Comments on: Circuit City Closes Up Shop Once and For All

By: CompUSA Makes a Comeback | Technologizer

CompUSA Makes a Comeback | Technologizer — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:50:42 +0000

[...] all: News After Circuit City bit the dust earlier this year, you probably thought that Best Buy would pretty much be on its own in the [...]

By: Dave Mackey

Dave Mackey — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 11:52:47 +0000

What I’ve bought at Circuit City in the past year: A USB cable and two Nexxtech hard drive enclosures.

What I’ve bought at Best Buy in the past year: a Macbook Pro, a Hewlett Packard notebook, a Denon stereo receiver and speaker system, a Samsung Blu-Ray player, games for my stepdaughter’s Wii, and various DVD movies.

However, Best Buy better watch its back: as Internet shopping becomes more the mode, brick and mortar is in danger of becoming extinct. Who needs 30,000 people who don’t know what they’re doing however many hundreds of Circuit City stores there were when you can drive the same sales with a staff of about 100 CSR’s and warehouse people working out of maybe five regional locations? Circuit City should have seen the writing on the wall with the failures of the two dominant New York electronics chains of a generation ago, The Wiz and Crazy Eddie.

By: Benj Edwards

Benj Edwards — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:58:25 +0000

I literally had to wait 45 minutes to buy something at my local Circuit City last year. That store has 5 checkout lines. Every time I was in there, none of them were open, and they only checked out through customer service. I was one of three customers in the store. The bar code on the Indiana Jones DVD I wanted wasn’t in their computer system, so they spent forever doing who-knows-what. The only reason I waited so long is because I had a gift card that I obviously couldn’t use at Best Buy. I managed to finagle a minor discount out of my long wait, although they should have offered it first. I never went back.

Bad management trickles down from the top; with what I’ve seen, it’s no surprise that they’ve bit the dust.

By: Shawn Roberts

Shawn Roberts — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:22:25 +0000

Circuit City has never seemed like a worthy competitor to Best Buy for the reasons listed above relating to prices, service and lack of selection. However, I enjoy and value being able to touch actual products and CC was a venue to do this in that was superior to Walmart. For this reason and others, I am sad to see it go.

By: David Worthington

David Worthington — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:47:15 +0000

They used to have a GREAT selection of audio products. But big box stores have such high overheard that it was inevitable that one would succumb to the Web.

By: Spot Cool Tech

Spot Cool Tech — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:41:11 +0000

I feel badly for the people who are going to loose their jobs, but Circuit City always struck me as having TERRIBLE service. Maybe in 2001 it was a well run company behind the scenes, but I never enjoyed going into their stores.

By: Charles Forsythe

Charles Forsythe — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:10:18 +0000

I had a Circuit City next to my office, and it was convenient when I wanted to buy something at an “OK” price and I didn’t want to bother driving to Fry’s.

Ultimately, when I made a big-ticket purchase last year (DLP HDTV), I looked at models there, found one I liked, and bought it for 40% less online. I don’t see how Best Buy hasn’t succumb to the same doom, but we’ll see.

By: KeithF

KeithF — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:50:01 +0000

They should be running scared. Amazon is much more relevant competition to Best Buy than Circuit City has been for several years.