11:05 news - Circuit City to liquidate its 500+ stores

Lucky Day

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My old job unable to find a buyer (including a previous deal with Blockbuster Video, also in poor shape) has decided to liquidate its remain 500+ stores.

http://news.google.com/news?ncl=1293078797&hl=en&topic=b

This does not effect The Source by Circuit City stores in Canada which were all former Radio Shacks.

Circuit City is the second largest electronics retailer in the country based out of Richmond, Virginia. It was founded as W.A.R.D.S. (not Montgomery Wards) and was one of the first major companies to sell television sets.
 
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Rough news. Complete victim of the credit crunch (well at least why they couldn't get out of bankruptcy). Fry's is a much better run outfit, IMO, so hopefully this will give them room to expand more in the future.
 
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Circuit is not a victim of the credit crunch but that may have been the final nail in the coffin for them (after the CEO's ran off with brand new bonusses before declaring Chapter 11 in November).

Circuit has been getting killed by Best Buy for over decade now - even way back when I worked there and BB hadn't been out West yet.

When Good Guys had to get out of the appliance market my manager told me it was because they were cooking the books to show assets they didn't have in order to get credit. About a year after I was gone CC had to get out of appliances as well so I knew that was the beginning of the end.

The biggest thing that killed them back then though was the $billion they sunk into DivX. This wasn't the DivX we know now but a sort of DVD rental format where the disks self destruct after 2 weeks if you don't purchase them. I told my Store Manager it would be a disaster but he and the new store manager just gave the politically correct corporate answer.

Over the last few years their stock dropped (a lot of employees lost a lot of money when that started to happen - they had a 15% discount program and could only sell after 6 months).

With Best Buy continuing to grow with their lack of commissioned sales kids and their extreme discounted warranties, not to forget killing any profit to be had on CD's Circuit could only bleed money until they dropped their commissioned staff as well.

This cost them a lot of employee morale and not to mention customers.

The CEO's and board kept bleeding the company after they did this twice and a buyout offer Blockbuster managed to be staved off until they could file for Chapter 11 before this Christmas season to protect themselves and all the merchandise they just got on credit.

failure to find a buyer in this credit tight market and they are going the way of Gottschalks.

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yeah, I like Fry's too but there's not that many of them. I hear there's one in Seattle now. They used to be a grocery chain believe it or not - the Fry's family.
 
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This sucks, first Comp USA, and now Circuit City. This leaves Best Buy as the only major electronics store in my area of Michigan, and I really don't like shopping there.
 
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This sucks, first Comp USA, and now Circuit City. This leaves Best Buy as the only major electronics store in my area of Michigan, and I really don't like shopping there.

I know ... there are ~40 or so folks losing their jobs at our local store ...

The only thing, the sales on CompUSA were crappy ... we'll be checking out Circuit City and hopefully it is better.
 
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They weren't great at Good Guys either until the last week - and then they had almost nothing. Same thing at Mervyns - Close, Close, Close!

Walmart has reduced their Pc inventory over the last few months too so there won't be many retailers to compete with BB. I'm sorry, but their customer service severely sucks.

The only good thing to note is last I heard BB was up to its earballs in debt from overexpansion.

I wonder how this CC dealeo affects CarMaxx?
 
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We headed over for a bit and I can sum up the deals in three words ...

Stink. Stank. Stunk.
 
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Everything at my store was 10% off regular price (officially) although no one bothered to take down the sales tags. Most of those tags were lower at Christmas anyway.

High profit items such as cabinets and cables were 30% off. So unless you like Monster Cable for some reason its mostly a waste of time. Accessories at CC were always lower somewhere else - its one of the two places the company that made decent margin.
 
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I just can't help but think that for geeks like us the trend to kill off specialty retail in favor of Walmart isn't a good thing.

Are you actually refering to Best Buy as a special retailer? They're a mega-conglomerate. Most people consider them to be the Walmart of electronics, and I think that sums it up perfectly.
 
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Are you actually refering to Best Buy as a special retailer? They're a mega-conglomerate. Most people consider them to be the Walmart of electronics, and I think that sums it up perfectly.

Yeah, you're right - the cycle from *real* specialty stores through 'big box' folks to Walmart is not good in general, but at least at the big box I can occasionally find some stuff of interest.
 
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I generally do my homework before going shopping, so the oafs that Best Buy calls sales clerks really aren't a negative for me. I likes me some Best Buy.
 
