Frys going out of Business

Just need it to last long enough for me to get a potential deal on a r9 3900x on Black Friday!

I doubt that'll happen, but it would be nice.
 
Hall products don't get discounts on BF. BF is for the garbage that they couldn't sale through out the year. I don't know why people still think BF is so awesome for sales.

because those same people do not follow prices through out the year and not until their friends tell them that they actually paid more for said item, than say 6 months ago.
 
Hall products don't get discounts on BF. BF is for the garbage that they couldn't sale through out the year. I don't know why people still think BF is so awesome for sales.

If you're still going to brick and mortar for BF and Cyber Monday then you're doing it wrong. Slickdeals and online in general is the way to get all your coverage.
B&M just do bait and switch or those prices for the first 1-5 customers or all that kind of nonsense you can't hope to really combat unless you want to take lethal force while shopping and also camp out hours if not days ahead.
However, I don't disagree. The sales have become more and more worthless. As commentary, this is a mistake by retailers that aren't willing to give honest BF sales because people are starting to figure this out. They're just sending more people online quickening their demise.
 
Microcenter in KC is always busy, Fry's in Plano i go to is always slow. Not to mention, bro tried to tell me spending 200 bucks on faster ram, would improve my cities skylines performance much more than upgrading to a 6 core 2600x... moron

You do (did) NOT fo into Fry's expecting competent help for your needs or problem solving. For those that were geeks though and knew what they wanted Fry's was AWESOME.

Great sales every week, including combo packs like cpu/mobo and sometimes even cpu/mobo/ram

huge magazine rack next to indoor cafe so you could have a drink or lunch and chill with 4-5 magazines like Maximum PC, Computer Shopper, PC Gamer, Playboy er, I meant Photography Today, etc

Fry's was THE store that had the little esoteric stuff like uncommon connectors and cables you couldn't find anywhere else except by ordering online, they even beat Rat Shack at this

So many good memories of Fry's, esp in the heyday of late 90's thru 2000's
 
Stopped in the Houston Frys on 45 North a month or so ago and it was a ghost town. The one on 59 is still pretty packed every time I go by/in. I've never been to the one south on 45 (the NASA themed one) I used to have a Microcenter closer to home so it was my goto store, but they moved further away. Frys and MC are about the same drive now so if I cant buy online I'll go to whichever has the best deal.
 
You do (did) NOT fo into Fry's expecting competent help for your needs or problem solving.

No way, i wanted him to shut the heck up and unlock the case. Like i'm trying to get a CPU and he keeps telling me "na man, buy this ram, that cpu won't help you".... Little turd was gatekeeping me. They had to get a bonus or something for selling that ram.
 
I haven't been in a while, but when selecting my location for Motherboards, or CPU's it comes back and says No products available. The last time I was there the Mobo shelves were pretty empty, so if they really don't have anything in stock, it's crazy.
 
City of Industry, the whole store was like this:

IMG_20191109_101439.jpg
 
Damn, how much money are they blowing through keeping empty stores like that open?

I can't imagine they're making enough to pay for keeping the lights on much less pay for even a minimum crew.
 
Damn, how much money are they blowing through keeping empty stores like that open?

I can't imagine they're making enough to pay for keeping the lights on much less pay for even a minimum crew.
The cost of a lease in places like California should be enough to just shut them down. Guess must be cheaper to keep them open then breaking a lease?
 
The cost of a lease in places like California should be enough to just shut them down. Guess must be cheaper to keep them open then breaking a lease?

I wasn't sure if they were leased or owned, that's often a sunk cost for a bit no matter what but it seems like they'd be ahead by shutting down just based on saved wages and energy alone.

If I walked into a store that looked like the picture above I'd likely walk out even if they somehow managed to have what I wanted simply because I wouldn't trust them to still be open next week if I needed to return it. It's a shame because Frys is the only store like that within a couple hours from where I live and it appears to be one of the ones that's dying, walking through the pc section always made me feel like a kid in an Egghead store.
 
I go to the one here in Webster, TX when I am in the area. My 3rd old daughter likes the Space Theme so we stop in to walk around and let her have fun checking out all the space stuff. Then we take her to Space Center for the real stuff. :)

That being said, the Webster store has very little inventory though some hidden gems can be found. I needed a new router and they had the Asus AC1900 marked down to $35. Not bad considering Amazon wants $130 for it.
 
There was a website that shows all of the vacant shopping malls from the 80s retail isn't the powerhouse it once was. It's hard because digital took over.
 
There was a website that shows all of the vacant shopping malls from the 80s retail isn't the powerhouse it once was. It's hard because digital took over.
It is hard cause of all the over head. If a store want to compete then the only way they could is with their service. Which is something that a lot of companies can't do right because it cost them money. Microcenter seems like it is the only b&m store left that does it right ands still competitive price wise. It pretty much the only place I buy computer hardware now. With most states starting to collect sales tax on online purchases b&m now has a better chance to compete tho. Honestly I don't buy much online anymore.
 
The bigger issue with electronics retail is that they're not keeping track of their inventory the same way that say Wal Mart is -- and that's what it takes to succeed at retail. The storefront has to offer more than a website does.
 
Went to the Irving, TX store to buy some M.2 screws and my God the store is maybe 20% as full of product as it used to be. All year they keep saying the have product in the pipeline but you can only pay the overhead for empty stores for so long. They have missed the biggest two selling months of the year. I would be shocked if they survive through 2020. At least Dallas has the Richardson MicroCenter to buy stuff at.
 
