Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Circuit City Closing 155 Stores

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Community » Film-Yak » Circuit City Closing 155 Stores (Page 6)

This topic comprises 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Author

Topic: Circuit City Closing 155 Stores

Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 01-16-2009 08:16 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I owned a Kia Sportage for quite a few years and it was a great little SUV.... great 4WD too! Ya couldn't stop the thing no matter what. However, I wouldn't ever consider a Korean Car ever again for any reason.

, did I miss something? Anything happened with Hyundai or Daewoo or koreans in general I didn't catch?

| IP: Logged

Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 01-16-2009 08:25 PM

(Mark likes his LR too well now....)

Got a friend over in Seoul for the AirForce and even with 22mil people in that town, he feels more safer in that town than being back home in this area... and he drives a Daewoo Prince and a Harley.

Chevy Aveos are a captive import made by Daewoo..

(sorry to drift this more off-topic but do agree abut Circuit City - it seems that their customer PR was never the greatest - there were far better places to get your wares at .. but not at BestBuy ...lol)

-Monte

| IP: Logged

Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God

Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004

posted 01-17-2009 01:37 AM

News tonite announced that ALL CC stores will be closed by April. Liquidation sales are starting as early as tomorrow.....

| IP: Logged

Mike Heenan
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1896
From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 01-17-2009 02:00 AM

I stopped in a local one a month or two ago during the 60-70% discount range, and the DVDs were still more expensive than they were on amazon. Sadly that was about all that was left.

| IP: Logged

Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 01-17-2009 10:35 AM

quote: James Westbrook
A GRAN Torino?

No, mine was just a regular Torino, which weren't as common. The Gran Torino had a rounder grill and front-end design, with ranch-type stylings, while mine was a muscle/sports car.

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 01-17-2009 12:22 PM

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
News tonite announced that ALL CC stores will be closed by April. Liquidation sales are starting as early as tomorrow.....

Add another 30,000 people to the unemployment stats.

Thankfully, a third party company maintains the extended warranties on products sold by Circuit City. Of course, most people choose not to spend a bunch of money betting against the product they're buying in the first place.

| IP: Logged

Bill Enos
Film God

Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 01-17-2009 08:09 PM

Local news here says all CC stores will be closed no later than March 31. Only 300 or so employees left here in combined corp offices and stores. A while back the newspaper interviewed one of the past CEOs (there are quite a few) about what CCs worst mistakes were--not in any particular order--he admitted that DIVX cost them more than $200 million, dropped major appliances, sold their in house financing arm, spun off CarMax, remodeled stores several times in a short time, failed to recognize Best Buy as a formidable competitor in time, kept their high pressure commissioned sales staff too long. There were more.

| IP: Logged

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-17-2009 08:54 PM

I would guess that Circuit City's biggest problem is not being Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart has already trashed small-town American business, it only follows that bigger fish will now be fried. Enjoy those low prices, folks!

| IP: Logged

David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 01-17-2009 09:15 PM

quote: Bill Enos
kept their high pressure commissioned sales staff too long

He must have misspoken. I'm sure he meant to say "Waited too long to fire our most senior and knowledgeable sales staff and replace them with junior nitwits".

| IP: Logged

Bill Enos
Film God

Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 01-17-2009 10:07 PM

Best Buy's success would indicate that most customers apparently want order takers without excess product knowledge. CCs commissioned sales people would stay on your heels, moving when you moved, very annoying and you couldn't get rid of them. The only way to avoid them was to keep moving, if you paused to look at something at least 3 of them would jump you.

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 01-18-2009 01:24 AM

I don't think it is as simple as blaming Wal-Mart for the death of CC, although it certainly was at least a factor.

From a personal example, Wal-Mart NEVER sold the kind of HDTV I bought. Wal-Mart tends to sell cheaper, entry level HDTV sets. Not HDTV models costing $3000 at discount or $4500 list price. Wal-Mart doesn't stock a lot of PS3 consoles either -they sure never stocked a lot of the 80GB models like the one I purchased (although to be fair, I did see a few 80GB Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle packages and a few 160GB PS3 systems recently).

Circuit City sold more high end products. Even more than Best Buy did. I bought my Sony Bravia XBR4 52" TV from Circuit City only because their location in Wichita Falls, TX had that kind of TV in stock while Best Buy expected me to wait for weeks for them to get one into their location. Same goes for the 80GB PS3. The problem with CC is they didn't leverage their higher end focus properly. A store like Ultimate Electronics is better geared for that. People go into stores of that chain expecting to find really high end items. CC carried some of the same kinds of gear, but with a more mid-range sort of kind of focus. CC didn't clearly know which segment of the market they were trying to reach. So they ended up losing out completely across the board.

| IP: Logged

Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 01-19-2009 10:12 AM

One thing I never liked about Circuit City is that if you saw a good item on sale cheap in their ad in the Sunday paper and went down to the store to buy it, the first thing they'd try to do is to talk you into buying something else.

Not exactly "bait and switch" but they did put a lotta pressure on you to change your mind.

In the end, whenever I saw something at C-City I wanted to buy, I'd do a little research on the product and if I decided to purchase it I'd do so online through Circuit City's website and then just go down to the store to pick it up about an hour later. That way I never had to deal with the salespeople since the pickup was at a loading dock.

One of my friends worked there for a short time. Said it "really sucked" as a place to work.

| IP: Logged

Bill Enos
Film God

Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 01-19-2009 02:05 PM

Wal Mart and Best Buy did not kill Circuit City. CC committed suicide by drifting away from its long established core business and products and thus gave the competitors an edge.

I've known a couple of people who worked in the CC corp. office and both said they were very oppressive. Speaking to a co worker about non company business at other than a break or lunch would get you called on the carpet.

| IP: Logged

Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 01-19-2009 02:12 PM

Got too complacent, it looks like. They weren't planning on what the future would hold for them.

Seen many businesses do that - get too comfortable in their operations and not taking advantage in seeking out new avenues to grow into..to stay alive.

Or, a business buys another business that is a debt hog anyway and have ideas in turing that debt hog into gold, but fails at the attempt both go under real quick.

And then, these businesses blame the 'big box' stores for their demise..

-Monte

| IP: Logged

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-19-2009 05:55 PM

quote: Jim Cassedy
One thing I never liked about Circuit City is that if you saw a good item on sale cheap in their ad in the Sunday paper and went down to the store to buy it, the first thing they'd try to do is to talk you into buying something else.

They were never that way here in Salt Lake City. What they did try to ram down your throat in this neck of the woods was the service contract. Now that CC is gone it'll be fun to watch the local BB's raise their margins... and probably by quite a bit.

Mark

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.