, the cost is $9.95, not ~$2
Quit accusing me of working for Newegg, that's just stupid. I always believe you should shop around for every product you want to purchase online, but blanket statements about Newegg's shipping are unrealistic because the pricing varies depending upon a number of factors that you aren't taking into consideration.
There's nothing dishonest about my argument BTW, which you've taken out of context with that quote...my argument was that the cost of shipping per item goes down if you buy more than one...and it does at Newegg, and pretty much anywhere else.
The "OMG!! I found a fan that they have a really high shipping charge for therefore everything they do is overpriced and designed to rip you off!" is baed off of entirely circumstantial, specious evidence, and is really, honestly, stupid.
Shopping around is always a good thing, you're never going to find one single store that has the best price on everything. Be an intelligent shopper, but don't accuse a retailer who moves big numbers of large, bulky computer hardware in the majority of their orders of being fraudulent because their shipping is high on a single cable...that's just dumb...the shipping is high because their system isn't really set up for it...they will more than make up for it with shipping and handling fees of other equipment.