Every time I go into one now I am shocked at how much open space there is on the floor and the shelves. It is super depressing. I have been seeing this for the last year or so at the San Marcos store near where I live. Frys has been going downhill for years though. But I mostly notice this empty space in the areas where they sold toys or books. The super technical areas of the store are still fully stocked where they sell CPUs or computer cases or motherboards.
Yeah, I was in there about a month ago, needed a few long ethernet cables while at a datacenter.
Same thing everyone else reports: it was dark with a few bored employees wondering around aimlessly. Alternating messy and bare shelves. Absurd amounts of floor space compared to the trade they were doing.
Just stopped in my local microcenter (Wayne, pa) after not being in for a year or two and they had blocked off a third of the store with ugly shelving, Hopefully they are using the space for shipping or something, but I'm somewhat worried as they are the last physical store with a decent selection in the wide area.
Multiple aisles of cheap cellphone accessories aren't a good look either, but there were a bunch of Anker boxes - whose cables I like.
Literally just did this last week. Needed some more RAM for my laptop, and figured a quick drop into Fry's would work. It was pitiful and absolutely shocking. I have to say 70% of the store was empty, with multiple departments worth of shelving completely empty. They didn't have the RAM I needed, and the options they did have were poorly price... and hard to find... and the sales associate in the area seemed to not know what customers were for and completely ignored me.
Left, drove to Microcenter, and had to fight my way through the crowds to get to the RAM. They had multiple options, happy associates, and I even poked around with fun 3d printing stuff because the store was so well stocked. It's wild that their situation is so different.
When I visited Fry's in the DFW area last year (Irving Store off of LBJ freeway) I was shocked at how low energy and sad the place was. It was just one big pile of despair. Just a handful of people were shuffling in and out. They shelves were in complete disrepair, and there were areas where there was no stock on shelves. Computers on display were broken, twisted wrecks. The home theater areas had older model sets and speakers strewn about.
It was nothing like the late 90's when the place was an absolute zoo, and you could be guaranteed to have every gadget known to man on display. Christmas time at Frys was waiting in a checkout line 100's deep. It was a fun time.
That last time I visited is the last time I'll ever visit. It's clear Amazon and online retailing has decimated them.
Seems to be busy enough. They always have new cool products and lots of new inventory. If he's in Irving that's pretty far from him so he might not visit.
Microcenter is doing great, at least from the point of view of a frequent customer.
The Fry's in Plano is in a similar state to what parent comment is describing. It's an incredibly weird feeling walking thru. They've stopped restocking, so anything I remotely could use or need isn't there. What's left are things that nobody really wants. I have lots of memories growing up in that store, sad to see it like this. I definitely recommend hitting it up before the inevitable shutdown, it's quite the vibe to take in.
I haven't been there in a while, but from what I've heard from friends it's doing well.
You may also want to check out Altex. They have a store in Carrollton, and my experience visiting there a few months ago is that they're _very_ well-stocked and with excellent prices at that.
Not DFW area (KofP), but it does feel a bit more like a warehouse to me rather than the exciting tech candy store I remember as a kid. Even the Apple section is depleted and meh feeling.
Last time I went there was nothing particularly awe-inspiring as far as setup computers. Just a bunch of Dell and Lenovo's with normal looking monitors. Would have been nice to see at least one souped-up uber PC with all kinds of obnoxious leds quad SLI, and 4 8k monitors, or something.
Granted it's still an extremely useful store, and I really wish I had one in the area I live in now.
Microcenters in the Chicagoland area (N Elston in Chicago, Westmont) are busy, especially on Saturdays. Shelves are well-stocked, and there's even an electronics section with a potpourri of Arduino and RaspPi accessories.
I'm not sure how they're surviving in the era of online shopping but they seem to be doing well. I wonder if most of the foot traffic is driven by impulse same-day BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup in Store) sales. I'll admit that's how I ended up going to the brick-and-mortar store -- I didn't think that computer superstores still existed in this day and age.
browsing the shelves and just being around tech is soothing for me. and the feeling of walking out with a bunch of boxes too. for something i enjoy like tech i like to savor the whole experience
The one off 75 is always very busy when I go there on a Saturday. The DIY PC section always has a few people pushing around a cart full of parts, and even the pre-built system area will be crawling with customers.
I used to live near the Fry's in Tempe, Arizona. Even 5-10 years ago, I didn't really like going there that much. Their prices weren't that great any more, and returning merchandise was a bad experience. It was clear their best days were behind them. Amazon has been a better experience for a long time now. It was cool how you could find a lot of odd electronics items there (components, soldering equipment, wire, etc.), but you could still get all that stuff much cheaper online usually.
That too (that was an annoying thing about Fry's too; I had totally forgotten about that!), but the returns process at Fry's also treats you like a criminal, whereas Amazon's is easy and asks no questions.
My practice when I used to shop at Fry's was to stop and let the receipt checking person mark my receipt with their pink marker, if no one was ahead of me in that line. This was only to let them feel good about their job, not because I had any legal obligation.
If there was anyone in the receipt checking line I would just smile and wave and walk by. They never stopped me, nor could they legally, but the people waiting in line would often look at me and look at the receipt checker, puzzled that I could get away with it and they "couldn't".
Ownership changes at the point of sale. At the time they do the check, they no longer have any legal basis for preventing the customer from leaving. Costco and Sam's Club can only get away with it because they can revoke membership for non-compliance. At Fry's, stopping someone for a search risks civil suit for kidnapping.
Aside from that, it's a security theater tactic to discourage shoplifting, which also happens to discourage regular shopping.
Costco and Sam's check your receipt to make sure you're leaving with everything you paid for. They're much more likely to find you've left something at the checkout rather than find you shoplifting.
That's the stated, euphemistic reason. The real reason is that they are doing security theater.
Finding something you may have forgotten at the checkout is the only possible benefit to the consumer, so they play it up as a point of customer service, to partially counteract the unreasonable queue they create for exiting the store.
If the genuine concern was forgotten items, they would do the additional QA check at the point of sale, where the item is most likely to be found, rather than at the exit doors.
Don't parrot the corporate propaganda without giving it your own analysis first.
