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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."
...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
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.
It's not a question of adapting. WalMart has so much purchasing power that they can bully the service centers into offering WalMart customers rock bottom prices for servicing their products.
WalMart is a dangerous company. They can put other business out of business because they can sell for lower prices than anyone else could ever afford to do, because WalMart is so huge and is the only choice of shopping places in many parts of the country.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
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.
I felt the same way about CompUSA.
Having seen plenty of these (Sharper Image and Mervyns come to mind), those liquidations are usually disappointing. First phase: everything is 10-20% off, no better than the rotation of items on sale.
Next, you start seeing the goobers on street corners with "Circuit City Going out of Business - everything 20-40% off" signs. You go in there and anything interesting is 20% off. You buy something for 20%, no returns allowed. You end up hating the item or seeing it on sale at Target for less next week.
Now, the signs say 40-60% off. You go in and it's picked through and open box shit. You go home.
Finally, the 80% off signal. You go in to buy something, anything. The fluorescent lights, their enclosures, and a few display cases are on sale.
From what I remember, in the late 1980s/early 1990s we didn't have Circuit City or Best Buy here in Chicago. The electronics stores around here were called Highland, Silo, and Omni. They all went out of business during the recession of the early 1990s. It seems like history has repeated itself once again. Lesson learned, don't hold stock in electronics retailers during a recession.
Yeah, but electronics retailers aren't the only ones going out of business. Linens'N'Shit is closing, and I understand Chrysler and GM (hey, what about Ford?) are in deep trouble.
So I think you could generalize to say something like "Don't hold stock in a poorly run company in a crowded market." Then again, isn't that good advice in general?
People aren't afraid to spend too much money if they get good service. And that was precisely what Circuit City did. They fired all of their best, most expert sales and service staff because they cost more. They replaced these people with kids off the street and they got what they paid for.
It was bad customer experience that killed Circuit City. The bean counters thought they could improve their bottom line by lowering payroll costs but they neglected to consider that it would damage the store's reputation and drive customers away. We see this time and time again. Every time you see IT salaries fall and people start leaving the field, what is left? Do they really think they can fire skill and experience and replace it with inexperience and STILL maintain productivity, efficiency and quality of service?
At the next CEO/CFO conference, I hope this is topic for discussion -- they are destroying their businesses with short-term greed. And every time I see it happen, it is tragic... and they never learn from it.
I always had a problem, when going into a store to buy a product, I would tend to assist more of their customers regarding computers than any of their sales people. And on top of that I generally had to hunt down a manager to get what I came for.
It'd have to have been some major disaster with fire-trucks and stuff to keep me from going to the Best Buy across the street. My problem pretty much began and ended with the obnoxious sales staff, although the higher prices would have been a deal-breaker on their own.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
You forgot the "Mark up the price" step before offering the "deals". Went to mervens and their 60% off was not the great deal you'd expect. 60% off was equal to a regular sale.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
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. :(
You joke about management, but I wonder if that's the root of the problem - too many chiefs, not enough Indians. 30,000 employees to operate 567 stores? That's more than 50 employees per store. I realize they have a corporate HQ and all, but the figure still seems excessive.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
"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"
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?
This is exactly what they did do. Most of the choicest and best closeout items were sold off or were inside deals (i.e. you knew one of the employees). It seemed that there was nothing particularly good left by the time the doors opened to the public for the final closeout sell down. At least, that is how it was at our local CC.
The other thing that killed Circuit City was the fact they never got their act together when it came to selling home video software. How could they compete against Best Buy's well-organized display of home videos (originally in VHS, now in DVD and increasingly Blu-ray formats). And don't forget the original DIVX format fiasco from the late 1990's, too.
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.
Well, that's because it's basically a retail warehouse for geeks. It always has been, and perhaps always will.
It would be awsome if NewEgg opens a giant super store some place. Would be the motherlode of computer geekdom, don't you think?
Life is not for the lazy.
Thanks for the info. Just added the documentary to my Netflix Watch It Now queue.
Yes, commissioned salespeople are more motivated. More motivated to blatantly lie about a product's capabilities, the list price of an item, the store's warranty policies, and pretty much anything else they think they can get away with in order to make a sale and get that commission into their hands.
I can usually tell when a salesperson is trying to BS me on a technology-related item. Unfortunately, I'm the corner case. 95% of the people who walk into a Circuit City don't know anything about the products being sold and rely on the salesperson to education them.
And don't get me started on the extended warranty crap. They tried to sell me an extended warranty for a $20 mouse once. I'm normally a very shy person in public, but in that case I couldn't help explaining very slowly to the cashier that an extended warranty for computer mouse was by far the dumbest thing I'd ever heard of and to even mention it was an insult to my intelligence and a clear reflection of theirs.
No sir, I won't be said to see Circuit City go. I just hope whatever springs up in their place isn't even worse.