Another One Bites the Dust.

Posted by terri | Filed under miscellany

Over a year after CompUSA shut down, it’s practically dejavu — another big box electronics retailer has bit the dust. Yesterday, Circuit City announced that it was going out of business and liquidating all its assets. As early as the following morning after this announcement, liquidation of all its 550+ locations began, including Hawaii’s only location at Pearlridge center.

Out of curiosity, I decided to check out Circuit City after work. Looking throughout the store, it appeared that everything was at least 10% off, with CDs and DVDs at about 20% off. Considering Circuit City’s regular prices, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. There might have been some pretty good deals at the beginning of the day but with a line of people waiting since the crack of morning, it’s likely it was long gone by the time I got there at around 5PM.


Circuit City Liquidiation Pearlridge

Sure, I was thinking that maybe I could find something at a good price, but what I really wanted to see was the type of crowd it would draw. I was thinking that no matter how crappy people say our economy is, there will be people willing to spend money on discretionary items if it’s on sale and as long as their credit card can take it. And sure enough, the liquidation event attracted quite a crowd. There were lines of people throughout the store with armfuls of items that they probably didn’t really need, particularly video games and DVDs. It was mostly amusing watching people react to what they saw in the store. Some people were just grabbing all sorts of titles despite the fact that the prices weren’t any lower than you would find them online.

Did I end up getting anything? I thought about a couple of things I could get like a second PS2 controller or another SD card for my Rebel XSi. However, when I did the math, I realized that I could get those things cheaper online or that the savings of a couple of bucks was not worth a 30 min to 1 hour wait in line. That being said, it certainly can’t be a surprise that Circuit City is going out of business just like CompUSA did; no one wants to pay the added on costs that come with items that are sold through big box retailers.

Major kudos to the people working at Circuit City today. I can imagine how tough it was for them to come into work, but a lot of them carried on professionally, and some of them in the face of horrible, demanding customers. My sympathies to those who lost their jobs…

2009 is off to its expected sucky start for a lot of of us, but at least we can hold on to hope for change.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Jan 17, 2009

2 Responses to “Another One Bites the Dust.”

  1. BK Says:
    January 18th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    Cool post. I may check it out as the liquidation progresses into the crazy discount phase, and indeed, my heart goes out those losing their jobs. Technically though, Circuit City hasn’t completely bit the dust. They’re not closing their Canadian franchise and the online store intends to hold on for a little longer. Scary what may happen at bestbuy as they’ll be the sole big box electronic retailer left. Do they jack up their prices? :/.

  2. Liberty Says:
    February 12th, 2009 at 8:52 pm

    My heart also goes out to the folks at Circuit City. The thing that’s always bugged me about how some people behave when a store is closing is their seeming lack of regard toward the employees. Why should customers during a liquidation blowout be demanding as they are? Where were they when Circuit City was doing just fine? I guess especially in a tough economy like the one we’re in now, people will jump at every good deal, but in a tough economy, people are also losing their jobs. At the very least, customers could show some sympathy toward the employees.

Leave a Reply