The veracity is easily checked. Buy a small, disposable item with your regular purchase, and put it in your pocket after checkout. If the receipt checker notices the item is missing, note a positive result. Put the receipt in your pocket with the item. Next time around, take the item out of your pocket and put it in the cart, and see what happens. Make sure you project the confidence that yes, that object in the cart is yours, and was lawfully purchased during a previous visit. Beware that this sort of testing may get your membership revoked.
The reason you don't want your programmers doing your QA is that they're too likely to make the same mistake twice. Same with having the point of sale people doing the receipt checking.
I've considered using a collapsible box that I bought at Costco to pack my items after a shopping trip there. I wouldn't have the original receipt for it though, so I don't know how much hassle it would be. Haven't tried it yet.
I didn't suggest that the checkout person do the QA. They already have 1 or 2 people standing at the door. Move them to the checkouts and do QA as people start to leave. AKA look at the checkout to see if there's anything still there as the cashier closes out the sale and starts with the next customer.
It's a moot point, because good QA is not the goal.
You could swap collapsible boxes with someone who shops at Sam's Club, if it worries you.
Their considering me a thief by default has provoked me to spend elsewhere.
The poor buggers manning the front door never gave me any grief for blowing them off, but the unanswerable managerial thought that put them there in the first place makes it a no brainier to shop elsewhere.
And yea, that is despite the pull of preferring to fondle and drool on the merchandise in person.
You can just ignore them. They have no cause to detain you, and you have no obligation to let them search you. I've never had a problem just walking past them out to my car. Only one time did someone even bother to yell "hey, I need to check your receipt!" and I just said NOPE and kept walking.
Virtually all of my electronics tools and supplies came from the Tempe store. Since I've moved back east it's a serious challenge finding stores with even a fraction of the inventory the Tempe store had so I end up ordering stuff off Amazon or Ali Express. I the RTP ares has a good electronics store, I haven't found it yet.
Best Buy often has better prices than Amazon.
Since last year I find myself always double-checking the price of anything I want outside Amazon and for big items (e.g. TV, tv stand, etc.) Best Buy is a first choice for sure.
Not only that, but have you ever tried shopping for something like a laptop on Amazon? The descriptions are all three lines long and by the time you figure out what the hell you're buying you could just drive to Best Buy and see a display that clearly explains what's on offer.
Agreed... I've had relatively bad luck on mail ordered laptops and monitors in particular, stick to a physical location I can return them to in general. Walmart seems like a decent middle ground with online to store and returns.
The funny thing is that Best Buy also price matches bestbuy.com :)
Every time I go in there I have to ask the cashier for the price on the web site. The stores and site have different prices. I guess it makes sense because you capture 5% from everyone who doesn't bother to do that.
Just bought a new 3700x and 5700xt at best buy this week, I'm surprised I could that in person. I actively try to avoid purchasing anything at Amazon. They are Mr. Robot's EvilCorp in real life. Can't support that.
Best Buy price matches to Amazon. They also work with cashback services and often times gives you a $5 coupon after purchasing a certain amount. Finally, they also let you return open boxes, no questions asked. Forgot to mention, you can do same day pick up for an item.
Around three years ago, bestbuy realized that they would need to make some sort of change. They did and their stores got better. It still isn't a replacement for what Fry's used to be.
Yeah, it does look a bit like they just rolled over. Still, bestbuy and frys are not directly comparable imo. Micro Center is more analogous to frys. Somewhere else in the thread someone pointed that they had to bail out of california.
Which I find a bit annoying; what I like about Fry's is that they have low-level components in addition to the high-level stuff. With Radio Shack closing, and Fry's probably closing soon, the only non-internet place left that I'll be able to purchase components will be Micro Center.
My point is, Best Buy has never been a one-to-one comparison to me. There are things that Fry's has that Best Buy simply doesn't.
Frys' component selection used to be good. But nowadays it feels like a throwback to the 90s -- they still carry a ton of parts for repairing CRT TVs [1], yet they don't have a single microcontroller or flash chip in the entire aisle, and their prices for basic logic chips like [2] are ridiculous.
You should see the Fry's on Northwest Hwy near Garland. It's almost scary, it has a sketchy bazaar feeling. A couple rows of shelves have just random perfume and colognes. All the televisions and stuff have 1/8" of dust on them. It must be more expensive to shut it down than to keep it running.
> It must be more expensive to shut it down than to keep it running.
They probably own the buildings (maybe even the land, too.) Potential buyers of a commercial building would want said building's internals in good condition (i.e. not wrecked by looters.) And the simplest way to ensure the building stays in good condition is to keep it running.
I've been to that same one twice looking for various electronics cables and they had nothing. Is there a DFW place now that sells that sort of radio-shack supplies? Or is everything online only now?
One of the only two Fry's in Georgia just closed it's doors permanently. Of the half dozen times I was in there over the past couple years I don't think there were ever more 10 customers in the ~125,000 sq ft store. Of course it wasn't doing them any favors that there is a Microcenter 1.5 miles down the road.
I was at Fry’s on Garland Rd in Dallas a few years ago and it was horrible. I wanted to pick up a hard drive that day rather than order one, but (and I am not exaggerating) literally every single hard drive on their shelves had one of those “this product had been opened/returned” stickers on it. Ridiculous! Fry’s is such a dump.
Ah, I used to work at that location in the mid 00s. The place was a mad house back then. They probably still show the video of me getting a "customer" into a rear naked choke after he started attacking employees.
Yeah, that was a bit nuts but TBH most weekends at the time were pretty darn busy. I'm talking the whole store being mall promenade busy. It was all very energized and felt like the place to be if you were interested in tech hardware.
I bought my camera bag from that same Fry's store back in July 2018, and the shelves were full, but it was still a far cry from how I remember it back when it first opened. Very few customers there either. Might have been 10 customers in the store max. Amazing how quickly it went downhill.
I had almost this exact same experience three weeks ago at a Fry's in LA. It was honestly sad to see it.
I kept joking to my friend that it felt post-apocalyptic because it looked like it had been looted. There were rough and cut-open boxes on empty shelves, empty and open packaging on the floor, no signs for the aisles to show what they had on them, employees that looked dead in the eyes, rows of shelves that were just empty or had maybe two or three items on them. It was legitimately sad to see.
