Sign of the times: Circuit City

[arcadian]

Circuit City's flagship store less than a quarter mile away from corporate headquarters outside Richmond, Virginia. This is the concept store that all other Circuit City stores were modeled after.




Circuit City's corporate headquarters:

[Stevenmarc]

1. They started their downward spiral

when they fired their most experienced workers to save a few bucks.

[Deja Q]

3. And "clearance" prices are surely tied to the MSRP, not the typical street price

which is, of course, lower. (In essence, that 20% off each DVD has a net savings of $0.00 as it's the same $39.99 elsewhere.)

There are sporadic, genuine deals, but they are more the exception...

[DCKit]

4. AFTER they were taken over by a hedge fund.

Just like Home Depot. Same recipie, same disaster.

I believe Chrysler is now owned by a hedge fund. Wonder how that's going to work out.

[Statistical]

10. Both are publicly trade not owned by hedge fund

CCTYQ = Circuit City (use to be CC before it was delisted)
HD = Home Depot

[Still Sensible]

19. Just because a compny is publicly traded

doesn't mean it is not substantially or literally controlled by a hedge fund.

[Stephanie]

8. that's when I stopped shopping there

I wonder how many did? I had bought two laptops from them in the past, among other things, mostly because the staff was so helpful. Since they laid sr staff off I never went back.

[pleah]

2. They cut their own throat.

Their screw the customer attitude was their downfall.

[lib2DaBone]

5. I bought a desktop there. CC truly sucks....but there were no other stores in my area,

No Best Buy, No Office Depot. If you need a computer for your business..where do you get it?

Consumers are no longer in the drivers seat.

There would seem to be a great void out there for a computer company with an interest in customer service.

[arcadian]

11. I got mine at CompUSA

Another one that has already gone down the tubes.

[lpbk2713]

6. I'm sure Verizon must really be thrilled ...

... about having a large banner saying "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" over their name.

[Muttocracy]

7. yep - I was thinking it was one of their stores next to a CC

[obiwan]

9. "Going Out Of Business"

30% off -of WHAT- big deal!
Time to go to Fry's.

[kestrel91316]

12. Yeah - we have a Fry's two miles from my office. I hate shopping there, lol,

they have ZERO customer service, but I needed a flat scanner today because the scanner function on my p/s/c went out, and guess what? I got a brand new p/s/c (Canon) for $70 on sale. And it's got the stacking sheet feed for scanning or copying multiple pages at once which will come in handy when I scan to my hard drive 10 boxes of old business documents I am tired of paying $88/mo to store.

[GentryDixon]

13. The Circuit City I shopped closed a year ago.

[YOY]

14. Two words: New Egg.

If those words don't work: Tiger Direct.

And a bit of advice to go with those words: befriend a techie. Buy them dinner and ask them to put together a new machine from parts ordered. They love to do stuff like this. You'll save hundreds of dollars and make a friend.

[nc4bo]

15. Or better yet, learn to do your own. It's fun and even some thrills! nt

[Shardik]

17. Damn you, YOY! :)

Yes, we do love this sort of thing...

But what happens later is the calls of "I can't get this to work... or that to work."

And many of us techies make a living out of this sort of thing and many of those problems take many hours to fix.

I have one friend who always pays me dinner for driving 60 miles to fix his computer problems and actually, it gets old fast.

f people want a techie, offer to pay them what they usually charge. Chances are, if you are a friend, a dinner will suffice.

[YOY]

18. I'm pretty competent (can put memory in and OS/BIOS problems). My techie is my best work buddy.

She knows I'll do just about anything in the world to help her or her partner if it's in my power. She also loves to give advice. When I call, it's a real problem. I only have called her once in the past year for advice on picking up a new SATA drive.

[Lorien]

16. Nothing that those GOP lovers didn't deserve

not the workers, but the repugs at the top. I hope that a decent, well run chain springs up to take it's place.

[Codeine]

20. Sign of a perrenially shitty company.

CC have always sucked. They've always had the most expensive prices, and seemingly attempted to offset that with the worst service.

They will not be missed.