Circuit City considering shutting stores to avoid bankruptcy
By Donald Melanson 
posted October 20th 2008 12:19PM
posted October 20th 2008 12:19PM
It's made it through some tough times in the past (the other DIVX, anyone?), but it looks like Circuit City is now really up against the wall, and it's apparently considering some rather drastic measures to avoid becoming the largest retailer to enter bankruptcy protection in recent years. According to The Wall Street Journal, "people familiar with the company" say that Circuit City is contemplating closing at least 150 stores and making the associated high number of job cuts in order to get itself in a better position to shore up some much needed financing, which it has been unable to secure so far. To put things in a bit of perspective, before it packed up and went home, Blockbuster offered to buy Circuit City in February of this year for $6 to $8 a share. The company's share value as of this writing? 40 cents.[Via MarketWatch]
good thing i work for future shop
I knew from my employers at Staples in late 2006 that Circuit City was just a few years away from claiming bankruptcy....huge surprise here :P
Shame really, i know they've been in trouble and such...
As for the quality of employees, Circuit City is actually pretty ok around here, all our stores have a high number of idiots servicing customers
My complaints would more or less relate to their restocking fee and their way of telling if something was opened, i bought a digital camera online from CC.com, had it delivered, but before it was delivered read some fairly negative reviews about it, so as soon as i got it out of the shipping box i took it right to the store, They alleged it was "open" [The digital camera box was NOT sealed] and that they were going to shaft me with a 15% restocking fee on a completely unopened product unless i bought a higher priced item [Which ok, yes I was more exchanging this camera for another..and it happened to be more expensive as it was] But still, there was no way to definitively tell it was open! even when the clerk opened the box the manuals were all sealed, the camera was sealed inside of its protective foam and everything else...He was also a rude %&&hole about it too
Their checkout lines are indeed dreadfully slow sometimes as well! But at least you don't have that Nazi overseer [A la Best Buy, the best analogy for that crap is a Nazi overseer of a Concentration Camp]
The only thing I hate is that as of right now, if something bad happens to my computer, im pretty SOL, since CompUSA went under it has left me with no local way to repair myself in a hurry [Not to mention to get stupid minor things, like a eSATA bracket, or some screws/washers, you know those little things that are sure to crop up because of Murphy's Law]
And I do not like the thought of Best Buy sitting there with the entire market to themselves.....
Around here we have a fairly large local chain as well, but I do not do business for them, their salespeople are very knowledgeable, but a bit arrogant and cocky [They remind me more of a used car salesman than the type of person i want to deal with when im going electronics shopping] Their prices are competitive, but their selection is just TVs, and the type of customers they most want to deal with are the elderly folks who they can steer into whatever nets them the big bonuses, They also feel that DLP and Plasma are dinosaurs and pretty much stock -only- LCD except for a couple Plasma sets [Which makes me irritated, Id rather have Plasma]
Last time i even went there the salesguy wasnt even interested in helping me unless i wanted a 1080p set [This was 2 years ago, when 1080p added a BIG chunk to the pricetag of a TV set, and I was looking for a 50" tv in the $1500-1800 range, which limited me to 720p, the 1080p set with the same specs would be in the $2300 range] and instead I actually went to Circuit City and basically stole the TV I want due to a mistake on their website [I got a 50" 720p Samsung DLP for $1300, at the time that was a $1800 TV set] And the guy there was quite nice and knowledgeable [And i bought more stuff from him, including the service contract, because he was a very knowledgeable guy and helped me so excellently]
I've never been opposed to spending more if i get great service, Thats why I still shop at local camera stores as opposed to buying my lenses and such online [Also since most of the stores online still charge me sales tax, plus shipping, and the fact you dont save much a lot of the time in the first place] Additionally, its very nice to hold that $800 piece of glass in your hands and feel how it balances on your camera specifically, and even have the ability to take a few test pictures to evaluate that lens specifically..
And for TVs and most electronics, I still feel the best evaluation is your eyes, and for speakers, your ears.....
