Fry's Electronics Shuts Down All Stores

[nthach]

There goes a piece of my college years as well as when my parents got their first computer.

Fry’s problems were in the making for a while though. One of their execs setup what was more or less a payola scheme to fund his gambling habit.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2009/01...luxurious-lifestyle-of-former-frys-executive/

 

[walterjay]

I went to BestBuy a few days ago. Place was hopping. Prices the same as Amazon. Free shipping. They are trying very hard to be competitive. I would definitely shop there again.

Best Buy will match any lower price from anyone. Can't beat that.

 

[Leo99]

Best Buy will match any lower price from anyone. Can't beat that.

In the course of a couple days I've changed my tune about BestBuy. They have one more chance and then I'm done with them.

 

[IcarusLSC]

FutureShop up here did the same up thing, leaving many staff (1500+) and customers high and dry without notice. They closed a bunch and made some into BestBuys...

 

[alarmguy]

Its kind of sad, electronics in a way are more and more like a "grocery" item.
All do the same thing, all almost as good at what they do, search reviews, click and pay on line, wait for delivery. Nothing special about it anymore, goes for so many other things in our society also. No value, its just a thing.

 

[PandaBear]

Micro Center closed its last store in Silicon Valley back in 2012. Strangely enough I never went to one. Seems like it would be the ideal location for one.

I bought my Phenom II X2 and X6 combo there with motherboard. Basically their business model is to sell good deals instead of everything like Fry's were. They also didn't try to keep everything in stock like Frys (2 years ago when I went there they were selling mattress too).

RIP, I love Fry's back in the late 90s and early 2000s. They just couldn't compete these days. BestBuy is good for Black Friday computer deals but never for components IMO. I don't like their services.

Frys were doing very bad for a long time, Pandemic is just the last nail in the coffin.

 

[ammolab]

My wife is an independent computer tech. She buys RAM at Best Buy for a customer. Customer decides to not repair, and buy a new computer instead. Wife returns the RAM, still totally sealed in the hard plastic shrink wrap, with the receipt the next day. Best Buy refuses to accept it. Gives some kind of bogus excuse why. It was so ridiculous that other customers waiting in line starts to speak up against Best Buy. Their customer service is terrible. They lost my wife's business.

Same story here. My wife bought a CD there, and a day later brought it back for store credit STILL SEALED. The girl would not do the return, and she was standing under a sign that said, “no returns on CDs unless they are unopened“.
We got her manager who pointed out the sign and told her to do the return ...and she refused. She told him he would have to do it himself, and he did. Waste of an hour!

 

[y_p_w]

I bought my Phenom II X2 and X6 combo there with motherboard. Basically their business model is to sell good deals instead of everything like Fry's were. They also didn't try to keep everything in stock like Frys (2 years ago when I went there they were selling mattress too).

RIP, I love Fry's back in the late 90s and early 2000s. They just couldn't compete these days. BestBuy is good for Black Friday computer deals but never for components IMO. I don't like their services.

Frys were doing very bad for a long time, Pandemic is just the last nail in the coffin.

I bought my last two SATA SSDs at Best Buy. SanDisk Ultra 3D and WD Blue, which are almost the same. But they were pretty standard ones and it's almost a commodity. Still - there was nothing quite like the wall of different components at a Fry's. Dozens of different brands, capacities, types, etc. of hard drives, SSDs, and RAM. Of course they were all for pickup behind the cashier.

What I did find rather disappointing is that the Fry's in Concord never got a theme.

And they often had those annoying labels that were impossible to remove and were still printed with dot matrix printers. For a retailer trying to sell newer electronics, it just seemed so outdated.

 

[aquariuscsm]

This is new news to me. What happened to them? Seemed we'd just went into a Fry's to grab a few things. Fry's was awesome!! It was like Best Buy on steroids!! Blew Best Buy out of the water!! I truly hate seeing all these retailers going out of business. I detest online shopping with a passion.

 

[PandaBear]

This is new news to me. What happened to them? Seemed we'd just went into a Fry's to grab a few things. Fry's was awesome!! It was like Best Buy on steroids!! Blew Best Buy out of the water!! I truly hate seeing all these retailers going out of business. I detest online shopping with a passion.

For the computer building crowds, what happened was online shopping proliferated and people were buying online for lower prices and more selections. Also real estates and labors becomes more expensive so Fry's and all the smaller mom and pop computer stores are no longer competitive.