We were on the hunt for a dual monitor setup. They didn't even have a 4k monitor on the shelves. That was how poor their selection was.
I've heard they're having issues even paying their vendors, so yeah. I'm pretty positive Fry's is in big trouble.
Same shocking experience in Austin a few weeks back. Trying to pick up a DisplayPort KVM and a couple of DP cables. This is the big one on MoPac by Opal Devine's. I'd say more than 50% of the shelves were bare, with merchandise strewn about, loose power cables still plugged into outlets. A surprising number of employees but no one was actually doing anything. The computer hardware section looked like a bomb went off. No stock anywhere. But there weren't any "Liquidation / Going Out Of Business" banners like you'd normally expect to see in these circumstances.
I used to love Fry's, they had a great selection for system builders and hobbyists. Although I will say it always had a kind of grim, penitential air to it - all the employees in their black and white outfits and the massive black locked cages behind the rows of registers. It seemed oppressive, like you wouldn't be surprised to find out that the managers were beating the cashiers or something.
Still, sorry to see it go. I've been disappointed with the other system-builder-oriented place in town who knowingly restock broken merch. I guess it's Newegg from here on out!
> Although I will say it always had a kind of grim, penitential air to it
Yeah. A weird vibe. The wood. The faux “luxury” trim. The yellow. Dudes in cheap looking suits trying to corner you so they can “ring up your order” for their commission.
Yeah. Fry’s was a weird place. The branding just didn’t match the service or experience at all.
I live in the midwest and there's a Frys up by Chicago. I drove up there during the holidays in hopes I might be able to snag my wife a nice monitor off the floor.
I was absolutely gutted to see the state of the store. It's immense, which makes its hollowness even more shocking. I remember when the store opened during my highschool years (2004'ish?) it was a pilgrimage to go there and see double-stacked shelves of every part you could imagine.
The employees (probably a 15-20 in the huge 400K sq.ft. store) looked shellshocked and didn't seem to have any inclination to ask me how they could help. I talked to a security guard who was maybe 17-18 and he mentioned something about renegotiating contracts with vendors or something, but I could tell even he didn't buy it.
I don't think there is any question of whether Fry's is in dire trouble.
Hanger 1 at moffett is only 348,480 sq ft, that is an absolute unit of a Frys at 400,000. Maybe I'll have to drive over to Chicago and check that out before their inevitable closure.
The Frys in Chicago is more like a normal big box store size like a Target. I just drew a ploygon over it on Google maps and it's 3.6 acres (~156k sq ft)
The one near Indianapolis is like that, too. I'd never been in one before (none anywhere near me in Michigan), and was excited to experience it when vacationing with my family last year. Was shocked at how bad it was—it looked like it was in the process of being liquidated (huge empty spaces), and the merchandise was mostly garbage. It was like a junky flea market without the energy.
Watching that store spiral downhill has been very depressing.
The roof leaks water everywhere, so they have shopping carts with buckets all over the store; the computer section is now entirely empty ("we're switching to a consignment model") is what one employee told me; just very, very sad.
I'd guess perhaps they spent too much on real estate (that store could be 1/3rd its size and still fit everything) but no idea.
That location used to be an AutoNation used car megastore, and its only advertising-friendly feature is being visible from I-69.
Since Fishers succumbed to Carmel disease and started putting traffic circles in everywhere, it's even more difficult to get to from the north.
I'd say they spent too little on real estate, and tried to repurpose a bad building in a bad location. They would have done better in the old shuttered Marsh supermarket on 96th St., if it had closed up shop before they moved in to Indy. Actually, they could probably move right now, for all the shelf-stock they're likely to still have on hand. The old building should just be razed and replaced with class-B office park offices. It has never had enough casual traffic to be good retail.
Are you aware of any real alternatives for electronics hardware in the Indy area? With RadioShack dead and Fry's dying, I honestly have no idea where to go.
It’s more the browsing factor. I typically don’t know what I need, and it’s much easier to get a feel for my options when I can see the variety up close.
As I don't live in Indy or Chicago any more, I don't have any good solutions for you. I-65 isn't that bad a drive, and the windmills give you a nice eco-green feeling, even if the rest areas aren't so great.
The Greek Islands restaurant used to regularly drive a van to Chicago and back, because Kronos wouldn't ship their beef-lamb doner kebab cones for vertical gyro rotisseries all the way to Indy, so they were about the only place in town you could get a real gyro. I guess it's about the same for electronics.
You could maybe ask around the IUPUI or Purdue electronics engineering professors, or the robotic therapy/prosthetics lab at the IU hospital.
The Fry’s in Burbank won’t even keep all their lights on during the day. I’ve had to bust out the flashlight on my phone while browsing there.
I just think they’ve got too much crap in there at RadioShack prices. It’s hard to find something I’m looking for and when i do find it, have to make the mental choice to pay twice as much for it in store or wait 2 days for Amazon Prime to deliver it.
So just anecdotally as a guy who shops there, I’m not surprised they’re struggling.
Right, I find that hard to believe. I worked in the Oxnard location for a short time in 2007 and that has never been my experience. They'll dim the lights well after store closing, but it's never been dark enough that I felt like I couldn't see what I was doing.
Used to shop at the Oxnard location all the time - opening day was awesome, and the cheap hotdogs they'd do the following year. Probably the brightest fry's I've seen.
Had to stop going there when some manager got upset I was came back in asking for a price adjustment per the store policy and they told me to never come back after handing me cash.
I'm 100% serious. I have been in there maybe two dozen times in the last 2 years. The audio area in particular is quite dim, there are ceiling lights that are never turned on (underneath the weird UFO shaped outcropping).
Sorry for doubting you. I saw some pictures posted on Reddit if the Burbank store, it’s a lot more barren than I remember it being, so I don’t doubt that they’re cutting costs by not turning all the lights on.
When my sister visited she needed a USB cable so we went to Frys in Burbank . I also remember it being very dark and it sort of had an Eastern German feeling to it. Big store with only a few items in it.
