Comments on: What Happened to Circuit City?

By: Karen Tiede

Karen Tiede — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:07:28 +0000

Late to the party here–this post appeared in a sidebar to a more recent one.

My own experience is that Circuit City didn’t want gray-haired money. I could walk from the front door all the way back to automotive (car stereo) and not have ONE sales person say anything to me. Funny, but I could walk all the way back to the door without saying anything to anyone, as well.

I can’t get 10 feet inside a Best Buy without some little Smurf asking me if he can help me find what I’m looking for. Seems they’re a bit more focused on the green than the gray.

WRT B3 and LnT–suspect my local B3 is a training store. It’s always full of 30ish men in ties, falling all over themselves to help. They don’t look like they’re working for associate’s wages… more like an assignment from HQ to learn merchandising from the floor. Still, it’s way better service than I ever saw at the LnT around the corner.

By: Kristian Mattias

Kristian Mattias — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:59:04 +0000

Hi – very good web site you have created. I enjoyed reading this posting. I did want to issue a comment to tell you that the design of this site is very aesthetically pleasing. I used to be a graphic designer, now I am a copy editor for a merchandising firm. I have always enjoyed working with computing machines and am trying to learn computer code in my spare time (which there is never enough of lol).

By: Eva

Eva — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:58:00 +0000

It really shows that accomplishments of the past are not a guarantee of success in the future.

My thoughts are that the recession was the last straw – the good companies are doing OK while the ones who have made big, fundamental mistakes (but otherwise would have survived them) are the ones in trouble.

For the record, I got my HDTV at Best Buy

By: Valerie M

Valerie M — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:02:00 +0000

@ Eva: Even if Circuit City made their prices more competitive, they would be able to get away with mediocre customer service (a la Walmart). If they had kept the high prices and improved their customer service, that might have worked too (like Apple did). But yes I agree, they are paying the price for their attitude.

@ Allie: Prices only came down at Circuit City because a) everyone else is cutting prices drastically whether they did everything right or not just to get people into the stores and b) Circuit City is going bankrupt and the fastest way to close stores and pay off debt is to get rid of inventory at rock bottom prices. Did Circuit City really learn its lesson? Only time will tell, if it ever gets another chance. I think the collapse of CC and LnT will probably give their competitors more business for a while until more competition pops up as the economy recovers.

By: Allie Klinger

Allie Klinger — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:21:00 +0000

Completely agreed on the causes for the downfall of Circuit City… but some interesting questions come to mind.
*Linens-N-Things suffered a collapse just months before Circuit City, similar causes?
*What do the collapse of organizations like Circuit City and LnT mean for their former competitors, Best Buy and Bed Bath & Beyond?

As someone who purchased a rather large TV from Circuit City (it was a couple hundred dollars cheaper than the same TV at Best Buy just up the road) in the past six months, I think prices were coming down and management was starting to see the error of their ways, but it was too little, too late. At what point is an organization unable to recover?