Posted on 01/16/2009 8:02:28 AM PST by re_tail20
Circuit City Stores Inc. says it has reached an agreement with liquidators to sell the merchandise in its 567 U.S. stores after failing to find a buyer or a refinancing deal.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I'm 44, and I can remember my dad buying tubes at JC Penney. I also remeber he used to go to a magical Pawn Shop like place called the TV Repair Shop.
I bought my 42” Panasonic Plasma at the Sears Essentials across the street from my office. That store was a former Kmart.
They were $100 cheaper than both BestBuy and Circuit City.
Excellent example of the RadioShack prices....
I laugh at Best Busy/CC on things like flash drives you can get for $15 cheaper at Wal-Mart.
But, RadioShack takes the cake.
I used to love Edmund Scientific stores! I think they also had a catalog.
They are building new stores in my area.
Circuit City likely increased prices right before the going out of business sale.
Stores pull that crap all the time.
Idiots still eat it up thinking they get some good deal. When Linens and Things went out of business here, the place was almost emptied at the 50 percent sale mark.
Even then, it really wasn’t 50 percent. It was barely a sale at all, but idiots flocked to clean out the store paying more than they normally would.
Just nuts.
This isn’t a Michigan ping, but there is a place called Birmingham Television Company on Woodward and 14 Mile in Birmingham. I lived right around the corner from it in 1960 (when I was 4) and I remember walking there and watching the 20 or so TVs they had in the front window. They sold and repaired TVs. It’s still there, still open, same sign and same name. I don’t know what they do but it sure seems like an anachronism.
We have a two-year warranty on a laptop from Jan. 2008.
Does that warranty just go away?
To be honest, very few big box stores are going to be able to compete until they learn that they have to compete with the internet.
I’m not saying they should compete on a dollar for dollar basis, because they can’t, but they need to be within a 10% - 20% based on the price of the merchandise and then offer a reason for the greater price.
To give you an example, I’m looking at various computer video cards for my HTPC, now a Radeon 4670 in stores locally is $150, at Newegg.com it’s $85 - $90 shipped, I’m willing to buy online than in the store to save $75 - $60.
Now if it was priced at $100 then buying it locally would be my first choice based on convenience, but with their inflated prices and horrible sales staff, I’ll buy online.
Stores need to learn to not only be within reason of online retailers, they need to offer something for that extra money I’m spending, like knowledgeable sales staff.
I was at Circuit City some weeks ago poking around when I heard the sales manager trying to sell some guy on a BluRay computer drive they were selling for $250, they had the same one on Newegg for $90, and I told the guy so after the sales manager left, I hate seeing people get ripped off.
It seems the execs that run these chains believe they’ll make more money by marking up the product %50+, but they make less because they sell far fewer, if they marked them up %20 +/- they would sell more and make more money.
There’s also the general treatment you get from the staff, they don’t give you any reason to be loyal to the store.
The only retailer I show any modicum of loyalty to is Sears because of what they do for the US Military, when I heard of what they were doing this Christmas, giving gift cards to soldiers, I got misty eyed reading about it because that means something to me, so I have no problem spending money there, plus their sales staff in the electronics department actually seem to know something.
None the less, until management that run these stores learn the hard lessons and change their business strategy, they’re going to get beaten by the online retailers every time.
A lot of time what you need in electronics isn’t even in a store like Best Buy etc., so you have to get it online.
Newegg sells about 10 times what any Best Buy does on things like video cards etc.
Who the hell goes to one of these stores expecting “knowledgeable” salespeople? As if Best Buy or Costco have geniuses on staff. Research it on the internet.
I'm in IT. Particularly for entry-level tech work, I always ask how many computers the interviewee has at home.
"Zero" is the wrong answer.
"One" might be adequate, but needs a lot more questioning.
"Parts for Seventeen, Three of which actually work" is the winning answer.
Yeah, we’d get along great, though my collection of parts has diminished due to family requests.
Though I still have 4 machines in the house as we speak since the addition of the media PC hooked up to my 50” Plasma.
Though back in the late 90’s early 2000’s I had enough parts to build Beowulf cluster floating around ;)
Three that I *KNOW* will boot, two plastic tubs full of spare parts, and one that we actually use.
All we'll have left is our wretchedly useless Staples store, now!
I had to go shopping for a new keyboard/mouse set recently, and what I found was that the Staples in my area is still overpriced and understaffed, while both the Circuit City and Best Buy stores have improved dramatically in terms of in-store help. The kids are much more polite and actually seem to know what they're talking about, especially at the CC. Oh well. Hopefully BB will continue to hang on to the good hires and service policies even after the competition is gone.
I get all my computer stuff there. For big ticket things like a TV, I prefer picking it up myself to avoid shipping issues and the ability to return/exchange without dealing with shipping back, RMA, etc.
But I agree, newegg.com is great for smaller stuff - very fast shipping and good prices.
lol!
My dad was a member at a store called Fedco. They had that cool tube system.. I still remember the sound the capsules made when put into the tube.
They were really cool.
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