Circuit City Being Short-Circuited?

[admin]

A flurry of news came up this week on Circuit City and predictions that it would go bankrupt as early as the first quarter of 2009. According to Bradley B. Thomas, a research analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets: "a Circuit City bankruptcy has become a question of ‘when’ rather than 'if.'" Thomas said the current economic uncertainty is accelerating the electronic chain's movement toward Chapter 11, and also lessening chances that it will emerge successfully after it gets there.

Discuss "Circuit City Being Short-Circuited?" here. Read the article.

 

[KASR]

It's gonna be a FIRE SALE - everything must go!

 

[scape]

my problem with CC is that everytime I go to buy something, they don't have it in stock. I go to BB and pay for it 5$ more maybe, and it's there!

 

[GlocksRock]

I hope not, I would much prefer to shop at CC than BB anyday, but I usually try to buy stuff online if I can. However, it's always nice to have somewhere to go that I can actually see the products firsthand before I make a purchase.

 

[jamie2112]

I am not suprised at this. The local Annapolis store is empty most of the time it seems...

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

It's just really sad. It makes me wonder who else is next?

I'm sure Wal-Mart and Best Buy are almost "untouchable", but what about all the smaller higher quality Audio stores out there?

 

[aberkowitz]

CC has been dying a slow death for years now. Their biggest weakness was the fact that they were incredibly conservative and didn't innovate their business. BB overtook them because they took ridiculous pains to understand their customers and to structure stores differently to target different customers. They did immense amounts of research and broke down every last bit of their store to understand how many more sales they would get based on the placement of items, types of racks used, channels shown on the TVs, number of playable video games, etc (even the type and color of the carpet!). Once BB overtook CC in sales and CC starts trying to play catch up, Target and Walmart ramp up their electronics big time also using similar types of models. Ever since then CC has been struggling to keep their head above water. They've been second or third to market with almost every new idea that's come to the big-box retail industry, and it's been years since they've gotten the top talent in the middle and the top of their organization. I don't think we'll miss them too badly.

 

[ChunkyDark]

Too bad I live so far away, the going out of business sales would have been great
It might be a good time for Virgin to make a serious stand against BB (state side) if they bought them up.
I don't know the actual feasibility of this, just idle speculation.

 

[TheP1zzaMan]

Circuit City from the inside

The company has been on unstable ground since atleast when I started there over 2 years. It's sad to say, but I'm considered one of the "old hands" at my store. The company has not been developing its employees and very few of the people that I work with have a passion for the products or for sales. One of the reasons I took my internship in the offshore marine business was to get away from what I felt was a dying company. Oh well, I knew my discounts would come to an end eventually.

 

[Halon451]

I agree, I don't think too many people out there are really going to miss 'em if they go - it's too bad, because I think if they had better positioned themselves as an Electronics retailer, they could have generated good healthy competition with Best Buy, which would have benefited consumers all over. Instead, people are rarely doing cost comparisons between the two (at least from my personal experience), and simply head to BB, or Wal-Mart, or even Costco for that matter. Last time I was in CC, it was a ghost town, there were perhaps a small handful of shoppers in the entire store - I then went into a BB right across the way, and it was jam packed with people.

Since I'm in the market for a new TV, this may come as good timing if they end up having a big clearance sale!

 

[BMXTRIX]

I've always walked into CC and have felt like the store managers just didn't give a damn and instilled exactly that same feeling in the employees.

Often you walk into departments in complete and total disarray. You can't find what you want, half of the displays didn't work, DVD and CD sections are impossible to find what you are looking for in, etc. The sad part was then seeing 3 or 4 sales guys just standing around instead of fixing the stuff so that it was in pristine condition.

On the other hand, a year or two ago I was in Cleveland and walked into a brand new CC and it was very impressive. Perhaps because it was new, but it felt more like a BB, and had a cohesive setup that let me find what I wanted as well as having people that were well enough trained to answer some questions. I ended up buying, and letting them install, a car stereo for me. I wasn't thrilled with the way it was installed, so the guy happily offerred me a couple of different options on changing it, and made the change that I said I wanted - without an additional charge to me. So, he didn't do it wrong, he just picked one of the possibilities, and then happily made it exactly what I wanted.

It would be a shame for BB to lose that competition in the market. But, there's no doubt that when I go into a CC it always seems dingy with people that don't care working there instead of a well kept store like I feel when I'm in BB.

 

[jliedeka]

I agree with a lot of what was said. I don't find CC to be a pleasant experience. They are often out of stock, there are usually only two clerks in the whole store that are helping people. Since they don't have any regular sort of check out, it doesn't pay to go in there to buy small stuff. I'm not going to wait 15 minutes just to pay for a DVD or video game.

Jim

 

[DD66000]

Between the bad economy and many people buying via the net its not surprising to see CC stores almost bare.
I went into a CC yesterday and the number of speakers they had in the audio rooms was next to nothing, compared to a fews years ago.
Personally I don't see how BB does any better. Their employees know very little, most of what they sell in the audio department is junk. Even in the Mag corner they had much less than before.
But in both cases, the stores aren't going to stock much when the the business is slow.

For over a year, manybe two, I haven't seen anything in either store I would spend my money on, at least in the audio department.

 

[HellasVagabond]

I may not live in the USA people but i know that its always a bad thing for a business to close. Perhaps 95 people out of 100 wont be doing their job right but what about the 5 who do ? And in a company such as CC there must be hundreds that do their job right and my guess is that they also have families so i dont think its nice to say that its a good thing that CC is closing.
Thats my view of this.

 

[Warpdrv]

This really comes as no surprise to me, as I have always found it to be pretty much a second rate store in comparison to BB. No offense, but CC has always sucked as far as I was concerned, the only reason I shopped there was to see if they had something along the lines of what I was looking for. I can't really say that I like any of the alternatives either, BB or whatever else, but last minute items or doing research on certain products can be pretty easily found at those type of stores.

 

[Geno]

Too bad they're tanking, but they deserve it. The last retail chain I cared about folded a couple of years ago (Good Guys), and I can't stand BB or Wally World, so I guess it'll be internet for me unless I go to some of the nearby metro areas.

 

[darien87]

I thought they had already gone out of business. They've already closed all the stores in my area.

 

[The Dali]

I'm amazed at how the only "big box" store that will be left dedicated to electronics is going to be Best Buy. What else is there? A few years ago you could find a handful around providing competition - now, nothing. Of course, there are the smaller specialty stores which is great, but you tend to find higher-end stuff there (which may be too expensive for the regular person). I mean, where do you go for a computer now-a-days? CC, BB, maybe Sears?

The web is awesome, but it is getting harder to try merchandise out before buying.

 

[croseiv]

It's a bummer IMO, but there will be something out there to fill in the void. Lately, in my area, the CC has had lousy stuff to choose from, like they aren't updating stuff any more. They still have some receivers are quite out dated for sale for example.

 

[skizzerflake]

They have been caught in the death spiral. No profit, not enough cool stuff, therefore less appealing stores that are not profitable.....

I don't like the idea that Best Buy won't have any direct competition. There's the big boxes, which have crappy stuff and the high end stores that are too pricey for the general market but nobody else is a big player in the middle market.