Fry's Electronics permanently closing Feb 24, 2021

Yeah. What happened to them. Frys used to be huge. I remember going to black friday shopping 10-15 years ago at frys and waiting in an endless line around the building trying to get in. I used to go there and the store was packed on a regular basis.

But in the last like 5-10 years they just have no deals, never advertise anything, and dont seem to be competitive in any way.
Amazon happened.
 
Amazon happened.
The Great Recession also hurt them - people wanted to save as much as they could while the bottom fell out of the economy, they moved online for better deals, and when things started firing back up, they didn't come back. Fry's huge stores had high overhead, and they weren't nimble enough to pivot like Best Buy. Their collapse was a long time coming.
 
Yeah. Probably their main problem was their store is so huge, like a Disney Land for tech, electronics and appliances, that their costs and overhead are just too much.
 
Last edited:
Fry's never really recovered from the $65 million theft, then they tried to go consignment, and that was never going to fly for a shop of Fry's scale.
The stores were too big; I mean for example the Sacramento one always felt too large, and they built an even bigger one in Roseville, about 18 miles away.
I did (usually) like shopping there; usually had what I needed on hand. Once their inventory started collapsing, I pretty much had to go to Amazon; no one else in the area carried those kind of parts in any variety.
 
Ah, Incredible Universal in mid 90's! Packed with people around. Those motherboards on display looked so foreign to me when I wasn't a DIY builder at that time. As time passes on, so did my DIY skills. I often spent several hours walking around deciding whatever to buy, sometimes with friends when they needed my help with buying. Loved doing that. Fry's has became less populated lately with empty shelves so I stopped going there. I once asked an employee 2 years ago if Fry's is going out of business, he shook his head and replied that they are undergoing a change in business. His face caught my attention because he looked like Commander Fischer from TV series Chicago P.D. (Kevin J. O'Conner)!

Thank you very much Xi and Amazon.
 
The only Tech store left in the Bay Area is Central Computers, I go there weekly.

Walking out with a 3060TI, 3070, or 3090.
 
The only Tech store left in the Bay Area is Central Computers, I go there weekly.

Walking out with a 3060TI, 3070, or 3090.
Central Scalpers is more like it...knew this was only a matter of when, not if when it came to Fry's. Enjoyed their stores both in SoCal and the Bay, in fact got a fantastic deal on my 75" Samsung Open Box TV from their Campbell location less than 2 years ago, they still have decent AV deals back in '19...the PC section never recovered from the back payments scandal a few years ago.
 
Fry's never really recovered from the $65 million theft, then they tried to go consignment, and that was never going to fly for a shop of Fry's scale.
The stores were too big; I mean for example the Sacramento one always felt too large, and they built an even bigger one in Roseville, about 18 miles away.
I did (usually) like shopping there; usually had what I needed on hand. Once their inventory started collapsing, I pretty much had to go to Amazon; no one else in the area carried those kind of parts in any variety.
$65M? I googled that and found out. This is the man who gambled Frys piggy bank dry: Ausaf Umar Siddiqui.

Loved that Roseville Fry's train theme!
 
I lived in the bay area in 2008. I was amazed every time I stepped foot in Fry's Electronics. That was the only time in my life where I lived near a store like that. Best Buys may be everywhere, but they don't even remotely compare.


I wonder if I'll be in the proximity of a Micro Center before those go away.
 
Sad to see them go. I liked going into their different stores to see the themes each one had. Found some decent stuff over the years. Will be missed.
 
I was amazed the first few times I went to Fry's. Their pc parts selection was superior to BB, same as their car audio. The last time I was there was maybe 10+ years, when they stopped doing cheap cpu/motherboard combos. Thanks Fry's for the few clearanced Antec Solos at $20.
 
Almost sad to see them go, but here in Houston they were staffed by teenagers in every department that knew nothing about what they were selling and heavily pushing whatever management could sell that week for the highest margin. God help you if you didn't already know exactly know what you wanted. PC hardware was usually just the cheap lowend stuff, but they (then) had a good case selection. My wife loved Fry's because they had a huge magazine section and every 'As-Seen-on-Tv' goodie available. When those started to disappear 3-4 years ago, we really had no reason anymore to go, other than for the oddball techtoy (Darth-Tater, etc) or a simple data cable. When they built the new big MicroCenter here, Fry's was done for. Last time I went in almost a year ago the shelves were 2/3 empty, no salespeople visible, and nothing in-stock that I actually needed.
 
Last edited:
Microcenter, please please please take over one of the Fry's locations in the Bay and come back here...I miss you so much Tustin MC :(
 
Frys always useless, nothing changed by its closure.

On the other hand, Tanner's closure hit me hard.
Jim's family simply chose to pursue other interests.
There may have been other factors.
 
End of an era.

I'll never forget the time in the 90s before I knew about computers when I took my computer there for repair, they gave it back to me without the processor in it. I just happen to peek over the counter to find it laying on the floor.
 