So sad to see this. The Thunderbird store used to be about midway between work and home when I lived in AZ, 20 years ago. I'd often stop in just to walk around and see what was new.
Now, the nearest Fry's is 45-60 minutes away from me, so I've only been in about 3 times in the last decade. The most recent was equally depressing. We didn't find what we were looking for and it probably would have been damaged even if we had.
Leading up to the New Year's, I was watching the CNN history documentary on Netflix. It was the one executive produced by Tom Hanks, and covers the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s. I went backwards and have just finished the 80s.
I know the history of computing technology pretty well... but it was striking to see it laid out like that, in the context of changes with art, culture, domestic and international politics.
Retrospecting on that, in the heyday when Moore's Law was so visible, before the PC revolution gave birth to the Internet revolution, new computing devices were changing so fast. You could go into a store a month later and see a lot of things that are new. I remember the Columbus OH Microcenter. There was a tiny used computer store nearby. Both were packed. That business worked because there was so much turnover.
You don't really see that nowadays. The most exciting thing that come out tbese days is the Threadripper, but for most consumers, it isn't necessary anymore.
Most of the rapid changes are taking place where people can't really see it anymore (unless you are an insider) -- in the cloud, with AI.
Even though changes are still happening rapidly, I think the _visible_ changes have petered out for the consumer.
What I am saying is that, even if Fry's were able to compete on price with internet retailers, something more fundamental has shifted.
Now maybe I am just saying this from the perspective of the US. I hear that in China, the development and competitiveness of smartphones is a lot greater there than in the US. Apple has a difficult time competing in China because there are many stylish, hot smartphones within that domestic market. If so, then perhaps it isn't that changes are no longer being visible ... but that the US is no longer the focal point of consumer product innovation that it one was.
Part of the issue is that their quality of service has gone down. 10 years ago, most people who worked there were knowledgeable in their respective departments, but now it is quite often the opposite. I don’t exactly blame the workers, it could simply be that circumstances have caused training to become nonexistent.
I remember the holidays at that time with the checkout line being so long that they couldn’t keep up with even 30 registers open. Now, they have maybe two registers open at any given time and the checkout line is never more than a few customers long.
I find it sad and disconcerting. But I have to admit to being part of the problem: I haven’t bought much at Fry’s since I built my last PC 2-3 years ago. Every time we go now, it’s depressing and we end up only buying a cable or a memory card.
10yr ago those people had just got laid off from all their IT jobs and whatnot. Now they all have real jobs again and you've got lower quality labor. The same thing happened to Autozone, Home Depot and every other place a laid off skilled worker wound up getting a job to make ends meet.
> 10 years ago, most people who worked there were knowledgeable ... but now ...
That is the same in and vaguely specialist shop. Most of the workers will be the cheapest to employ or the least willing to fight back about a bit of unpaid overtime here or there. Having knowledge and/or skills is no longer a significant competitive advantage in that employment market.
> 10 years ago, most people who worked there were knowledgeable in their respective departments,
The quality and depth of information available online, especially via forums, far exceeds what one can expect from a single employee. I don’t see how any store could compete on that aspect, although the online info is probably limited to people who are adept at reading English.
Quite easily; who wants to sift through all that? However, it turns out if you charge higher prices and have knowledgeable employees, many people will take advantage of the employees' guidance, then go home and order the same thing on Amazon for less.
> However, it turns out if you charge higher prices and have knowledgeable employees, many people will take advantage of the employees' guidance, then go home and order the same thing on Amazon for less.
This always chapped my hide. It absolutely killed my favorite local technical bookstores.
I noticed the shelves at the Phoenix Fry's starting to get bare a year ago. In November an employee said they were "renegotiating" with their suppliers. This article explains "the shelves are empty because it has shifted to a consignment model, meaning that suppliers get paid for goods only after a store has sold them."
Fry's was the only store I visited on "Black Friday". Some of the other customers were looking at the bare shelves, like "what happened"? I bought a few items I thought would be useful, but I was not in the market for any big-ticket items.
On that day I overheard one of the employees say the "trade war" was the cause of the company's problems. Partially, I'm sure, but not totally. I'd read about an employee at the Fry's corporate office who was caught lining his own pocket with company money: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14906339
I think Fry's has a chance because it owns most of its buildings, and it's presumably not being looted by vulture capitalists (as happened to Sears). The stores have been well-staffed for months in spite of their having little to sell.
I still shop at Fry's because I don't always know what I'm looking for, and it's nice to be able to browse.
If there's anything to browse beyond water bottles, VGA cables, phone cases and year old DVDs, then your local Fry's is doing much better than the one I visited in early December.
Having worked with AIM a lot over the years, I'm also very curious about this. In my experience, the people who work at AIM fulltime are very professional and experienced at putting together high quality grant proposals, and already receive substantial NSF funding. I'm thus optimistic that they can survive longterm without the direct support of John Fry.
Once I became aware of Newegg and other online retailers, and trusted shopping form them, it was the end of Fry's for me. The Fry's close to me always had terrible products - off brand motherboards, orange stickered components, etc. For a period Fry's was my place to pick up emergency Cat 5 and other random components, but Home Depot/Lowe's sells quality product at far more convenient locations. I last visited the Renton store a few years back, hoping to find some unnecessary necessity and left disappointed. The store was under stocked and in disrepair. The general quality and quantity of goods had diminished remarkably. I was near the San Diego location a few months back with time to kill and decided it wasn't even worth it to wander around in the air conditioning for a few minutes.
Thinking back, Fry's was a perfect place to spend my teenage years - I had little money, and not enough technical knowledge to be a discerning consumer. As an adult it no longer serves its purpose - I can afford to buy higher quality goods, and have the time and knowledge to find them.
>In the mid-1990s, before high-speed internet connections made software easy to download, the stores served as a teenage hangout, allowing customers to play video games and try new hardware.
>[link:] PAGE ONE -- '90s Kids Find New Hangout -- Computer Store
>Harrison's one complaint is that the game manuals are not near the demonstration computers. "You have to figure out what weapon to kill what people with on your own, and that's hard to do without the manual," he said.
