Circuit City closing down 150+ stores in midwest (and now all of the stores) (1 Viewer)

[RickER]

They may have, but its still an UE here. I think we have a Fry's in a mall, but i dont remember. The last thing i do is go to the mall.

A few years ago, one of the last times i went to UE, i was looking at the DVDs they had. They had just started to carry them, and wanted to check out what they had. Anyway, i noticed if a movie had a fullscreen version, thats the one they stocked, in every case. A manager made the mistake of asking me if i needed anything (maybe thats why no one asks if i need anything). I asked him why they sell so many widescreen TVs, but dont sell the widescreen DVDs? Wouldnt it stand to reason if you sell a widescreen TV, that you could direct me to some great DVDs to get me going? He didnt know what to say.

Anytime i made the trip to CC for a great DVD deal, i couldnt find it, and i also couldnt find anyone to help me.

I love Amazon.

 

[DaveF]

Depends on your market. Other places have Fry's or such. If our CC's closed, we'd be losing competition, with BestBuy as the only electronics superstore.

 

[Stan]

I think karma does eventually come back and bite you in the ass. Hopefully this is just the beginning of their downward spiral to oblivion.

Bought a flash drive a few months ago, only because they had it for six bucks. Other than that, haven't set foot in a Circuit City since they tried to pull off the DIVX rip off. That's got to be something like nine or ten years by now.

Plus the fact that one of their locations here is in a pretty good sized mall, lots of other stores I do business with. But if you accidentally pull into the CC lot, you're trapped, and have to circle around to get out, unlike the other stores, that all share the parking areas.

 

[CRyan]

That really was not my point. I did not say there would be additional competition immediately - It opens the door to it. And in theory, if your market is open to competition, somone will come in to fill the need.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Ah my memory is playing tricks on me. Fry's bought out "Incredible Universe" stores, not Ultimate Electronics.

 

[DaveF]

I'm curious what CC's black friday sales will be like. CC's store management method for day-after-thanksgiving sales is specially designed to make shopping as difficult as possible. Whereas BestBuy makes it easy to possible to shop with the BF hordes and spend money. CC however does everything possible to prevent you from finding your items and paying for them. It's beyond incompetence; it's retail malice

But with the new story layout, I'm wondering if they'll change their ways, and if I should risk shopping there this year. And with financial straits, they may have superb sales to boost holiday sales.

 

[Steve_Tk]

Best Buy puts everything out of business around me. Within one parking lot of BB is a circuit city, HH Gregg, and a High Figh Buys. The CC is closing, High Figh Buys (which was terrible and way overpriced) is already gone. HH Gregg is kind of a different type of store than BB. Frys is down the road, but does not do near as well as BB.

 

[Patrick.C]

I'm scratching my head wondering how/why a few posters here think K-Mart is now a "success"? The last remaining store in my area just started its going out of business sale a few days ago along with a half dozen others across the country.

I'm hoping at least one of the Circuit City stores in my area gets converted to a Frys. The closest Frys store is currently 20 miles away.

 

[Jason Adams]

You guys are cute with the whole DIVX thing. But seriously, I work at Circuit City NYC at the newly opened Lincoln Center store, now taking most of the space of the old Tower records. It really sucks that the Bronx and Brooklyn stores they just opened are closing...people being out of a job that they thought at least for a while they were going to work at. And there is actually going to be a pretty good black friday sale, though I cant really say what.

 

[Greg_S_H]

One of the CCs on the list in Dallas was already closing with the plan to reopen across the street. They said that about a year ago, but I don't think construction on the new store has begun. I went by yesterday, and they still had the "Circuit City is relocating/space for lease" sign on the building. Would they put a store on the list if the closing was already planned, or is that a pretty sure signal that the relocation has been scrubbed?

 

[DaveF]

Do you know if CC will improve crowd management? I've shopped in NY and TN stores now, and Black Friday was the same, badly managed chaos. The checkout lines are forced to wander into the shopping aisles, so people are struggling to figure out what line they're in and if it's going anywhere. Worse, they use antiquated thermal printers, and have the clerks fill out rebate forms during checkout, so the checkout speed is about one-third of a normal store. The result is the slowest, worst management checkout experience I've seen of the major retailers.

Compare to Best Buy with a managed, roped-off master line wrapping around the store perimeter, and well-managed checkout aisles.

These new stores are showing signs of improved checkout style, but I see the potential for CC's normal BF ineptitude.

 

[MielR]

Anything good left? Are they just accepting cash?

I couldn't get there today, so I was thinking about going Saturday.

EDIT: Well, I went today, and the signs outside said "up to 20% off" but most of the items I saw inside were only 10%.

 

[SteveA]

Here is an interesting article about all the missteps of Circuit City over the last couple of decades that led to its downfall:

Regrets as chain fights to survive - News - inRich.com

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Didn't CC start as Dixie Hi-Fi? I bought some Dynaco kits from Dixie back around 1972-73.

 

[mattCR]

Hilariously, in the Kansas City market, they were preparing to open a new store in Overland Park. The city donated land near I35, construction underway, new building done.... and now it's being closed before it ever opened it's doors.

 

[mylan]

We had that same situation in a new upscale open air type shopping center except that it did open for a short time and the new employees are now the newly un-employeed.

 

[mylan]

I am not being cute, they were actually trying to derail one of the greatest consumer products to ever come to market due to their own greed and their short-sightedness cost them dearly. I have never seen a
company try to upstage a proven technology so much as C.C. attempted.
It is as if they had single-handedly come out with HD-DVD to compete with BD.

That is not the only reason I refuse to shop there as I agree with many others here about the sales staff, condition of their stores, product selection, and accessibilty/parking situation but that is the biggest reason. I am sorry you chose to work for them, however, I hope you find a comparable job with Best Buy or others.

 

[Malcolm R]

Sounds like as much massive ego as anything contributing to their downfall. They didn't take Best Buy seriously as a competitor until they blew by them, they never thought they'd be surpassed in sales, they thought they could put their stores in less-desirable locations "because we were a destination retailer and people would come to us," they thought people would just blindly follow their Divx enterprise though it was vastly inferior to the current DVD technology.

Can't say as I feel any sympathy for them at all. I'd just better spend my gift card before they disappear completely. I've tried several times in recent months, but always end up leaving CC empty-handed because of lack of selection and high prices (even if it is a gift card, I'd rather not be shafted at the cash register), then make my way across the street to Best Buy.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

They've officially filed for Chapter 11- yeee-haw!

http://online.wsj.com/articl/SB12263...googlenews_wsj

And let me say that not enough can be said about DIVX. They wanted it to become the dominant home video format, and had it succeeded you would be paying every time you played a movie, or if it was a title that qualified for unlimited play you could only play it on one machine, and they would still have the power to render it unplayable any time they saw fit.

My earlier joke came from former CEO Richard Sharp talking about his dreams for DIVX- someone asked him What about the people who've already bought DVD players- if this happens they won't be able to get any new movies? His answer was "Early adopters do take some risk; it's regrettable."

 

[Jason Adams]

Hmm...I think it could be a lot better at my store and at the one at midtown...can't speak too well for the other stores across the country though. But at least rebate forms print out with the receipts now these days. Plus there are registers all around the building, so the massive lines at the front will be kept to a minimum.