Circuit City to Finally Shut Down Nationally Today

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
4,646
Will the last person out please turn off the lights? Circuit City officially ends its existence today as the liquidation firms that have been clearing the shelves get rid of their last few items (some locations are already closed due to selling off all the inventory) and shut the doors permanently. Bye bye, big red box.

So far, the massive liquidation sale that began in mid-January 2008 has moved $1.7 billion in inventory. Scott Carpenter from Great American Group said in a statement, "Thanks to record shopper turnout at many of the store locations and the attractive discounts offered on all merchandise, the sales actually went quicker than we expected."
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I went into work yesterday (at the city) and was turned away -_-" I came in at 4:50, they closed at 4:40. The computer clock-in system didn't even work. Talk about suck.
 
The local CC to me had a lot of competition. I'm surprised the location stuck around to the end. Across the street is Best Buy, in the same shopping center was a CompUSA and still is a Staples, and a Fry's and Office Depot were less than 2 blocks away. The CC had very little business every day of the week and the only time it was busy was on BF and during the liquidation.

I would love for there to be a Microcenter in the same shopping center, but it's pretty unlikely given the competition in the area. When CC locks the doors for good today, there will probably be 2 empty stores (CC and CompUSA) in the shopping center for a long time.
 
I always had preferred CC to places like Best Buy mainly because you used to get a knowledgeable sales person, and some good choice products. When they let go of the higher paid and more knowledgeable staff, something signaled the change. It died a long slow death from there when bean counters took over the reigns.

RIP the original CC idea. Go riddance to what it turned into.
 
Just what we needed in this area. :(

Now BB will run amok with no competition except what little they get from the mom and pops, who cant really afford to compete.

Now I'll be limited to whatever crap components BB has. I swear they have the worst PSU's at the highest prices.
 
There sure weren't any good deals at my local CC. Everything left was more expensive than Best Buy, and most of it was visibly damaged.
 
newegg & BB & microcenter FTMFW!

Never bought at my local CC (due to never having any good deals), they closed back when the first batch of closing happened, then re-opened as a CC warehouse and sucked even more, it closed down finally a few weeks ago.

Hopefully people who bought Extended contracts for there products won't get screwed!

I know BB needs competition and hopefully HHGREGG will help that out, otherwise they will go amok and I will just stay a online shopper then.
 
I have lived less than five minutes from 2 circuit city stores for about 10 years. (well one was just built about 1.5yrs ago.) I can count on one toe how many things i purchased there.

I never liked the "hard sale" idea they had, overinflate your prices, drop them down to "normal" price make them feel like they are getting a deal and then hit them with the warranty that cost 3x what it should.

Best buy sucks...and it was still a much better place to shop.

Good riddence IMHO.
 
The one by me closed down a few weeks ago, because they sold all of their merchandise. The morons around here always jump on these liquidation sales,even though they're a ripoff. Same thing happened with CompUSA and Linen's and Things.
 
Well I live in Richmond(cc's home town) and usually didn't go to them. Hated the new store design and normally would only go in to get a movie or something. Can't say I'm sad to see them leave.
 
RogueTrip said:
newegg & BB & microcenter FTMFW!

Never bought at my local CC (due to never having any good deals), they closed back when the first batch of closing happened, then re-opened as a CC warehouse and sucked even more, it closed down finally a few weeks ago.

Hopefully people who bought Extended contracts for there products won't get screwed!

I know BB needs competition and hopefully HHGREGG will help that out, otherwise they will go amok and I will just stay a online shopper then.
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Best Buy and win don't belong in the same sentence, or even the same paragraph..
 
The local Circuit City stores were actually fairly good. They often had what I wanted and I didn't feel hounded for crap I didn't need. They closed the closest store to me a year ago and replaced it with a new-style store and that was all she wrote. Bad layout, inept staff... I don't darken BB's doors and the closest HHGregg is an hour away, so it's web only for me from now on.
 
Our Circuit City had a horrible location. surprised it stayed open as long as it did.
 
w1retap said:
Best Buy and win don't belong in the same sentence, or even the same paragraph..
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Depends on your local store. We take damned good care of people at my store. Remember that 550w huntkey PSU rocketfish rebranded as a 700w and sold at such a high price? Turns out it's actually a pretty decent 550w unit, one of huntkey's better ones, but not worth what we charged. I told my manager it was a crock of crap, and he asked me what it was worth. I compared it to other solid modular PSUs online and adjusted the price accordingly. He let me sell it at that price from then on. It was a big discount at the register, but it's made a lot more happy customers, made me sleep at night for no longer ripping people off, and we still make some money on the PSU since it's manufactured for our store brand in bulk.

When we get one of those stupid tags for a laptop that says in the description:
"4GB of RAM, great Gaming performance with this laptop." I always cross off the gaming part. It's misleading advertising. Your intel chipset laptop can have 50gigs of ram and a 5GHz quad core CPU and it's still going to suck compared to a 2.0GHz CPU, 2 gigs of ram and a 9600 discreet nvidia card.