In the late 70's - early 80's, I used to hang out at the mall Radio Shack after school with a few other regular kids, where we played games and learned to program BASIC on the TRS-80's.
They had a similar attitude about kids hanging out there, and gave us a place to store our cassette tapes, because it helped sell computers to the adult customers, who we would demonstrate the computers to all the time.
Plus we got to listen to great music (like "My Sharona" by The Knack, who were supposed to be the next Beatles) as the Radio Shack sales people sold stereos and speakers to customers.
Kids these days know "My Bologna" better than "My Sharona" and Weird Al better than the Beatles. (And JavaScript better than BASIC!)
Well, "trouble" is the wrong word. Fry's is more like "dead man walking".
The last time I went to Fry's was maybe 1 year ago. If you walk around, all of the electronics are older models, the game shelves are filled with games that are all several years old, even things like hard drives, etc are all old and expensive.
There were no salespeople to help except in places like the TV area. The car stereo area, which is what I was interested in, was empty and no one showed up. The car stereos themselves were older models. Nothing worked.
Why on earth would I ever return? The entire shopping experience at Fry's is worse than clicking through on Amazon.
Fry's is dead. Chalk one up for Amazon and automation a-la Andrew Yang. 30% of retail stores will close in 5-10 years and it's because of online stores like Amazon, that suck money out of local stores and diverts all the money to Seattle, except for the local warehouses where minimum wage workers are being worked like robots. This only gets worse unless we figure out how to rejig the economy with 21st century solutions like UBI.
What exactly are you considering a "success" and which part of the country do you live in? At least in CA, at the turn of the century Fry's was the most reliable vendor for computer equipment. EVERYONE went there. On Black Friday, the lines were crazy. 20 years later, it's a graveyard of old knockoffs.
I used to live in California when Fry's was the popular destination. They started to go downhill around the time I moved to the Midwest (1995). Questionable return policies etc. Microcenter in contrast is still a huge success. Everytime I visit one, I'm amazed at how well stocked they are, and how busy.
> Fry's is dead. Chalk one up for Amazon and automation a-la Andrew Yang.
It's easy to say that, but then the retort is why isn't Micro Center suffering the same issues? The two should be facing exactly the same pressure from Amazon, so the reasons for Fry's failures has to be more nuanced than "internet retailers are sucking everyone dry."
For my part, I'm much more willing to buy computer parts in person because a) I get to walk out with it and set it up that day and b) I'd rather carry >$1000 worth of equipment on my person than hope no one steals it between its delivery time and my getting off of work.
Canada has nothing that compares to what Fry's was. Best Buy is about as good as you can get in Canada for computer equipment or electronics, and Amazon.ca is too expensive for Canadians, compared to the prices for Amazon.com for Americans.
When I was living there, I remember shopping at newegg.ca, ncix.ca, tigerdirect.ca and Canada Computers used to have b&m stores with surly service but generally low prices.
I've been to a Micro center once in my life, in Sunnyvale, in Mercado. The prices were worse than Staples for computer equipment so I never went back. I don't even know if it's still there anymore.
I have no idea which part of the country you live in, but I would be shocked if in the Bay Area, Micro Center would be considered a "success". I can see how some stores, depending on their business agreements, might be able to stay alive through support, etc.
But for example, last year I ordered a graphics card on Amazon and it arrived on a Friday. I tried installing it on Saturday, and discovered it was broken, so I ordered a new one on Saturday afternoon. It arrived on a Sunday, before 9am. It was the most amazing experience.
I've been to the Boston, Chicago, and DC-area Microcenters, and had good experiences with all of them (although the Boston one could use a larger parking lot). Never actually been to a Fry's store--it seems that Fry's mostly set up west of the Mississippi and Microcenter east of it.
Are the prices better than Amazon? I've never been to an electronics store that is doing better since 2000 except for the Apple Store, but I live in CA. Even Best Buy in CA is empty and more expensive for the most part.
The prices, especially if you're going to buy a mobo and a CPU at the same time in a combo deal are frequently the lowest you can find.
I also shy away from amazon for some computer components because of all the fake stuff Amazon is now filled with. At MC you're much more likely to get the actual real part you ordered.
Their sales/deals are often the lowest price going, particularly their combo deals.
For non-sale stuff, they're usually in a competitive ballpark, although I wouldn't necessarily say cheaper, and I don't have to worry about counterfeits, or the "might be used/refurbed" roulette.
Just lookup the item on your phone when shopping at Microcenter, then show the price to a sales person. They even have a sign saying they will price match Amazon and Walmart.
I live in CA, too (Santa Clara), and in the last few years -- that's a very important qualifier! -- I've found Best Buy to be... pretty reasonable. It's certainly not empty, stocks are up to date, and their prices tend to be competitive not just with Fry's but with Amazon. A few years ago I bought a Mac-specific mechanical keyboard -- a Matias Tactile Pro 3 -- for a good $40 less than Matias's own online store would have charged, which IIRC was actually $10 less than Amazon's price.
Also, as far as I know, Best Buy will do price-matching against Amazon, just like Fry's does, except with much less fuss about it. And Best Buy is way better about actually pricing their stuff competitively with Amazon to start with rather than hoping you just don't notice.
Same experience with Chicago (Elston) and Rockville, MD Micro Center stores. The employees are helpful and knowledgeable, I've found prices to be good, and being able to bring something home in your own vehicle is also valuable. That's opposed to waiting for it to be tossed onto your porch from across the yard or just simply stolen.
I actually purchased a 34" ultrawide monitor from the Rockville store recently specifically because it was the best price I could find at the time, and I went and got it the same day.
Went to a Fry's way out in the burbs of Chicago long ago, in the mid 2000s or so, it was pretty lively then. Not even sure if that one is still around.
There even used to be a TigerDirect location just south of Micro Center on Elston for a while. In my mind they always competed with NewEgg though and looks like NewEgg won out. I don't think the physical location was around that long. Might have even been a CompUSA around there too if I remember correctly.
Downers Grove Fry's is more or less a ghost town, and has been for more than a year at least by all reports. It's impossible to believe that they can cover their overhead. The "changing to a consignment model" thing is laughable with Fry's gigantic stores, the whole thing is just bizarre.