Really? A nazi overseer? You're right, an electronics retailer is EXACTLY the same thing as someone who oversaw the persecution and innocent genocide of millions of people.
Good call!
If you feel the need to write a fucking novel... publish a book.
Interesting news. In my area, the "original" CC is across the street from a Best Buy (which was a stone's throw away from an old CompUSA), a new CC about 25min down the interstate from that "original", and they are building another CC about 15min from the "original" CC. So, that's 3 CC's within 14 miles of me. Does CC need that many stores within that small a radius? I see some money wasted right there...
I'm not complaining, though. With 3 CC's and 2 BestBuy's within 14mi of me, Black Friday is going to be fun :-D.
good riddance.
now if only BeastBye would go away too.
No kidding. These stores have been ripping people off for years. It's just too bad that the real losers are all their employees below management. Those in the higher ranks have been raking it in.
On an aside: I'm so sick of companies turning down buy offers w/ "we're totally worth more than that...". I don't want monopolies any more than anyone else, but once the bottom drops it is a short ride & then everyone suffers.
Circuit City shareholders should sue the company for rejecting Blockbuster's offer.
they should also be smacking themselves for investing in circuit city.
I love CC. this is bad news :(
I was at Circuit City yesterday... I was looking for The Simpsons on DVD - early seasons were selling for $40, despite being $20 at every other store.
I pretty much buy exclusively at best buy or amazon because of reward zone, or because amazon pricing is best. For most CC sales, I can PM at best buy.
Good riddance.
I hope they die a fiery death too.
Funny how people like to defend where they work I will put it bluntly they both suck to work for period....
I Have worked for Best Buy (geek squad) and Circuit City (Firedog) and I can tell you as a company whole Circuit City is the worse I give best buy a one up by a little bit because they will actually pay their employees a decent salary. Heres the problem and they are both notorious for it you buy a computer you need a 40 dollar tune up (100% profit for them) and what ever they feel like they have to offer you so they can get a decent raise come review time, on both sides as well neither tech bench hires qualified people at all the 2 or so that are are the highest paid ones that get shoveled all the work and threatened with their jobs on a daily basis personally I hate going to retail electronic stores to buy anything because they will ask you 50 times if you want to buy their overpriced cables or extended warranty that you have to call for 3 months in a row to get replaced...the reason why circuit city is going down because they have a huge employee turnover that they just could not control they treated their employees like crap and in turn the employees (i.e. part/full time and managers) told customers to pretty much to go screw themselves. For anyone that still works at Circuit if I were you don't believe the bs they are feeding you they have done huge layoffs in the past and it's not worth it find a job fast before you get screwed....
And the award for the longest run-on sentence goes to...
0.38 down -0.01 -3.41%
GEE EFF GEE
I bought an item there three months ago and it was dirty and very dark, as if they couldn't pay their electric bill. Their cash registers were like twenty years old and all of the employees had frowns on their faces. I felt dirty by the time I got out of there.
Good riddance. CC sucks ass.
I've heard from more than a few people, if CC has a non-profitable weekend after Thanksgiving, we may see stores start the closing process before Christmas via a liquidator.
Usually these employees are lucky, when the whole company closes its doors (it will happen), those employees get nothing when compared to those in the first round since the liquidator buys the company and not just individual stores.
CC needs to do something extreme, like open at 6PM thanksgiving day and have hourly sales for limited qty items for 30 hours. Imagine 30 pages of hourly specials, limited to 5 per item on that page for large ticket items, 20 for cheaper stuff. Then a seperate ad inserted in the bigger one for stuff on sale for the whole 30 hours, People would spend all day there. They would need to setup 5 seperate lines outside and someone to guide customers to the right line depending on what hour of sale they want to stand in line for.
They also need to make the ads available in store on Tuesday for pickup and online, having Sundays ad say that on every page.
Its the Alamo for them right now.
@ Prokanda
Sorry, but that comment you made about Egghead turning into Newegg is incorrect - although it is a common misconception.
Egghead software closed up their retail stores and went online only in 1998. They filed for bankruptcy and was eventually acquired by Amazon.
