Well, they’re closing the one that we would frequent, if Ivylad didn’t like Best Buy more.
I think when they were the only game in town they were pretty good, but then Best Buy and Frys and now H Gregg (is that it?) have come along, and CC can’t keep up.
I’m sorry for the lay-offs, and hope the folks can find other jobs soon. That said, if you’re doing things right, you stay in business. CC must have been doing something(s) wrong.
Looks like they’re only closing one in the Charlotte market, and it’s one I don’t shop at to boot. I don’t mind CC, but it’s been years since I spent over $50 there at one time. I think I bought my Onkyo dual cassette deck there.
Circuit City used to rock. AFAIK, they originated price matching and even honored it on purchases you had made in their own store for 30 days or so. I bought my first Walkman there, my second Walkman there, my first Discman there, and the boom box I took as replacement for that Discman when it failed under warranty still sits in my bedroom. I bought my first cell phone there, too, now that I think of it.
But when they decided to revamp their stores to look more like Best Buy, I knew they had made a bad, bad decision and were giving up.
I’ve made several purchases recently at the Circuit City near me - I’m hopeful that it’ll stick around just because it’s actually quite convenient. There are certainly other options, though, so no tears will be shed on my part should it vanish. (Late edit: I just checked the list, and “my” store is not among the current closures.)
It’s closer than the nearest Best Buy, and for about ten years I’ve refused to shop at Fry’s*. I’ve actually bought relatively little electronic hardware online - an enigma itself, given how much other stuff I prefer to buy online. For things like camcorders (our most recent Circuit City purchase), I specifically wanted to buy it at a brick-and-mortar store because I had little experience with the things, didn’t know what features I did/did not want, and more importantly wanted to hold the things in my hands to see which ones felt better.
I had wondered about this. I hadn’t been in a CC store for quite some time until a couple of years ago, and I walked out thinking, “It’s like a red Best Buy.”
It made me wonder if my memory was faulty, or if they’re really changed their look; it sounds like the latter.
The West Coast chain Mervyn’s just went under. The one near us just moved from the mall to a strip mall across the street, then boom.
My daughter’s ex-bf works at the CC near us which is closing, so it sucks. However, I agree that this might be because of them dumping their knowledgeable employees to save money. (He had been there 3 years when this happened, and became a senior guy.) It used to be a good store - we bought our big TVs there 15 and 8 years ago, and their service used to be fine. I bought a new laptop two weeks ago. CC had something that looked good on its website, but all the stores were out of stock, so I wound up getting one at Best Buys.
Fry’s is excellent for obscure electronics stuff, like heat sink paste, but I’ve found that their prices for computers are not so great any more. Lots of people hate the place, and it helps if you know more than the salespeople. I always wear my old Intel sweatshirt when I go there to build up my geek cred.
Yep. Originally, Circuit City’s look was part warehouse, part showroom. You picked things out from the display models and the salesman wrote you up, printed you out a ticket and directed you to the pick-up window or loading dock, depending on the item. I like that and miss it. It was different and distinctive.
But what do I know? I still don’t understand why Burger King won’t make more of the fact that they’re the only major nationwide fast food chain that serves onion rings but keep wasting time trying to make their fries taste like McDonald’s.
It has been hard as hell to give Circuit City your money the past few years. A few months ago my boyfriend got his office broken into and we went that evening around trying to get a security system that night (LaserShield has the most awful rip-off sounding ads, and I was against it, but they’ve won me over entirely.) Best Buy didn’t have it, but Circuit City did. It took half an hour to get somebody to take our money. We stood at the cash register for ages until I went hunting down people in nametags. I eventually had to just knock on the “Employees Only” door.
When they fired all their non-minimum wage staff and tried to rehire them at minimum wage I made a vow never to go into another CC store. I imagine that it worked out rather well for the CEO asshole who thought up and implemented the idea, but the stockholders and employees really got screwed.
Because they are unequivocally the worst onion rings ever concieved since the advent of frying things? Seriously, the coating looks, feels, and tastes like it’s made from scraping burnt toast.
I’m not arguing quality, I’m arguing availability. If I ran BK, yes, I’d work on making the onion rings better. But I wouldn’t waste any time pointing out that we sold them and no one else does.
Trust me, if Wendy’s sold onion rings, I’d never darken BK’s doorstep again.
We bought a home entertainment center from a local CC solely because of the sales guy we accidentally found. When we went back to buy another TV we learned that he had been a victim of that stupid decision and never went back. Nor will we.
I’ve always found that Fry’s is great if you know what you’re looking for. At the one I frequent (Campbell, CA) the employees are usually not very helpful–I hate it when I ask for something and the employee starts wandering around, obviously having no idea where it is but determined to find it (I can do that!)–but they’ve got everything if you have the patience to look for it. Plus at least around here the stores have cool motifs (the Campbell store is all “ancient Egyptian”) which make them a little more interesting than the big-box stores. Fry’s is the geek/nerd haven.
I go to Best Buy for basic consumer stuff (games, appliances, etc.) and Fry’s for anything remotely obscure. I hardly ever go to Circuit City, and when I do, I hardly ever buy anything there.
Burger King fries taste nothing like McDonald’s, which at least are tasty when reasonably warm. Burger King fries seem to be fried lard or something, potato leavings, anything but tasty.
Now, in beautiful Long Island, southwest corner of Nassau, there is the legendary Green Acres Mall, which has had a Circuit City for a decade or so - last year, they expanded the outlaying Mall store islands (whatever you call those stores build on Mall property, but are ‘freestanding’ in the outlying parking lots) and built a Best Buy no more than a 2 minute walk directly across from the Circuit City - that’s really ‘in your face’.
Visual Aid - White roof building south of what’s called ‘Green Acres Road’, Black roof building (marked 650)north of ‘Green Acres Road’
Here in NE, the TWEETER etc. chain has gone bankrupt, and is beginning its final sales. So the 'high end" audio market is suffering as well. How much of this is due to customer drop-off (versus the credit problems in financing inventory) is hard to say. This may well be the beginning of a huge retail downsizing 9which seemed overdue), as i say, you went into these Macy’s stores-and nobody was inside.
I love onion rings, but the BK variety is so far from what an onion ring tastes like that I never go there. Wendy’s having onion rings would be awesome. Let’s start a petition drive!
Wendys had onion rings for awhile…they tasted like crap though, so they were short lived…