False advertising pisses me and my GM off. I'll price match wal-mart every day on USB cables, and we do REAL open box discounts now. When I first started working there we weren't aggressive enough on open items. Not only were we jipping customers on some good deals, but that open item crap was piling up on our shelves, so stuff we had margin on, we started doing heavy discounts, sometimes even better than 50% off. Guess what? That crap disappeared. Shelves looked cleaner, and those customers were a lot happier than just saving the standard 5% off policy on a printer cable. I know that you, my online expert friends, will still value monoprice and other online places that undercut us for many of your accessories needs, but speak for your own store when you curse Best Buy. We bend over backwards to take care of people. I've even been known to match Newegg PSU and case prices from time to time, so we do what we can. I've got customers that won't shop anywhere else (and were that way even before circuit died) and I still hook them up as best I can, regardless of the fact that they are already local. I want best buy to make good money, but I personally hate ripping people off.
 
No edit button, but for the record, I thought our Circuit City wasn't too bad, and I had friends that worked over there. I am sad to see them go under. Why the crap would you fire your best talent and the people that brought in the most loyal customers for big ticket purchases that you actually make a profit on? How can you do that and expect your company to survive?
 
I liked the order online - in store pickup option Circuit City had, but their prices weren't really competitive with online at all, so I can't say I bought too much stuff there.
 
SirKronan said:
False advertising pisses me and my GM off. I'll price match wal-mart every day on USB cables, and we do REAL open box discounts now. When I first started working there we weren't aggressive enough on open items. Not only were we jipping customers on some good deals, but that open item crap was piling up on our shelves, so stuff we had margin on, we started doing heavy discounts, sometimes even better than 50% off. Guess what? That crap disappeared. Shelves looked cleaner, and those customers were a lot happier than just saving the standard 5% off policy on a printer cable. I know that you, my online expert friends, will still value monoprice and other online places that undercut us for many of your accessories needs, but speak for your own store when you curse Best Buy. We bend over backwards to take care of people. I've even been known to match Newegg PSU and case prices from time to time, so we do what we can. I've got customers that won't shop anywhere else (and were that way even before circuit died) and I still hook them up as best I can, regardless of the fact that they are already local. I want best buy to make good money, but I personally hate ripping people off.
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And where is your magical, customer liking Best Buy?
I mean, I would honestly like to know, cause the ones around me suck complete ass. I have boycotted them for years now.
 
LeviathanZERO said:
And where is your magical, customer liking Best Buy?
I mean, I would honestly like to know, cause the ones around me suck complete ass. I have boycotted them for years now.
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Sorry to hear that. Just because we have a good one doesn't mean everyone else does, but just because you have a bad one (or a few in your town ... maybe it's your town! :p jk!) doesn't mean they're all bad.

Doesn't really matter to this thread though, I guess, as it's about CC going under officially now. Any way you cut the cake it's always sad to see competition disappear.
 
Praise GOD goto hell CC, they ripped me on a 28.8 modem i got for christmas back then. 1999
 
patrickgerry said:
Thats what killed CC.
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Not really. Sure the web played a part, but it's more than that. They sold Alpine car stereos....until they lost the line to BBY. They had salesmen that knew the products and worked on commission....until they let them all go in favor of hourly workers, which they then, apparently, let go in favor of even cheaper hourly employees.

The fact is that many CCs seemed like they were in the process of shutting down over a year ago.

I do a lot of shopping on line, but I can't htink of anything that I've bought online that I ever bought from CC. I'd never buy a computer from BB or CC. I wouldn't buy an HD from either of them either (unless it was an incredible sale). THat's not something new. I never would have bought that stuff from then 10 years ago. Frys or Micro Center? Maybe. But the prices on those items at BBY and CC are generally ridiculously overpriced.

And SirKronan, all HDMI cables are outrageously overpriced at all retail establishments, with the possible exception of Frys. If I as a consumer can buy a 6' cable from mono price for under $5.00, there's no excuse for selling a similar cable for for $40.00 - $50.00, other than praying on the ignorance of the customers. I know that's par for the course in the AV business, but it pisses me off, nevertheless.
 
Or how BB talks non-tech savvy consumers into purchasing their extended warranty when the product already has a 3-year or whatever factory warranty.

Best Buy will get what they deserve soon. I've got too many stories from that place.. I could go on for a few days with everything they've done to may family and friends over the years. The only time I set foot in that store to purchase something is if I know they are hardly making any money off it.. and the last two things being a rocketfish case and those $9 video games with the rewardzone coupon.
 
Now will tiger direct buy some of the stores like they did with compusa? :confused:
 
nilepez said:
Not really. Sure the web played a part, but it's more than that. They sold Alpine car stereos....until they lost the line to BBY. They had salesmen that knew the products and worked on commission....until they let them all go in favor of hourly workers, which they then, apparently, let go in favor of even cheaper hourly employees.

