Circuit City to close 155 U.S. stores

[Dr.Phool]

Source: MSNBC

Circuit City to close 155 U.S. stores
A bid to regain profitability; thousands will be laid off

BREAKING NEWS
updated 1 hour, 14 minutes ago

RICHMOND, Va. - Circuit City Stores Inc. said Monday it is pulling the plug on about 20 percent of its U.S. stores in an effort to return the nation’s No. 2 consumer electronics retailer to profitability.

The Richmond, Va.-based company said it will shutter 155 of its more than 700 stores in 55 markets, including Phoenix and Atlanta, by Dec. 31, laying off about 17 percent of its domestic work force. Circuit City also said it will further reduce new store openings and plans to work with landlords to renegotiate leases, lower rent or terminate agreements.

The company said it expects the stores it is shuttering, which generated about $1.4 billion in net sales in fiscal 2008, will not open on Tuesday and store closing sales will begin on Wednesday.
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Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27515440/

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This season, I wouldn't buy any gift cards or extended warranties there.

[rocktivity]

1. Wish I could feel sorry for them

but by bragging that they were bringing in less qualified personnel, they http://journals.democraticunderground.com/rocknation/237">brought it on themselves.

:headbang:
rocknation

[NeoConsSuck]

24. Not to mention

they were one of the advertisers for the Swift Boaters TV special.

[Purveyor]

2. Was't it Circuit City that 'brilliantly' fired all of its experienced, knowledgable commissioned

sales staff and replaced them with minimum wage newbies?

The 'seasoned employees' were costing CC to much money they said.

Wonder how much this factored in their poor sales results?

[Yes We Did]

5. Yes... And of course the new employess don't know anything...

including what they actually sell, how anything works, or when anything comes in.

Love when stores do shit like that.

[ellisD]

12. Thats pretty much true of most electronics store employees

like the clueless minimum wage wastes at Best Buy.. they told my friend it was impossible to use S-Video from a laptop to a tv! The guy refused to tell him where to find the cables, just kept trying to sell him a $4000 home theatre setup..

and the Geek Squad? My Aunt's laptop hard drive was going out, so she took it in to recover her files.. took the guy 30 minutes to figure out how to open it up, then took the drive out and disappeared for 5 minutes, only to come back and said the drive was toast, but he could refer her to data recovery specialist that would run about $400/hour! After he put it back together, the laptop no longer even powered up!

I managed to recover ALL 22gb of her files the first time I tried, with just a USB external case, no recovery software needed. Oh and the reason it stopped powering up after G.S.? the dumbass mashed the side panel ribbon cable into the board sideways and it wasn't making contact.

so yeah basically he didn't even ATTEMPT to fix her laptop, instead WORSENING its condition and then proceeding to try to sell her to replace with this weeks special $1300 laptop (which would probably be about $800 on sale at Frys!!)

I gave up on Circuit City and Best Buy long ago...

[jmowreader]

21. Wait till you get one who knows what he's doing...

I had to buy a new Mac because my old one died, and the only place in town to get one is Worst Buy. I got a clerk who was Apple Certified. I told the dude I would buy the machine (a white MacBook) if I could plug an external VGA monitor into it. (Simple answer: yes, you pay $20 for this little adapter and it works fine.) The guy started going into this 20-minute spiel about how wonderful Apples are and how I will love using them so much...after about two minutes of it I stopped him: "Sir, I have been a Macintosh user continuously since 1987. Go get one and sell it to me, right away."

Strangely enough, once I got the canned sales spiel stopped the associate turned out to be actually knowledgeable about what he was selling. "You use this RAM, if you want to upgrade the hard drive you use this, if you get an external case for the SATA hard drive in your current tower you can use it as a backup drive..."

