Circuit City has gone Chapter 11 -- and my reaction was, "What took it so long?" Its closest rival, Good Guys, is gone; and most of the CC's that used to be near us (on Sepulveda at National, and on Westwood at Wilshire) have disappeared. CC kept itself on life support for awhile, possibly by selling some DVDs and CDs along with the electronic stuff; but it probably couldn't compete in that arena with the big box Best Buy behemoths.
I used to go to CC to buy electronic stuff, because that was where you bought such stuff. Then I went there because you could haggle sometimes and get discounts. Then I went there to check out stuff in person and then find it on the Internet for less. Then I stopped going in there at all.
Mark Evanier has a good notion of what went wrong at Circuit City: Bad service. Specifically, sales people who know less about the items they're selling than the customers. Folks will go to a store for either low prices or superior service. They won't go to a store with higher prices than they can find online, and cruddy service (unless, say, it's 4 pm on Christmas Eve and there's an empty stocking).
As the retail market gets nastier, the weaker members of the herd are going to be dying off . . . .
1 comment:
My friends in SB are frustrated since they have been left w/out a store that serves this market, with CC and CompUSA both gone, but I've hated CC for a long time for the exact reason stated. Horrific service. I got tired of arrogant jerks making me beg for the privilege of having my item rung up. Easier to order online from Newegg.
Post a Comment