The fact is that many CCs seemed like they were in the process of shutting down over a year ago.

I do a lot of shopping on line, but I can't htink of anything that I've bought online that I ever bought from CC. I'd never buy a computer from BB or CC. I wouldn't buy an HD from either of them either (unless it was an incredible sale). THat's not something new. I never would have bought that stuff from then 10 years ago. Frys or Micro Center? Maybe. But the prices on those items at BBY and CC are generally ridiculously overpriced.

And SirKronan, all HDMI cables are outrageously overpriced at all retail establishments, with the possible exception of Frys. If I as a consumer can buy a 6' cable from mono price for under $5.00, there's no excuse for selling a similar cable for for $40.00 - $50.00, other than praying on the ignorance of the customers. I know that's par for the course in the AV business, but it pisses me off, nevertheless.
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That's right up there with the Belkin Gold-Plated "High Speed" Modem Telephone Cable... a piece of phone cord 6 feet long - same cord you find in the box with pretty much any cordless telephone or phone you can buy anywhere - but it's "gold plated" on the RJ-11 pins... and suddenly the belief is that because you've got a "high speed" modem telephone cable, your 56K modem will suddenly be much much faster. :)

As if the 10,000+ miles or more (most times a lot more) wiring of the POTS was nothing and that last 6 feet of "high speed" modem cable will suddenly make up for all of that plain old copper. ;)

If it weren't for ignorant and most times flat out stupid consumers, most businesses wouldn't last a month...
 
i think cc was better years back. like others have said above they got worse over the years. they didnt have a good pc parts selection and bb doesnt either. microcenter does as well as frys though. i like online shopping but there are some things i want now and dont want to bother ordering from online.
 
Here's another example...

6 foot HDMI cable

vs

4 foot HDMI cable[/i]

Realistically, the only difference you'd be able to find is the name on the cable and if you used some incredibly precise test equipment you might be able to show differences on paper with some high falutin' math skills.

But to our analog eyes and ears... forget it.

Anyway, there was a time in the 80s when Circuit City was cool, when it was the only game in town you could say. I hail from southeastern Virginia where they existed after opening in Richmond where they were founded, and they gradually put pretty much everyone out of business, including buying out local stores like Dixie Hi-Fi in that area.

They carried products nobody else did, before "consumer electronics" was a buzz word.

Will I miss them now? No... but I do miss those times when stereos or cool stuff came out and we could check it out at Circuit City.

They did it to themselves, for a wide variety of reasons. It wasn't the Internet, or competition... they destroyed themselves from within. And yes, I once worked for 'em... what true 80's Geek didn't? :)
 
its not like its just CCity that overcharges for cables and such. Best buy, radioshack, and pretty much any other Retail chain does. Fry's doesnt do it because they are trying hard to compete with online stores. To say "fuck CC" is pretty harsh. Not every man and woman have gotten with the times and buy everything offline. Some people pay extra for the convenience and security you get from a local store, instead of the hassle of RMA's and such through online chains. Most of our business was older people who still to this day do not trust the internet. "Fuck CC" pshhh.. you are one sad human being if you have that much hate for an electronic store. Grow up.
 
Joe Average said:
Here's another example...

6 foot HDMI cable

vs

4 foot HDMI cable[/i]

Realistically, the only difference you'd be able to find is the name on the cable and if you used some incredibly precise test equipment you might be able to show differences on paper with some high falutin' math skills.

But to our analog eyes and ears... forget it.

Anyway, there was a time in the 80s when Circuit City was cool, when it was the only game in town you could say. I hail from southeastern Virginia where they existed after opening in Richmond where they were founded, and they gradually put pretty much everyone out of business, including buying out local stores like Dixie Hi-Fi in that area.

They carried products nobody else did, before "consumer electronics" was a buzz word.

Will I miss them now? No... but I do miss those times when stereos or cool stuff came out and we could check it out at Circuit City.

They did it to themselves, for a wide variety of reasons. It wasn't the Internet, or competition... they destroyed themselves from within. And yes, I once worked for 'em... what true 80's Geek didn't? :)
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I agree that charging $50 for an HDMI cable is way too much - that's another one of those things I offer to price match to help save my customers some money (unless they're mean to me, then they can pay full price :D)

It's more extreme, but not entirely unlike newegg charging $7 to ship a $3 fan. They had a bulk deal on some logysis 80mm fans. I added 10 to my cart. The price of the fans was $20 (or 25, something like that). Shipping was $42!!! I called them and said that this is ridiculous - I doubt ten little plastic fans even weigh a pound! They said that the rates are automatically calculated, blah blah blah .... I ordered from Jab-Tech instead. Several fans, some thermal paste, a bunch of SATA cables, probably well over a pound - $8.95 shipping.

But who orders fans from Newegg?? :rolleyes:
 
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