Circuit City closing 155 stores

[Justin Kirchhoff]

Starts tomorrow...Bay Area hit the hardest.

Get ready for the sales on Wednesday....Looking for a HDtv? Now's a good time to buy!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10080934-1.html

[Tom Lowe]

Companies like them, Good Guys, etc, need to switch their business model ASAP. How on earth are they going to compete with Walmart, Best Buy, and the Almighty Internet?

All the Comp USAs near me are closed down now.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yep, all the CompUSA stores in my area are long gone. I never understood that place... Poor selection considering how big the store was, terrible prices, terrible service...

Circuit City is kinda the same way. I have never been into a CC that I felt had a pleasant atmosphere. Terrible prices, poor selection, poor layout, depressing color scheme, sales vultures that work in the A/V, eletronics and appliance sections who work on commission or at least give that impression. Yuck.

[Craig Ryan]

Yeah the local Mervyns here, which has been here for as long as I can remember, is going out of business. Tough times for those big companies I guess.

[Ian Laurie]

Personally I have never liked any of the stores mentioned in this post. Every single one of them have employee's that have no idea what they are talking about running around and misinforming people. I will never forget the time i walked into a good guys looking for a cd player with an optical output, and got nothing but blank stares from every member of the staff. Eventually I ended up going through their inventory for them till i found one. I mean sure it was somewhat new at the time (we're talking 2001 here.so no excuse for anyone but my grandma) but seriously hire people who know the tech!

[Lexicon]

CompUSA died because their stores were in locations that competed heavily with Best Buy, especially once they got into the home electronics market. Circuit City is dying because they made poor business decisions and built many stores in urban areas that do not have the economic strength to justify having a store there and since many of those areas are high-crime, the property values are abysmal, which means little commercial investment. Back in the 80's when Circuit City had a huge expansion, they built their own stores on land they bought. Now they have to piggy-back on new or existing commercial developments in order to ensure revenue for their stores just like Best Buy does.

[Tom Lowe]

Speaking of clueless employees, has anyone ever been into a Ritz Camera and tried to ask any type of serious photography question? The employees usually look something like this: :blink: :huh: :unsure:

In terms of electronics stores, we have some huge, super awesome ones in So Cal called Frys. Amazing stores.

[Justin Kirchhoff]

Frys is one of the best electronics stores if you ask me. They constantly compete with Wal-Mart prices and they are friendly....If any reduser goes in there it may be days before we come out. Atleast that's true with me.

[Graeme Nattress]

You get rubbish advice from "decent" photography stores too - in one local one here, someone was after a new lens for portrait work and was told that fast lenses are only for sports shooting. Yup. Makes you wonder, eh? That said, go to a different branch and you'll get proper answers to your questions - it's very variable.

Graeme

[Lexicon]

I buy my gear wherever it's cheapest and not gray market but I definitely would never go into a shop these days and ask opinions since most of the places are on commission. I also won't buy from a big box because they usually have higher prices and less selection. One thing that does piss me off to no end is that ALL of the camera shops around here are all Canon/Nikon straight down the middle though some lean more towards Nikon. Granted, I (currently) shoot with Canon so I don't really have a gripe about the selection of Canon products available to me, it's just that I feel like I'm stuck with the same old stuff when it comes to buying cameras and lenses. What really attracts me to the RED products is that they aren't driven by the market but rather by innovation in design, performance, and functionality. Something which no DSLR maker has really ever practiced or exhibited to a great degree in many years. Sure RED is taking a bumpy road but they are (as Dr. Dre once said) stomping on the easiest streets that the others can walk on.