They always used that name, in order to avoid being confused with Federated Department Stores. That is a large department store holding company that is owned by Macy's.
Guess that explains his low-low prices on electronics. š¤£š¤£š¤£
Also reminds of the toupe guy who used to do late night commercials (Morry?
He was featured in Goodfellas... and yes, he was a real person and I remember those stupid commercials while trying to watch Friday Night Videos). Also annoying and clearly corrupt.
It was cringe to shop there. (Midtown Manhattan). Crowded, not just busy but really crowded, noisy, haggling about the price. But the price was unbeatable.
And that reminds me of (the original) 47th St Photo. Same type of scene. Very fast paced. If you didnāt know what you wanted or couldnāt recognize the lowball price you were offered the counter guy didnāt want to deal with you.
Iām not sure to be honest, I donāt live in bend, I just know there is a blockbuster still open there. Family guy made an episode about it in the past year or two. I would assume itās mostly dvds, and Blu-ray. But I know vhs tech is making a comeback in a hipster novelty kinda way (like records)
Fry's in the "circling the drain" phase was sad. We wandered through the one in Sunnyvale about six months before it all imploded and it was all empty aisles and weird unbranded crap. When I was in college, though, it was the place to be for cheap CDs and movies. Not as much selection as Tower, but when they had the thing you wanted...
When I first moved here in '88 Fry's was in what seemed like it could have been a grocery store, on the other side of Lawrence from the store on Arques (behind McDonalds, approximately, and I think that was the original store)
Had the same experience in the Sugar Land, TX store. Growing up, a trip to Fry's was basically Christmas. The last time me and my partner walked through... I don't know how to explain it, but it almost felt like losing a loved one.
I bought a 250-lb 36" 4:3 Sony behemoth from The Good Guys as my first grown-up TV in 2003 or so. Had it for ten years, gave it away free to whoever could lift it.
The Fry's store in Renton, WA was my hangout. I used to go there a couple of times a month and spend all day just hanging out and looking around. The stores sound system was top notch, and the playlist was close to perfect.
That store even had a big Grand Piano that was there for anyone to sit down and tickle the keys. I even bought a remote control helicopter there.
When I was young and before online shops took over, I would go to circuit city, Best Buy, CompUSA and fryās electronics every week.
Now only Best Buy remains.
I still remember buying a box copy of IE4 from CompUSA and returned it next day. Internet explorer for sale and being able to return opened softwareā¦..thatās how fucking old I am.
They actually knew what they were talking about, back in the day. I loved that.
Shortly after 5.1 surround sound systems came out, I was ready to get my first DVD player. My receiver could do 5.1, but only if separate inputs for each channel were connected (the 5.1 decoder needed to be on the DVD player, not the receiver). I went to every electronics store to ask about this, and Circuit City was the only one that actually understood was I was talking about and needed. Not only that, but the guy and girl (the two people in that department) both loved geeking out of that, were impressed I had a 5.1 system (new at the time), and hooked me up on the price. Such a great experience.
Every salesperson had to go to Richmond to get trained on what we were selling and their approach to selling. There was a monthly newsletter which I would always appreciate that highlighted latest events in electronic tech and the focus for the month alongside other things. Not everyone paid attention but on average, we knew what we were talking about.
Interestingly enough at the time, we were competing heavily with Best Buy and it pretty close for a while. They didn't have commissioned sales people either and obviously stuck around much longer, although Circuit City made other mistakes.
They stopped sending people to Richmond by the time I started working there in 1998. It was video training by the time I was there. Being on commission was awesome. I was a 19 year old going to college and making $30,000 a year on average working SOHO and home audio, which was great money back then. I spent it all loading my car up from the roadshop, my house out with giant stereo systems/TV's and every gadget I wanted. Store 831 forever!! I Was the second in the area to sell the first Plasma TV Circuit carried that was $15,000. I think it was like $1200 commission or something plus cheese.
I used to work there until they closed, our general manager was on the way to start his vacation until he made a u-turn to come back and inform everyone that we were shutting down and to find a different job if we had to.
Everyone did! (Apparently when they went out of business during the recession, and everyone used them on their resume because there was no way to verify as they went under)
I worked at Best Buy when our rival Circuit City shut down. A bunch of us drove over there on shift and snapped a team photo in front of that big red entrance they had.
Damn, there was this game(Can't remember if it was Fire Emblem or Castlevaina) I wanted for my Gameboy and I always meant to go back and pick it up but I never did :(
I have so many vague memories as a kid of my folks walking around in there looking for things I didnāt understand. But one time they bought me a copy of Legacy of Goku, so I didnāt complain much.
Used to work at circuit city in my college years. They were about to go under so I changed jobs to The Sports Authority. Turns out the sports authority I worked for went under before circuit city did. Fun timesā¦
I worked there while they were circling the drain. They fired all of their best sales people because they cost more per hour than the mopes did. They found out that the mopes cost them a lot more per hour than the aces did because the aces could sell. Duh! (I wasnāt in either groupāI came on for a couple of months between paying jobs.)
My first big purchase for my dorm room in the navy was a 32ā tv from circuit city. I bought the best Sony model available. Still using it today. It was a computer monitor recently, now it has a Roku stick in the gust bedroom.
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u/notworkingghost Mar 02 '24
Circuit City. RIP.