End of an era.

I'll never forget the time in the 90s before I knew about computers when I took my computer there for repair, they gave it back to me without the processor in it. I just happen to peek over the counter to find it laying on the floor.
Major ouch.

At Frys they used to tape actual different processors on the display board behind the enclosed glass with prices next to it. One Athlon socket A processor was on the surface inside. It must have fell off the board. I asked an old Asian lady employee if I could buy that hoping to save $$. She promptly took it out and chatted with other employees for a short time before pocketing it in her jacket. Her hand movement inside the pocket indicated that she BENT pins on PURPOSE!
 
I remember my first time in SoCal in 99, I had to go to Fry's to see it. I remember being frustrated that I couldn't buy from them online. They had a chance, probably could have built an online presence with their stores as distribution centers.
 
Probably not as much as you'd expect. Regardless of what you see in the news about "mass exodus from California" it really isn't that massive. Besides Amazon didn't build a fulfillment center in the region because people like to go out and shop in person.
There's a shit ton of empty commercial up here in the East Bay. Seems that way down in San Jose by work as well... That was my point.
 
There was a store on my way to my previous job so on an almost weekly basis I would stop there on the Friday of the weekly sale to check things out. Hopefully, the silver lining of this bankruptcy would be for microcenter to come to the Bay Area as there is no competitor other than Best Buy and a pretty sizeable market that wants PC hardware.
 
I got Fry's last email showing items for sale yesterday. Today out of curiosity I checked in the trash bin and clicked one of items.

Got a 404 Not Found.
 
Microcenter, please please please take over one of the Fry's locations in the Bay and come back here...I miss you so much Tustin MC :(
There was a store on my way to my previous job so on an almost weekly basis I would stop there on the Friday of the weekly sale to check things out. Hopefully, the silver lining of this bankruptcy would be for microcenter to come to the Bay Area as there is no competitor other than Best Buy and a pretty sizeable market that wants PC hardware.
I doubt it. The original reason they closed was cause of rent pricing and that hasn't changed much. So many business are moving or changing plans to avoid California. California's future doesn't look so bright anymore.
 
My last core component purchase was a C2D 7300 'Wolfdale' and an ECS mobo back in '08 from Anaheim, probably got a cheapo shredder from them in '13 from the Costa Mesa store, and then the 75" NU8000 in '19 from Campbell.
 
I doubt it. The original reason they closed was cause of rent pricing and that hasn't changed much. So many business are moving or changing plans to avoid California. California's future doesn't look so bright anymore.
And just as many can't wait to come in...until the congestion on 580/680/880/5 eases don't tell me people are leaving CA...as for MC, they can just scalp a little less than Central Scalpers and do business hand over fist anyday of the week...
 
Damn this is a shame. In my teens we used to drive ~45 minutes to go to the nearest Fry's and many of my earliest computer builds were done using Motherboard+CPU combos purchased from Fry's. Back then we also used to get these things called newspapers, and they would often include a full-page Fry's ad that advertised their sales, which used to actually include many good deals. I remember how excited I was when they finally opened a Fry's closer to me and it didn't require an epic journey to get to the store anymore.

The business has been in a steady decline for the last 10 years. Once it got to the point where everyone would just whip a phone out of their pocket to compare prices on anything they might buy - and often end up buying it online instead. That early period where most online sites didn't charge sales tax was particularly brutal, as even if the item was the "same price", Fry's couldn't compete against online sites that weren't charging tax.

Online shopping can never replace in-person shopping for many things. My current Monitor, that I bought mid-2019 or so, was the last big item that I bought from Fry's. I doubt I would have bought it if I wasn't able to actually see it with my own eyes in the store first. Same with keyboards and mice. My recent attempt to buy a keyboard online turned into a multi-month hassle that involved returning several keyboards before I actually found one I liked. Not like going to the keyboard isle at Fry's where there were dozens setup ready to try. Almost like buying shoes or a jacket, some things you really don't know what you want until you have a chance to actually try it in person first. Hard to do that with online shopping.

Recently I was helping a friend with her TV. She didn't understand why she couldn't get any HD channels. Well, turns out that even though both the cable box and the TV supported HDMI, the Comcast tech that had set it up connected the Cable box to the TV using oldschool Coax cable... Fry's, 2+ years ago, would have had a huge bin of $2 HDMI cables right as you entered the front door.... But because Fry's was already a ghost town at that point, our only options were to buy an HDMI cable online and wait several days, or buy one for $20 at BestBuy. Unfortunately that is now the post-Fry's reality.
 
Last edited:
Fry's could have probably weathered through the storm, had it just been one or two of the power punches they took.

Omar Siddiqui's theft of $65 million was probably the one that caused the most damage, but when you combine it with employee ineptitude, a terrible company direction, a poor economy (around the late 2000's to mid 2010's), and the fact that the 800 lb gorilla known as Amazon all hit them at the same time, I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that they weren't going to get up from this barrage of shots, and there was no bell to save them.
 
