Circuit City Liquidation Prices = FAIL

[scayf]

If I recollect, CC will have all their stores closed by March.

Yup...USA Today says end of March.

[kenw]

Originally Posted by AlexMorse

Yeah, there's a store in Denton that's just a few months old too. What the hell?

most new stores will have been in the works for years, these aren't overnight creations. The way the tax laws are structured it makes sense to build new up until the last nail is in the coffin, and even uncompleted stores will be finished afterwards. Makes for wonderful neighborhoods....

[brad]

Pricing is driven by the cost of the item to retailer... and whether or not they can return it.

Case in point: CompUSA still selling Blu Ray players at near regular retail a few days before close: They probably could return them for full credit from the manufacturer... so why sell it to the public for less than that price?

Now.. if the retailer had pre-purchased all that merchandise (which is probably not the case with big box electronics especially), then they have nothing to lose by deep discounting in the last days before closing doors.

The other thing to note is that on most electronics (players, tvs, phones, PDAs, MP3 Players, etc), the markup is actually extremely small. A $399 retail device may cost the retailer $390. The retailer makes its money selling accessories and content.


Oh, and one last thing, in a LOT of cases where the store has pre-purchased their goods.. they have already made a deal with a liquidation house - which has promised a certain price level for those goods. So again, they won't drop the price to the public below that.

[Steelsun]

Originally Posted by tc95

then what I would say is the second and more prominent blow...was when they fired all there commission sales people...and went to a no-customer service attitude.....before that move I think they would have rebounded...but upper management decided that they could make a better profit if you take out the sales people...

The reason I stopped going to CC and went to BB instead was because of the Commissioned $alespeople - to me they were too pushy and like used car salesmen - they knew too little of what they were selling and lied through their teeth to sell it. Commissioning they way CC did it was a big mistake. When they ceased commissioning, I would go back occasionally (but usually only on sales where I knew they had a product I wanted for the best price). Often they just could not compete with BB, Wally world, Target, Frys, etc.

I think one of their biggest reasons for failing - they built up too fast in bad areas (did they not do any building placement research ahead of time? They seemed to build in areas with bad traffic flow). And their pricing & selection was nothing special.

Their biggest plus was their website - it was a great place to get reviews on products from customers - both positive and negative. It's helped me a hell of alot.

[toverman]

If I'm remembering correctly, Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in November to try to salvage the company ... reorganizing, closing some stores, looking for somebody to save them. Part of the plan was probably to pull out of areas that were struggling and put resources into stores in promising areas. That apparently didn't work, either.

Haven't shopped at a Circuit City in years. Last one I went into smelled like a sewer hole had opened up near the TVs.

[Stifled_1]

I purchased a Point-n-Shoot for my daughter to take with her on a trip for $119.xx, from Circuit City. glad I didn't purchase the extended warranty for $44.xx. I stop by today to see if the price had dropped, the price of the exact same camera was $149.xx minus 10%. Best Buy price for the same camera is $129.xx. That is sad.

When I was leaving the store, their was this couple running from the parking lot to get into Circuit City. They ran out in front of a car, car almost hit them. Now that crazy. They are going to pretty upset once they discover that they risk their lives for nothing.

[zeroendless]

liquidation sale = scam at its best. The close downs are usually handled by "con" liquidator firm, jacking up more than twice the selling price then stamp a whopping 30% off, final and no return sale. Most of the stuffs are much cheaper online and carry a full customer satisfactory. You have to put a gun on my head to drag me in one of those places. it's a freaking joke.

[Wes]

Personally, I think they jack prices up a bit before they discount them. For example, when before the initial round of store closings I had priced a particular Blu Ray movie at $24.99. When the store was closing all movies were 20% off, and the movie I had priced out earlier at $24.99 was now $29.99 (before the discount).

Yup - liquidation sales tend to be a bit of a scam.

[PhotoPunk]

This explains everything with Linens-N-Things & Circuit City...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMiBVlXctM8

[PhotoPunk]

Originally Posted by PhotoPunk

This explains everything with Linens-N-Things & Circuit City...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMiBVlXctM8

.