Circuit City Is No More...

[Lee]

It's a sad day for electronics shoppers: Circuit City, the second-largest retailer of consumer electronics, has announced it is forced to close all its remaining 567 U.S. stores and sell all its merchandise. The closing also leaves 34,000 Circuit City employees out of a job.

The company entered bankruptcy protection in November 2008, and needed a healthy shopping season-and an infusion of funds-in order to continue going. Neither happened, and today it filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Circuit City. Circuit City says it will begin a sale of its merchandise starting Saturday lasting through March 31.

While I'd been hoping that Circuit City could pull it out, in spite of the weak economy, I'd been on a Circuit City deathwatch now since last week's CES. There, I'd heard scuttlebutt from vendors saying that Circuit City only had money enough to last through January 15. If the company hadn't found a buyer, or a refinancing deal of some sort to keep it going, that would be the end of them. Today came the news that retailer had no more options, and it would be liquidating its remaining 567 U.S. stores (it closed 155 stores in November; no word yet on the fate of the 765 stores in Canada).

As a careful shopper, I lament Circuit City's passing for multiple reasons. Granted, I often found the chain's in-store selection lacking and haphazard. But, just as often, I found better deals-and better service--at Circuit than I did at Best Buy. Circuit never played fast with its pricing-the price online was the price in the store (my experiences with Best Buy's dual-pricing practices have frankly strongly prejudiced me against shopping there for most items).

A good shopper values choice, and Circuit City offered just that-a strong alternative to that other big box electronics retailer, Best Buy. Without Circuit in the mix, we consumers have one fewer option. And that one fewer option will likely translate into less competition. I won't be surprised to see Circuit City's death not only impact what electronics models we consumers have in-store access to, but also what prices we pay.

Circuit City will have plenty of company in the annals of consumer electronics sales. It joins the ranks of national chains like CompUSA, Computer City, and Egghead, and regional chains like Tweeter, The Wiz, and Incredible Universe-all of which are among the electronics chains that have died in the past two decades.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/15784...ng_stores.html

I must admit, i was never a fan of Circuit City, their stores always seemed to be dirty to me and the foot flow layout was just crazy, in our local store you had to walk the entire place before you even got to the PC equipment and once you got there, you had to walk all the way back to the front to find a member of staff to help with anything you needed.

I do kind of feel sorry for those kids who got given Circuit City gift cards for Christmas presents though.

Regards,

Lee

[Bec]

I've never liked Circuit City and avoided shopping there.

As to the gift cards, maybe they can funnel a bunch of stuff online for awhile.

[Rich]

I also do not like shopping at circuit city i never liked the staff at our branch and like what lee said the store always appears to be dusty and unclean.

[GL_Marc]

I feel bad for the people out of work, but I have both a Best Buy and Circuit City 1 mile away, and I hardly ever even went to Circuit City. On DVD release day, they would often either be sold out or never got in their exclusive items with hours after opening. And new video game releases were always the same thing, they never were on the shelf unless you asked. The store just always looked understocked. I rarely bought anything expensive there as the selection was much less than Best Buy up the street. The best thing they offered was the free shipping on-line for most items.

RIP Circuit City... hopefully you have some good clearance items before its all over for you!

[krunnch]

They had it coming to them after screwing their employees.

[msm]

I bought my HDTV from CC and got a fantastic price. Also just got a new digital camera from them a few weeks ago.

They were also the first major electronics store (not counting Amazon) to include user reviews on their website (BB copied this later) and these were really helpful in deciding what to buy.

I am very concerned that now I'll be paying more for electronics with only one major store chain left (BB). Of course, there is always Amazon.

Unlike the rest of you, the CC stores in my area were all clean, updated and nice. I'll miss them.

And 30,000 people out of work just like that... very sad.

[nickbaer]

I got a $350 PC laptop at 10% off at CC today.

Haven't had a PC with Windows in a year and a half.