And just as many can't wait to come in...until the congestion on 580/680/880/5 eases don't tell me people are leaving CA...as for MC, they can just scalp a little less than Central Scalpers and do business hand over fist anyday of the week...
Yup, we are in the middle of the pandemics and yet traffic here is still about 80% of peak all the time.

I doubt it. The original reason they closed was cause of rent pricing and that hasn't changed much. So many business are moving or changing plans to avoid California. California's future doesn't look so bright anymore.

You may see the fuss of Oracle/HP/Tesla leaving the Bay Area, CA. But for every one of these big names, there are 5, 6, 7 more smaller companies that started here. Unless you are here, you won't see the environment, the feel, the innovation that is going on in the Bay Area. Businesses want to start here because the talents are here. The talented people (the workers) don't want to leave the Bay Area.

I can't speak for the rest of CA. Sure, with the pandemics, no doubt some people see that they can work remotely anywhere. However, for most companies, working remotely occasionally is okay, but if you are not onsite, you are not "in" Some companies even allow people to work remotely full time, provided they take a significant pay cut. Anyway, off topics already.
 
Lets be honest,

Fry's was always like going to a flee market. Atleast the ones here in Texas. I can't tell you how many times they would mark returned items, especially motherboards as new, and they wouldn't be shy about it. They would just put the "new" label over the returned label, or rotate the stock and put a new sticker on the other side of the box. Also, you could never find any help for anything and the stores were always a mess.

Yeah they could have weathered the storm, but my impression especially these last couple of years is that they just didn't care.
 
I can't speak for the rest of CA. Sure, with the pandemics, no doubt some people see that they can work remotely anywhere. However, for most companies, working remotely occasionally is okay, but if you are not onsite, you are not "in" Some companies even allow people to work remotely full time, provided they take a significant pay cut. Anyway, off topics already.
Every time I hear the "I want a job where I can always be remote" I think about how big a sucker that person is. If your job can be done entirely remotely, what's to stop it being done in say... India?
 
Sad to see another computer and electronics store go out of business. Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's, the central Florida area had all sorts of computers stores. I even worked for a couple. These days, you got Best Buy and nothing else. I stopped doing computer repairs and upgrades when Comp USA/Tiger Direct closed the two Orlando stores. People want their computers back ASAP and will not wait about a week or more for me to get the part in, so they took it to Geek Squad instead.
 
Sad to see another computer and electronics store go out of business. Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's, the central Florida area had all sorts of computers stores. I even worked for a couple. These days, you got Best Buy and nothing else. I stopped doing computer repairs and upgrades when Comp USA/Tiger Direct closed the two Orlando stores. People want their computers back ASAP and will not wait about a week or more for me to get the part in, so they took it to Geek Squad instead.
Geek Squad is a joke.
 
36d81f9d-dd5c-4c2d-b350-49bad38cbafd_text_hi.gif
 
Yeah they could have weathered the storm, but my impression especially these last couple of years is that they just didn't care.

Bingo. You couldn't get anyone to help you with anything. You better know EXACTLY what you wanted and where it was in the store.

I will miss the computer parts, but Micro Center already filled that void for me years ago.
 
But because Fry's was already a ghost town at that point, our only options were to buy an HDMI cable online and wait several days, or buy one for $20 at BestBuy.
You know Walmart sells those, right? Cheaper, too.
 
Sad to see another computer and electronics store go out of business. Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's, the central Florida area had all sorts of computers stores. I even worked for a couple. These days, you got Best Buy and nothing else. I stopped doing computer repairs and upgrades when Comp USA/Tiger Direct closed the two Orlando stores. People want their computers back ASAP and will not wait about a week or more for me to get the part in, so they took it to Geek Squad instead.

Well, with Best Buy axing 1/2 their work force, mostly full timers and those who have worked there a long time, those folks will need to find somewhere else to fix their computers, eventually. All I can say is, good luck.
 
You know Walmart sells those, right? Cheaper, too.

The Walmarts near here have one, maybe two isles with tech products, and usually their prices are no better than Best Buy. I don't remember what it cost there, but it was one of the stores I checked, and I remember I was not impressed by the price. Just like Best Buy, they want to upsell you on expensive cables after they sucker you into buying a new TV. It was certainly not the same as picking up a $2 cable from Fry's.
 
The Walmarts near here have one, maybe two isles with tech products, and usually their prices are no better than Best Buy.
A few weeks back I needed an HDMI cable and they had one for about $15. I think it's a 5 footer. I live in Galveston, and there's not much beyond Walmart & Target on the island that might have one, and the Walmart isn't the biggest one out there. The next nearest place that would have one is probably the Best Buy 20mi away, so I guess it's a matter of location. The card I found was actually in one of those cardboard displays in the middle of the aisle--I couldn't find one inside the TC/console/electronics section. Not a great price, I know, but considering the alternative it wasn't too bad.
 
Back
Top