Went to the Irving, TX store to buy some M.2 screws and my God the store is maybe 20% as full of product as it used to be. All year they keep saying the have product in the pipeline but you can only pay the overhead for empty stores for so long. They have missed the biggest two selling months of the year. I would be shocked if they survive through 2020. At least Dallas has the Richardson MicroCenter to buy stuff at.

You'd think they would've got some decent stock of popular items for Black Friday at least. Cheap laptops, cheap TVs, consoles and the like. If they didn't do that then I don't see how they can stay around much longer. Writing was on the walls anyway, but I assumed for this season they should put out a steady stock of high demand items even if they lacked the variety they had in the past.

Last time I went to my local one was a few months back, was a bit bare but not too bad. May have to check it out again. Will miss going to it if it closes. Always nice to have local options even if online is preferred.
 
He had an NCIX like that.

ran off with peoples money and sold the servers unwiped.

hooray for identity theft
 
These were taken at the Fry's Electronics in Plano Texas this afternoon:

Appliances.
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Cases.
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This should have office furniture on display.
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The computer department now looks like a Hobby Lobby. They moved what they had but didn't change the signage.
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TV's. Well, what's left of them.
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Home Theater. All cannibalized. Nothing was hooked up.
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The video card isle sums things up nicely.
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This used to have various accessories like monitor stands and crap like that.
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Another isle of miscellaneous crap.
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Laptop displays
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Intel motherboards section. There was an MSI MEG X299 Creation left and that was it. The thing was priced at $559.99.
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AMD motherboards. I don't recall what this one was.
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Hard drives are now backpacks.
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I think this is where the cooling stuff used to be.
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Blu Ray's and DVD's had one isle each. There were only a few movies. Most were just copies of the same ten or so films. You couldn't find a single Playstation 4 or XBOX One console. They had a few games. The PC games section was all copies of some slot machine game that I had never heard of before. The only thing they seemed to have in stock was karaoke machines.
 

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How much were the asking for the plant?

At this point they may as well close and sell whatever inventory they have online.

There were less than 10 employees which accounted for most of the cars in the parking lot. There were two or three customers besides me. The coffee / cafe place was shuttered and you couldn't even go in there.
 
Ouch, I think it was 2 years ago I was last in the Plano location and while they had a few holes they were decently crowded and 80 to 90% stocked.
 
For shits and giggles I stopped by the San Jose store this afternoon. I figured if any store were to be stocked as they'd promised they would be for the holidays, it would be the location shared with their corporate offices (or maybe Sunnyvale, the spiritual birthplace of the chain).

I didn't take any pictures, but inside it looked much like what Dan_D posted. With the added bonus of a taped-off area back by the TVs due to a leaking roof. There were maybe a dozen cars in the parking lot. A few years ago, during xmas shopping season, there would be at least a hundred or two.

They're done.
 
THey said they werent going out of business. Looks to me like they were out of money and had to secure a new line of credit to continue. Probably going out of business but telling everything they are not in order to avoid a panic asset dump of their investors.
 
won't post the big pics, but yeah - Renton, WA is just like the above when I went there this afternoon...... I hadn't seen this thread and was unprepared for the empty walls and shelves.... Rarely go because its 35+ miles away, and in Seattle traffic that's an hour and not worth the trip, usually.

There were doors open to the stockrooms in the back, and they were bare-shelved as well. The place is not long for this world.
 
There could be a "big story" (maybe not) here. Unfortunately, our news reporting is empty of investigative reporting... similar to the Fry's pics...

(some say "the plant" is a "plant" though doing undercover work)
 
There really isn't a story here.

I've seen more than one retailer go under over the years. I worked at Comp USA when it went under. What I've seen out of Fry's is similar behavior. Their stores were filled with a ton of crap that didn't sell. Fry's tried to be everything to everyone and it's not a good business model for today's retail stores. Fry's also had a lot of overhead and basically continued the same practices that it had from the late 1990's through to today. Even 10 years ago the model was more successful. Because of its excessive operating costs Fry's had a hard time being competitive price wise. Before internet shopping was all the rage, Fry's was cheaper than many of its competitors by buying in much larger bulk than others. It also had higher margin items like TV's and audio equipment to help offset the thin margins of computer equipment.

All retail stores struggle today. Microcenter stays afloat by being cheaper than everyone else on CPU's and sticking to products it can actually move. When people quit buying big ass Microsoft study guides in paperback form, Microcenter dropped stuff like that. People didn't really buy console crap from them so they got rid of most of it etc. Paying commissions for sales is also a nasty double edged sword for them too. On products with razor thin margins it just doesn't work.
 
I am surprised they keep their stores open. The cost for the utilities alone would support closing the stores. I lost track how many times a customer representative would tell shipment of goods were inbound to replenish the shelves dating back to the beginning of 2019. I wanted a Samsung SSD back in February of 2019 and it was out of stock but the sales associate assured me the SSD would be available in two weeks. Since I live close to the San Marcos Frys I stop in once a month and witness more and more inventory missing and not replaced. To this date they still never received the Samsung SSD. I have since purchased the SSD from Microcenter. I find it interesting the employees always state we are no going out of business.
 
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