Yep. I went on a Saturday afternoon in the summer of 2019 to buy a power supply. They had a poor selection in general, and didn't have a full or partially modular PS in stock at all.
Went to Microcenter later that day. Moderately busy store, fully stocked shelves, and a decently knowledgeable staff.
I also just bought an open-box video card there last weekend, which ended up saving me another $35 USD. I like having the option to just return it to the store if there is a problem, I'm a little more worried about doing this via an online retailer.
I think I bought my home monitor from that TigerDirect many years ago. I remember being amazed at how quickly they shipped it, I think I had it at my home in Minneapolis a day later.
I frequent the Duluth, GA location. MicroCenter has excellent deals if you're building a machine, and they're more or less filling the DIY electronics hole that RadioShack left. The "Maker" department is magical.
Amazon returns are nice, but store warranties are where MicroCenter shines. When my Samsung SSD died after six months, I waited weeks for the manufacturer to ship me a replacement. I've gone with store warranties since then; if something breaks they'll just hand you a replacement off the shelf.
Years back Micro Center was a bit pricy, but they really stepped up their game to be competitive with online. I'll still price compare, but if they're within a few percent (and if there are any ongoing specials they can be cheaper) I'll chose the local pickup option. (Especially for something like a case, which always seem to get damaged in shipping.)
> The two should be facing exactly the same pressure from Amazon, so the reasons for Fry's failures has to be more nuanced than "internet retailers are sucking everyone dry."
One possibility is that Fry's didn't focus enough on it's core competency: computer components for enthusiasts. Last I was there they were selling a bunch of very tangentially related things, like a lot of kids toys.
That's the kind of stuff that nobody really cares so much about seeing before they but them, so easy for online retailers to serve.
Seems like many successful post Amazon businesses focus on a particular niche. Of course, I imagine that with their huge retail buildings, Fry's had to fill them with something to justify the cost of that space.
Retailers are just as much selling an experience as they are selling goods. The novelty of the Fry's experience just wore off for most people. Believe it or not there was a time when people would take their families there all weekend long as an outing.
People just aren't as impressed with consumer technology now as they were then ... and they're sort of right. The changes in recent years haven't been that wonder-inducing from a consumer perspective.
I've seen mention of what may be one of the biggest differences between Microcenter and Fry's. Fry's stores are absolutely massive--well over 100k sq ft, similar in size to a Walmart. Microcenter is generally running 20-40k sq ft, closer to a Hobby Lobby or Michael's in size. (And I'm comparing stores in the few urban areas that have both, so it's not an issue of land availability). It always felt to me that Microcenter was rather a large store, but that Fry's being so much larger leaves me somewhat perplexed as to what the hell they filled it with.
There always will be some need for physical retail, though. The pattern seems to be:
1. Many Speciality retailers
2. Single speciality retailer
3. single speciality retailer with limited stock
4. general retailer or substitute
With each step the market shrinks some, but it's still possible to capture profits.
Like you can chart videogames in this way
1. funcoland, electronics boutique, software etc, gamestop
2. gamestop (expansion)
3. current gamestop (limited game selection, focus on other high margin goods)
4. (future) gamestop folds, wal-mart and general retailers become focus of physical game retail.
In my town, bookstores are like this:
1. Waldenbooks, B Daltons, Books a Million, Borders
2. BOrders, then BAM
3. BAM, limited book stock, focusing more on high margin accessories
4. (in my local area) Goodwill, tiny book shelf at Walmart
The market will contract as Amazon increases to fit the reduced need for physical. So Micro Center is able to fulfill the demand by themselves, and it was just who had better business governance that chose who survived to take over the shrinking market, i think.
Simple: MicroCenter left California. It’s extremely difficult to do business here and be profitable with the tight margins involved in computer retail. California is booting them out and spoon feeding non B&M retailers like Amazon.
It would be nice to see them enter (or re-enter) the Northern California market now that Fry’s has imploded. It seems like they have the niche figured out, and apart from Central Computers’ handful of good-but-small locations, they’d have the market to themselves.
I think a part of it is due to the difference in store size and product offering. Fry's had PCs and components sure, but it also tried to have a bit of everything. Large home appliances, software/games, DVDs/CDs, car stereo, home security, networking, gadgets, cameras, home theater, a cafe, and on and on...
Seems like a store that big is only sustainable if you've got a ton of daily foot traffic.
Microcenter on the other hand has much smaller stores and a more focused set of product offerings. Also much better service. You can count on Microcenter staff to be helpful and informed, while Fry's staff was hit or miss but mostly pretty useless.
> that suck money out of local stores and diverts all the money to Seattle, except for the local warehouses where minimum wage workers are being worked like robots
Fry's is not paying better than Amazon and Amazon's workers do not earn the minimum wage. Show me where Fry's has a national $15 minimum wage policy (they don't), ie nearly 100% higher than the Federal minimum wage.
Plus almost everybody on the floor at Fry's was paid commission, including the cashiers. Woe be the cashier to checks out a $3000 order only to have the customer come back a month later and get a refund... bye bye commission.
I don't know if this policy is chain wide, but I was very unhappy with the weird shakedown when you leave. There's a person there that stops you and matches your receipt to your purchased items. No attempt to be friendly about it either.
West Michigan here - bestbuy does this on your way out, but it's never felt like they were being intimidating, just a friendly smile while they glance at your receipt and your things and a "have a nice day".
Are you sure this is illegal? I saw other stores to do it as well, for example Home Depot in California. It's not like they are paying your down, just look at the receipt and your cart.
It's not illegal for them to ask to see your receipt at the exit.
It IS illegal for them to try to stop you from leaving if you decline, unless they are detaining you for suspected shoplifting (which they must specifically inform you of).
And if they actually go so far as to physically prevent you from leaving? Congratulations, you just won the lawsuit lottery.
Fry's is a very strange store. The store here caries both expensive, ancient products as well as reasonably-priced, current gear. It's also the only place I know of to get certain parts and electronics components.
The customer service is definitely atrocious though. It took 40 minutes to find someone who could unlock the RAM I needed from a cage (and this was after I had to get a printed PO from someone on the "sales" floor).