Newegg was founded in 2001 as a subsidiary of ABS Computer Technologies. The company’s name derives from a Chinese belief that a new egg symbolizes a new beginning. It was founded in 2001 just as the dust was settling from the first e-tailing boom and bust.
They are two completely unrelated companies.
We NEED CC just to keep BB semi honest, otherwise the only stores will be officemax.office depot or walmart.
I agree that CC needs a major overhaul, when I worked there for a christmas I was the ONLY one in the computer dept that HAD a computer, everyone else had consoles, though we DID have an excellent MAC guy
The only thing we were really graded on were the damn warranties $10W on a $5 mouse REALLY (guess who flunked that).
That plus employees get a WHOPPING %10 off, so just no sales tax, that's a way to keep people spending their paychecks at your own store.
Having a POS in each area makes a certain sense, but it also means it is less likely for the customer to keep looking around after they come in for a certain item (it makes sense for cellphones since they get setup there and are a pain in the ass)
The thing is MOST people use the physical stores for things like TV's Computer, cameras, and other large ticket items.
The next TV I get will probably be from a store if they can come close to the price, just on the CHANCE if it breaks I can take it back,
Netbook-online,Camera PROBABLY online.
LCD-computer screen tossup (depends on ratings/price)
Consumers do need more competent electronics retailers to compete with giants like Best Buy, but Circuit City is pretty horrible. I've had pretty bad experiences as a customer and an employee through them.
I really can't fathom how Circuit City remains in business.
-Their prices aren't necessarily competitive
-Items they advertise can't always be found in stores.
-If you order an item they advertise, they're not good about contacting you when the item arrives. On several occasions items I've ordered were mistakenly stocked and sold, without ever having contacted me.
-They have a lot of employees, but almost no one ever to help you, unless you're in the TV section in which case they won't stop bothering you.
-They are probably the worst at stocking items on the day of release
-They almost never have anyone operating the check-out isles. I almost always have to use customer service for any purchase.
-They're not good about labeling prices on all items.
-Their selection is poor compared to the competition
It's shame, because this wasn't always the case. I just believe they've been on a steady decline downhill.
Up here in Canada we have The Source by Circuit City... they are basically old Radio Shacks, which are tiny stores with hardly anything.
They can close half of The Source stores up here and nobody would probably even notice.
Good Riddance!
I also worked for both ccity and bestbuy and ccity is just messed up by far a management. I was a product flow specialist loading tvs and stuff and they wanted us to sell like a sell associate too. Stupid and the management is so stupid they don't know how to schedule a person to b on the register they just wait until their short on help and grab a sales associate. And I was paid horribly low wages. But I quit and in about 2 weeks I was about to go back and buy a laptop just to show off but I bought a macbook from bestbuy instead.
I really hope they compeltely get wiped off the face of the earth. I have nothing BUT problems with every aspect of Circuit City. From their employees, to prices, to warranties, and customer service.
Well, Circuit City is opening up in my neighborhood in the next few months!
Let em go under.
Its what they deserve for having employees that dont want to help you. They dont even want to make eye contact.
Bye bye CC.
Go Amazon!
It is their own fault, they kept their locations in suburban areas instead of opening locations within marketable cities like Chicago, New York. bestbuy took an advantage of it and circuit city did not.
@Prokanda
Do you know your competitor at all? Apprently you are a rookie in the retail world and have no idea what CC policy is. Has it ever crossed your small mind to walk into one and actually "shop" them? Or is that out of your league " where you're from?" You need to look a little deeper before making false allegations. If you know what that word means.
Do not buy anything at Circuit City that offers a rebate, because you may never get the rebate. Almost two years ago, I bought SanDisk CompactFlash memory cards with a rebate of $25 each for a total of $150. I followed instructions and even called several times, but I never got the rebates. The people who answer the phones, if you can get someone to answer (only part of the time do they answer), were no help as they have a script they follow and may be in Buenos Aries, Argentina. I also had to go to three stores to get the memory cards. I bought them online, but had to pick them up, and one store did NOT have the items, so they had to refund my money and I had to go to another store farther out. Thanks for reading this.