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here's my beef with Best Buy

as a former employee of CC I know that the store managers had policies with irate customers that if pushed they would eat some of the cost and either meet them half way and take a reasonable amount off an item - such as $100 for a laptop. I know because I had to take a customer to the store manager and this is what they did.

As a full time sales clerk we hated when they did this and were equally upset when explained to us in training that the company was willing to the entire item back if it came down to it and why. This happened to me more than once and hurt when the commission I lost was $50.

Cut to BB when I bought a laptop from them and found it dented two days later. I took it to customer service and the kids there agreed to swap it out with their other one but it turned out the computer's stock was wrong and said to come back Thursday. I tried to leave the computer with them but they didn't want me doing that. Big mistake.

That Sunday, a different manager intervened, the manager that approved it originally lied to my face, the kids who helped me before scrambled to not be seen (hilariously accidentally admitting it was already agreed to when fetched for something else), then eventually I got the store manager. He tells me it doesn't matter what was agreed to before because I was dealing with him now and they try to hand me a warranty card with customer services phone number on it (meanwhile they've already called security).

Yes, I made a big issue in the store about it and made a scene. Why, so I could at least get some concession. But after all that, nothing.

Short of a lawsuit or picketing the store nothing was going to happen.

Was I in the right? The laptop was damaged yes, but they already agreed to swap it out and they lied to my face. So a little from column A and a little from column B. I would have settled for at least something.
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Long story short this tells me that the corporate policy is to dig their heels in on large ticket items that could cost them. They would rather lose a customer than make any sort of concession like that.

This was definitely not the policy of Circuit City.

I believe this comes from the fact that, like Walmart, they are the biggest thing in town and have managed to run the competition out of business. And with CC they've run their biggest competitor out.

Ironically, Walmart, Target, and especially Costco all have incredible return policies. With the former two, it may only be because they don't know what they are dealing with.
 
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I haven't had a bad experience yet, but one like yours would certainly chap my butt.

I would guess that Walmart and Target's generous return policy stems from volume. They have enough leverage to force the dollar loss back to the manufacturer. Irritating the largest retailer in the world over a $1000 laptop return simply won't happen, while Best Buy will probably have an uphill battle.
 
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Question, what's the legal position? Here, if you return damaged goods that aren't your fault, the store must legally replace it, or give a full refund, usually up to 12 months. No matter what they may claim, the law will support you and they will have to suffer all the costs. Our big stores are usually excellent in this regard; at least the ones I've dealt with.
 
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We've got consumer laws of that nature, but how would Lucky go about proving that he didn't cause that damage? Burden of proof would fall on Lucky, so Best Buy's raft of high-paid sharks would only have to muddy the waters to walk away clean with Lucky getting the privilege of paying BB's legal fees.

Most stores don't like to antagonize their customers, but evidently at least one Best Buy will stick it to ya without even ponying up for dinner and a movie to get you in the mood.
 
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Here, rightly or wrongly, the law will side with the customer. Plus we have all these current affairs shows which love/thrive on exposing 'bad' stores, etc. Threaten them with that and they usually just roll over!! :)
 
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That story doesn't surprise me at all. That is typical of the way Best Buy has treated people for a long time, and is the reason why I (and many of my friends and family) refuse to give them any business if we can avoid doing so.

Poorly trained sales associates, unreliable warranty work, unreasonable return policies, and just a lot of a$$h*les in general is why websites like this exist.
 
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A number of local news shows here as well love their consumer protection reports. In face when one of the local one advertises they have the actor/anchorwoman/reporter standing outside of a Best Buy, lol.

I was tempted to call one of them or file a suit but I decided to look at the dent on the laptop every day now for 4 years as a reminder of what a great day that was.

Caveat Emptor is the rule of thumb here. In practice, low revenue items don't usually have an issue but high cost low profit items will get you stonewalled at any store (except maybe at Nordstroms) because it will cost the store and managers a percentage and bonuses.

Damage and infestation do not obligate a store to take merchandise back. In fact, if a policy is clearly stated such as "all sales final" that holds up in court as well (except if there are extenuating circumstances such as product recalls or "no lemon laws" kick into effect).

I can't say absolutely, 100% for sure if the store manager was acting according to store policy but considering my 3 years in sales for their rival, and understanding policies of other former competitors its mighty suspicious. He did exactly what our salesmen wished our Store Manager would have done more often and not "bend over" for the customer.

(I could tell you a lot of other colourful lingo like that. Did you know, according to the salesperson, a person walking into Circuit City was obligated to buy something? 12% actually did but that's beside the point to the sales guy).
 
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