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.

Page Link | Comments (2) | Jan 17, 2009

Just the fax.

Posted by terri | Filed under miscellany

A big real world dilemma was coupled with the smaller dilemma of needing to fax something. My iBook has faxing capabilities and I have that cursed land line that I’m paying for month after month…but oh wait, I need to scan the document first. Not having a working scanner in the house, I figured I’d have to go someplace to get it faxed. I inquired with FedEx Kinko’s only to get a case of verbal sticker shock when the guy over the phone told me that it would cost $1.49 per page to get it faxed locally. That’s all well and good, except if you have 14 pages to fax plus a cover sheet. I’ll spare you from the doing the math; it would have costed me $20.86.

Seeing as I needed a printer as well anyway, I decided to go ahead and buy an all-in-one printer / scanner / copier from some nearby store. I figure that $20+ should be used toward something tangible that would do the same job. My first thought was, “Wow, I wish CompUSA was still around.” I ultimately decided to try out Costco, thinking that I needn’t be terribly picky, and that I would get the best value. The funny thing was that when I got there, I came to the rationale that I should get a good PSC and I had a coupon to save $110 on a good one at Costco…and I left it at home!! So after all that, I finally spent $160 (it was a deal) and some gas from my tank to drive back home to get the coupon and to buy it at Costco.

I ended up getting the HP Photosmart C7250, a printer / scanner / copier / fax. It’s fairly noisy, but I guess it makes up in function. I also like the fact that it’s wireless because I have no room near my computer for the printer and I would like the option to print from both of my computers. So it’s quite good. I would have loved to have a color laser, but I can’t complain.

My New HP C7250
My New HP C7250

I hope I’ll make good use of it down the road.

Page Link | Comments (0) | May 25, 2008