Prince McLeanThe closures, reported by The Consumerist are expected to immediately put some employees out of work, including those working in its Firedog on-location tech support and car installation departments. The stores will be liquidated over the next two months and close permanently at the end of the year.
Circuit City is the nation's second largest electronics retailer. A Reuters article from October 20 noted the closures of 150 stores were reported to be under consideration in a Wall Street Journal report.
Reuters cited an analyst who stated that 80 percent of Circuit City's stores were within five miles of a Best Buy location. The beleaguered chain is also reported to face strong competition from general retailers such as WalMart.
Apple split with Circuit City in 2000, but reopened a test pilot retailing agreement with the chain in 2006 to sell iMacs, notebooks, and Airport base stations. Last fall, Apple terminated its trial program with Circuit City and focused its resources on selling through Best Buy, the largest electronics retailer in the country.
Last year, Apple's other retail partner, CompUSA, also liquidated and closed most of its stores before having its remaining 16 stores acquired by the parent company of TigerDirect.
A listing of stores is presented in this PDF.
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48 Comments
Good riddance.
Edit: I do feel bad for the retail folks entering the world of unemployment, though...
I'm not sad to see them go...Many years ago at a location in Culver City, CA, they refused to take an out of state driver's license as ID for a credit card purchase of over $500.
That's one sale they lost...I never shop there, even if they have a lower price...
I'm sure Apple will have to rationalize their stores at some point too. It seems unlikely that they all have turned out profitable.
The closest Circuit City store to my place will probably be one of the close stores in the fact that the store is terribly out of date. I noticed lately that they do not even advertise in the local Sunday newspaper. I kind of thought that they were slipping and slipping fast. The remind of how fast Future Shop grew and suddenly were gone very quickly.
Just today I was in the local mall and a new tenant was in the center of the mall a new Apple reseller and they had better prices then even Best Buy. This store sold everything that Best Buy sold and more. I am seeing more and more of the local stores coming back after a dark spell and that makes me glad to see.
Good news for Best Buy and Apple.