Circuit City Stores Inc. (OTC: CCTYQ) continues to negotiate with potential buyers who the company says want to continue operating the second-largest electronics retailer. I will believe it when I see it.The retailer has gotten its butt kicked by Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY) for years. Its penny-pinching ways has resulted in lousy service because the company was too cheap to pay experienced sales help. Moreover, this is a bad time to sell electronic gadgets and gizmos that are the very definition of discretionary spending. Retail sales have dropped for six straight months.
Anyone hoping a white knight will rescue Circuit City, which has more than $2.3 billion in liabilities, is going to be surely disappointed. The bankruptcy spooked real estate companies with mall holdings that rent to Circuit City and other chains.
Whatever interest there is in the chain is likely from liquidators and real estate investors. Even these buyers are going to drive a hard bargain because of the distressing number of chains in the same situation such as Linen's 'n Things and KB Toys Inc.











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-16-2009 @ 8:14AM
prncess321 said...
Great article Jonathan Berr. Where did you go to school at? Community College. Circuit City has been restructuring itself since they forced the CEO to leave last year that had caused the company to lose business. Plus, if you haven't read this yet, we are in a recession, and most companies have been having sales drop for the last six months. Please go back to college and major in something else like children's books!! Circuit City is the 2nd largest electronics company. Anyone would be smart to buy now when the times are down...they will return. We need CC to survive to have competition against BB in the future, or we all will pay!
1-17-2009 @ 11:44AM
Karen said...
What kind of heartless JERK would write something like this? Over 35,000 people are depending on this company to succeed. Those 35,000 people are the employees of CC. I can bet many of them have families who depend on them! Of course sales have dropped, but we can't target this one store. We are going through hard times right now, sales are dropping in all areas, not just electronics. And lousy service?? I don't know what CC store you've been into lately, but I would most deffinitely trust those in CC with my electronics more then I would BB. I suggest the "author" of this article gets his head out of his a** and gives up writing.
1-16-2009 @ 1:13PM
lillymulan said...
As a former CC employee i can tell you that this company has been failing for a long time. I was one of the 3400 people laid off in '07 and it really did not come as a surprise. I had already survived three other mass layoffs that do not make it into these blogs very often. This is one closeing that cannot be blamed on the economy but on many years of very bad decisions. i feel bad for those who are still there.... but we all saw this coming
1-16-2009 @ 2:36PM
TX CHL Instructor said...
As already updated in another post, Circuit City is now defunct. I won't miss them, or their management's contempt for anybody over 50. After that little fiasco with laying off anybody who had a reasonable amount of experience on the sales floor, I'm surprised that it took them so long to auger in.
1-16-2009 @ 2:42PM
ReVeLaTeD said...
Here's the thing.
If I had the money, I would absolutely buy Circuit City in a New York minute. It's a gold mine that people don't even realize. Its fatal flaw - besides piss poor management - is that it tried too hard to be everything to everybody instead of perfecting the fine art of retail.
1: Not enough checkout lanes. Sure you could check out at spotted cash registers throughout the store, but that's not efficient. Upfront was a nightmare.
2: Laying off the experienced sales reps in favor of newbies was a blatant mistake on their part.
3: Poor store planning. Having a bunch of TVs show a spotty broadcast of some internal Circuit City advertisements while one lone LCD is pumping out a Blu-ray of Planet Earth is not smart business. Computers that are pathetic compared to the competition. A car audio 'department' that is little more than a corner of the store and no real selection.
4: Poor credit management. I'm talking consumer credit. They offered a store card and a Visa card, yet they want people with nearly perfect credit to get either card. Yet a person who has over $10,000 in Visa and Mastercard credit can't get a measly $500 Circuit City store card because of "too new credit"? You guys were hurting for business, the last thing you should have been doing is turning potential spending customers away.
5: Poor stocking and retrieval procedures.
6: Store managers who were inept about corporate policies. I took advantage of their 24 minute guarantee every time I ordered online. IT says that the item will be READY FOR PICKUP no later than 24 minutes from the DATE OF THE EMAIL. I would show up a hour later, the item is not out, hasn't even been looked at, and the manager is arguing with me telling me it's 24 minutes from the time I come to the store, even though I show him the printout where it clearly says the opposite. I even browsed to the section from the in-store computer. I've had to contact Corporate to get my gift card every time because of this.
I liked Circuit City, because at one time they were the best choice. But over time they degraded their offerings. Now Best Buy (ugh...) and Fry's Electronics (sweet) are going to have to pick up the slack.
1-16-2009 @ 7:16PM
volker198321 said...
best buy is the worse store in all respects.
they tried to blame the "goof sq" they were 1/10 of the problem.
bought a computer at circuty city and best buy lost a sale because of their lack of managers that have not a clue.
no one person can tell the same story. i hope they fail. won't get my money.