Kinda funny how they treat years old ram like its gold. I feel bad for the employee(s) that get locked in cages all day.
They're spending a ton of labor for things that don't matter (like keeping a cafe open). No wonder they dont have money to keep their shelves stocked with anything other than as seen on tv junk.
Have you ever tried ordering from those cafe things? It is almost comical watching the poor cashier try to punch in the "order" on their POS. Like they had a binder of SKU's they scan for "coffee" or "latte", and then it would spit out the same mile-long receipt you'd get for ordering a $3000 laptop. It was super bizarre.
This was my experience as well, going into the Sunnyvale store even 2-3 years ago. Their lineup of laptops were all the previous generation from what was currently available, and nothing was priced that well. I doubt that's changed.
Contrast to going into a local computer store, they had full stock of all the latest parts/components and competitive prices.
Would be interesting to know what's going on within the leadership of this company. They must know what the situation is, but how do they turn things around?
Jumping on the Central Computers recommendation, I highly recommend checking them out if you're near one of their stores. They have good prices on the things I've checked, and they are a pleasant place to shop. The employees are helpful if you ask, and they won't harangue you if you just want to shop quietly. One of the few shops that lacks that concentrated misery that is so common in retail.
Another +1 from me for Central Computers - I've bought assembled desktops as well as components there. Prices seem recent (they need to keep up with online price matching) and the service/knowledge is really good.
In fact, for my home-built machines, I typically buy them at Central, who will assemble the CPU, RAM, and Motherboard, showign that it POSTs (I've had plenty of times when I've purchased what I thought was a compatible group of hardware that wasn't).
Yet another Central Computers fan checking in. Besides computers, they have all kinds of networking equipment, cables at decent prices, etc.
I haven't been to Anchor yet but several of my ham radio friends have recommended it.
Jameco in San Carlos also has a lot of components. It's not a retail store, other than a small display up front of mostly closeout stuff, but you can order online for will call and they will have it ready by the time you get there.
One more Bay Area source I like a lot is SF Cable. As you can guess, they have mostly cables. The ones I've bought from them have been good quality at a good price. I particularly like their flat Cat 6 Ethernet cables. I don't think they have a retail store at all, but if you're in the Bay Area it's overnight shipping.
Another positive review for Central Computers. I was sad to see their Pleasanton store close, presumably due to rising rents, but the Sunnyvale store just reopened in a new location, so hopefully they’ll be with us for years to come.
I was pleasantly surprised by bestbuy for upgrading my desktop recently, good selection and good prices (when matching their online store pricing)...actually I ordered online and picked up there. Then a week later the monitor price dropped and they matched it to the lower price.
I have to say too that the San Jose store has smelled horrid the last year due to what seems like super old carpet smell. If they won't even pay to clean their carpet they don't deserve to be in business.
I get less variety at microcenter than Frys. I use to frequent both, fora long time I just put up with bad customer service and atmosphere (hostile at times!) At both establishments but somehow, microcenter just changed last year, and now I either get it at microcenter or order online and wait, fry's is my last option. Part of me wants to feel sorry for retail workers but I think it's a management issue.
One time I had to get a laptop last minute, they (fry's) tried to get me to buy one laptop, told them I will look around first, which I did and foud what I wanted, asked them to help me get that model after which they basically ignored me and refused to interact with me for like half an hour to 45 minutes where finally a manager stepped in and personally helped me.
Another time, I wanted to buy some game I think as a gift. I declined to give my name/address since I was paying cash and suddenly I needed to show my id and a credit card or else I'm committig fraud or some ridiculous thing.
I've seen them make nasty comments about a customer's appearance to the customer's face too.
And this is at different locations. Microcenter started to get their way,but I was so shocked how they turned around. It's hard to explain,like the sales people will helpfully just ...help you find things without being rude. The cashiers will ask for an address (and get pushy at times) but they are fine without one.
I will just buy online if I have to give up my name anyways. Cash gift cards and deliver it to a trusted person. All the variety I want too. The one advantage aside from accessibility retailers had was privacy and that's outthe door now. Amazon/newegg does not do facial recognition,gait analysis and track my phone in order to buy something in their site.
I’m having a really hard time tinkering away at my beginner electronics project in San Francisco because I keep sitting down to do it and then realise I need a new component and then having to stop, place an order on adafruit and then wait a week for it to arrive.
Online stores aren’t great when you are just in need of a $1 component. ideally you’d be able to just nip to a real store and quickly get what you need
The Layoff page for Fry's (https://www.thelayoff.com/frys-electronics) is full of reports of empty stores, no restocking deliveries for months and empty parking lots and has been for a while now.
They were well known to re-shrink-wrap defective, returned products and put them back on the shelves for resale. I'm not sure I've ever followed the logic of this, unless it was to justify the necessity for a large returns department. Long-time customers learned the signs of repackaging (sometimes overt stickers, sometimes more subtle and you had to look for loose plastic wrap or bent cardboard flaps).
I once bought a PC from them that wouldn't boot reliably. In the process of trying to get an OS installed on it, I accidentally wiped the recovery partition on the drive. Eventually I gave up and tried to return the PC.
"Sorry, we can't take this back. We can't restore the OS," said the returns tech.
"It won't even boot. That's why I'm returning it."
"But it means that we can't put it back on the shelf."
I don't remember what I said to get my money back, but I did, and it was the last PC I ever bought there.
I've been going to Fry's since they opened on Lawrence Expressway in the 80s. Fry's was a fun, wacky place to take out-of-town guests to, and they were great for the occasional emergency keyboard or HDD, but you were taking a risk on expensive items. Won't miss them much.
If you're in the SF Bay Area, and you like electronics, do yourself a favor and check out Al Lasher's Electronics in Berkeley: http://allashers.com/ "Family owned and operated since 1960."
Sorry to seem all pompous but I can't find another way to say this...
How are brick and mortar stores still a thing for products that are NOT either things I try on (clothes), things I need to see before they arrive (groceries) or impulse purchases? The fact that the last one didn't close in 2010 is a monument to how humans refuse to try anything new past a certain age, no matter how much cheaper, easier, faster or better quality you make it.