[ellisD]

23. doubtful

seeing as how I refuse to shop there anymore... I'm sure there are many knowledgeable BB sales reps out there, but when a company pays at or barely above minimum wage, they aren't going to get a lot of "experts" as they would like their uninformed customers to think... and everyone I personally know who has dealt with the geek squad has some horror story to tell about their experiences, I would never let them anywhere near one of my computers!

but its not just the sales staff, its their prices... I went in about 2 months ago because my friend had a gift card...RCA cables were $23! no not special gold plated or extra long, just the basic 10' cord which would be $10 or less at most other stores... even the candy by the register that's usually around a buck was like $2.39

[guruoo]

15. Sears did this in the earily 90's and it accelerated their decline

[aquart]

16. Well, I haven't set foot in them since then.

And they're reasonably nearby. I was in there fairly often. Bought a VCR there. After the firings, they didn't exist for me.

[ACTION BASTARD]

18. Yes , and on that day I never set foot inside another CC again.

Glad to see a LOT of us took the same step.

[MagicKenny]

3. Surprising...Considering How Organized and Well Run Their DVD Section Is...

...(after reading, please wash hands as my subject line is dripping in sarcasm.)

[Amerigo Vespucci]

11. And the irony is that two or three years ago, that would have been an accurate statement

I used to buy DVDs at Circuit City on a regular basis. The one closest to my home kept the DVDs regularly stocked. They were consistently well organized, whether in terms of being in the correct section or alphabetically arranged. The average sticker price was lower than many other stores.

For a number of reasons, it's been about a year and a half since I set foot in a Circuit City. I went in last week and thought "What the hell happened here?"

Maybe half the stock, reminiscent of some of the shopping scenes in "28 Days Later" and "Land of the Dead."

:patriot:

[DemoTex]

4. Circuit City: The Home Depot of electronics stores ..

Can Home Depot be far behind?

[guruoo]

14. Each has lost their identity, and have failed to adapt to a changing marketplace...

Circuit City, CompUSA, Sears, Home Depot, etc.

And, IMO, autozone is another big one that will soon
find themselves struggling if they fail to change their ways.

[ngant17]

25. Home Depot is Repug / Lowes is Dem

according to Buy Blue website

[onager]

6. Anybody else getting their begging emails?

I'm in Egypt, for Crom's sake. And I get some kind of CC email glurge almost every day.

[Akoto]

7. I am unsurprised.

The fact that they fired their veteran employees in favor of cheaper replacements was reason enough to never shop there again.

Even before that, their merchandise was overpriced and the selection poor. I was usually able to find the same things at a more reasonable cost online or at other stores.

[Joanne98]

8. I can't believe they haven't been taken over by another company yet.

[blue_onyx]

9. The rest of their stores probably won't be far behind.

Mervyns and Linen n Things both were only closing a few stores before they decided to shut down completely. If the Christmas shopping season goes badly, I could see a few more stores join Circuit City in closing at least some stores.

[Romulox]

10. Good riddance. nt

[OhioChick]

13. I feel for the workers...

K&R

[TwixVoy]

27. Don't be

they are getting out of a bad relationship. Any company that will mass fire it's long time employees and then re-hire them at min wage is a bad employer to work for. I am sure they have also been treated badly.

[Greyskye]

17. I wonder if the store they opened here a couple months ago will close?

Damn fine planning there, guys. :eyes:

[ACTION BASTARD]

19. Hee-hee. They were getting ready to open 1 in the Bronx

not too long ago. I don't even care enough to see if it even opened up.

[Selatius]

20. They're failing because of SHITTY CUSTOMER HELP/WARRANTY POLICIES.

Closing stores all over the place won't change bad corporate policies at the home office.

[eilen]

22. We had a nightmare dealing with them on a

laptop that shit the bed after only 3 months. We ended up getting a replacement 2 months after they sent it out. It took much phone time (3x a week for 4 weeks) till the replacement was shipped and that one just blew it's motherboard-- not even a year. Of course we were told the warranty and protection policy we purchased would not apply to this one. Scabby lowlifes.

[fasttense]

26. And how much did their CEO make last year running the company into the ground?

But the dancing supremes wont let stockholder hold the corporations accountable.

[slackmaster]

28. Circuit City sucks ass, and I don't feel sorry for the people who work there

Too many of them have treated me badly.