Then the economy of scale hits. People find out that it is now cheaper to just buy a prebuild name brand, than to build their own machines. In the old days you would at least move over some of your parts and upgrade only one or two items but now it doesn't get any cheaper. Your old parts don't really work with your new stuff anyways or they are integrated so it doesn't help. What are you going to move to your new machine when your old HDD is slow and optical drive is obsoleted? RAM is not compatible and CPU socket changed, and network / sounds are all integrated?

Oh BTW, people are moving to laptops instead of staying with a desktop too.

I end up with another prebuild for my dad because it is cheaper than the parts alone. I usually don't buy prebuild.

 

[Wolf359]

For the computer building crowds, what happened was online shopping proliferated and people were buying online for lower prices and more selections. Also real estates and labors becomes more expensive so Fry's and all the smaller mom and pop computer stores are no longer competitive.

Then the economy of scale hits. People find out that it is now cheaper to just buy a prebuild name brand, than to build their own machines. In the old days you would at least move over some of your parts and upgrade only one or two items but now it doesn't get any cheaper. Your old parts don't really work with your new stuff anyways or they are integrated so it doesn't help. What are you going to move to your new machine when your old HDD is slow and optical drive is obsoleted? RAM is not compatible and CPU socket changed, and network / sounds are all integrated?

Oh BTW, people are moving to laptops instead of staying with a desktop too.

I end up with another prebuild for my dad because it is cheaper than the parts alone. I usually don't buy prebuild.

I still build my own, but the prebuilts were always cheaper than rolling your own. When you roll your own though, you get to pick the parts that matter to you in terms of memory, storage, processor etc. Plus when parts break like a power supply or motherboard, you can just grab another one and slap it in whereas the prebuilt ones are an odd size and you're limited to the the high prices of the manufacturer for replacement parts that can be multiples of regular off the shelf standard replacement parts. I've kept some machines going for years by just replacing the power supply and motherboard here and there, sometimes the only thing left was the case. I still get some stuff from Microcenter because their motherboard chip combo is still cheaper than what you can buy online. Otherwise they're the same or slightly more than online.

 

[PandaBear]

I still build my own, but the prebuilts were always cheaper than rolling your own. When you roll your own though, you get to pick the parts that matter to you in terms of memory, storage, processor etc. Plus when parts break like a power supply or motherboard, you can just grab another one and slap it in whereas the prebuilt ones are an odd size and you're limited to the the high prices of the manufacturer for replacement parts that can be multiples of regular off the shelf standard replacement parts. I've kept some machines going for years by just replacing the power supply and motherboard here and there, sometimes the only thing left was the case. I still get some stuff from Microcenter because their motherboard chip combo is still cheaper than what you can buy online. Otherwise they're the same or slightly more than online.

True, in the old days I reuse HDD, optical drive, case, power supply. I think those get obsoleted now too because of the connectors and air flow, form factor etc. It doesn't matter if you cannot get the parts for a reasonable cost though. In this pandemic even a 1050 Ti is $150 and 1650 Super is $300. There is no point building if you have to buy most of the stuff anyways.

I can buy prebuild power supply on ebay these days, so that's not too bad. If you are not gaming (like my dad), there is no point building something anymore.

 

[y_p_w]

True, in the old days I reuse HDD, optical drive, case, power supply. I think those get obsoleted now too because of the connectors and air flow, form factor etc. It doesn't matter if you cannot get the parts for a reasonable cost though. In this pandemic even a 1050 Ti is $150 and 1650 Super is $300. There is no point building if you have to buy most of the stuff anyways.

I can buy prebuild power supply on ebay these days, so that's not too bad. If you are not gaming (like my dad), there is no point building something anymore.

These days it's really cheap to just get it all assembled, and I haven't had a desktop computer at work in over a decade. All my desktop computers were standard builds.

Back in the 80s to mid 90s there were tons of computer stores that assembled to order a 386 or 486 in a generic case. A friend of mine got one from (I think) HD Computer, which was a regional chain. They were always assembled at the store. His specified the graphics card, sound card, and specific processor. It had an LED display on the chassis just for the processor speed, which seemed a little bit silly. Back then some of these stores were targets for thieves who just wanted the processors because they were in demand and pretty easy to sell.

 

[odie]

A shame loosing these stores . Bought H/K reciever , H/K 5 disc cd player , H/K dual cassette deck and KENWOOD 200 disc cd player at Circuit City . Would also find hard to find cds there .