You're assuming that ecommerce is universally a better experience than brick-and-mortar. Given the abysmal reliability of Amazon listings these days, I'm not ready to agree.
With the exceptions listed, it is isn't it? When was the last time you could by (say) computer hardware cheaper in a store than on amazon? You must have some fantastic local stores compared to me :(
SD cards. You buy those on Amazon and there's a not-so-small chance you're going to get a counterfeit item instead of the genuine thing. The odds that Best Buy are stocking their shelves with fake SD cards are much lower.
It's not just about price. Sometimes you want a reasonable assurance that what you're buying is the real deal. Amazon continues to get worse in that department.
Brick and mortar is also still faster. Not everyone or every item can be delivered on the same day, but going to a store can get me that item now instead of tomorrow or 2 days from now. Usually I'm not in that much of a hurry, but sometimes I am.
But enough about computers. I think the products that keep Best Buy in business are the vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, washing machines, and other large big-ticket items that people would rather not select from pictures on their phone, let alone ship.
Yeah, people do like to see physical items and browse around. And once you are there, for a lot of people, a modest market is worth not having to wait and do extra work later.
Hence the 25 dollar Best Buy USB cables; "Ah Crap.. Do I drive to Walmart?... Nah"
Edit: But actually yes. I was pretty peeved about the cost of a basic A/B USB cable there.
I think there's a trend back to B&M (so called omnichannel) but even so, it is definitely not B&M retail as usual. Successful B&M retailers are finding they have to evolve to include BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup in Store), a digital store experience [1], price-matching, etc.
There's something about being able to browse, touch and discover new things that the online experience doesn't provide. Even Amazon's strategy includes B&M these days [2] (Amazon Books, Amazon Go, Amazon 4-star, Whole Foods, etc. -- all of these can be found in the Chicago area and other parts of the country)
The shelves in most of the store were empty. Much of the store was blocked off with caution tape, with buckets out to collect rain water dripping from the ceiling. I looked for graphics cards, but the aisle was completely bare. There were very few workers in the store, and even fewer customers.
In the front, I found fragrances. DVDs and Blu-rays were mainly obscure or poor films priced as high as $40. The only computers I could find were antiquated machines for the workers running Windows XP (or possibly Windows 2000) with 4:3 monitors.
One of the workers said that they were 'restructuring' their supply contracts - a clear attempt by management to keep up morale in a failing business. A store that size does not move to a consignment model.
> The only computers I could find were antiquated machines for the workers running Windows XP (or possibly Windows 2000) with 4:3 monitors.
Somewhere there will be a chapter in the book of Fry's demise about how they never modernized their point of sale system. That thing is fucking ancient and looks like some kind of weird homebrew monstrosity that the owners nephew (you know, the one who "knows computers") cooked up for them way back when they started. That thing has to have been a boat anchor that kept them from tinkering with their business model.
They never focused on online sales. Bestbuy was facing a similiar decline But Bestbuy modernized their online experience and added a price guarantee which made them competitive against amazon and other online merchants.
The one in Wilsonville, Oregon has been a sad place for well over a decade. A friend went there just before Christmas this year, and found the same as the article mentions - empty shelves, everywhere.
Fry's in Wilsonville had some tough shoes to fill -- the building started as an electronics megastore called Incredible Universe, and in the beginning at least it was an event to go there. When Fry's moved in, they ditched all the theming (side note - this store never got a unique theme like many other Fry's stores; it was always promised to be "coming soon" but never did), and changed the layout to be a bit of a hodge-podge by comparison.
I really miss Incredible Universe's "bent and dent" room, where they sold items that were missing bits, slightly damaged, unboxed, etc, at a pretty steep discount.
I have vivid memories of the demos at Incredible Universe, including an early-stage VR setup. It's also the place I was able to try out crappy consoles like the Atari Jaguar and the 3DO Interactive.
I remember going to the Wilsonville Fry's as a kid and playing Gran Turismo 2 for PS1 in an awesome demo setup with a steering wheel, shifter, and huge TV. I went back last year to the same store and found it downright melancholy. Like seeing your childhood die.
I used to drive down there from Portland to get parts that I needed right away. Haven't been there in years though, as it had definitely started going downhill in the early 2000s. I always hated the receipt checkers and used to walk right by the line of people waiting to get out after they paid for merch.
I did go to the AMD roadshow in the parking lot one time, and both my friend and I won Athlon CPU/Mobo combos, that was cool. That may have been the last time I was there. Sounds depressing.
The San Diego store (in Mission Valley) also started out as an Incredible Universe, Fry's had also bought their delivery trucks but never repainted them. Even 10 years ago, I would still see Incredible Universe-logoed trucks delivering appliances.
It's tempting to say "well it's just because of Amazon and Newegg", but Best Buy and (from what I've heard) Microcenter are doing just fine. I'd be really curious to see a post-mortem on what went wrong at Fry's.
Fry’s in Alpharetta is one step away from being a Brandsmart. The store is lackluster and not stocked very well. Thankfully I moved close to a Microcenter. It’s rare you can beat Microcenter’s Intel cpu prices for non-niche cpus.
The employees at both places are only really knowledgeable about gaming stuff. As soon as I ask them about other things they have a deer in headlights look.
this article made me think of 2 experiences at big box stores I had this weekend.
At Lowe's, I had to buy a few things for a desk Im building. I noticed the following:
1) the staff size was the same, but
2) I had to check out my own items at the self checkout which is
3) user hostile and requires assistance for about 30% of the items.
4) they only had 1 person for 8 self checkout stations and this person was super busy and checking out took unnecessarily long
I vowed then to never go back. It just so happens I had a plumbing issue, so I went to home depot. As luck would have it, they have done the same thing. However, their self checkout was reasonably polished and more user friendly. That said, I still was not happy with the process and will revert to going to one of the fewer and fewer ACE hardware stores whenever possible. I shouldnt have to know any code or special information about a product to buy it. If I have to check out my own items I shouldnt see 15 employees loitering around the store chatting.(true at both Lowes and Home Depot). I shouldnt be paying 8 dollars for a 25 foot roll of painters tape if I am checking out my own items.
Dude, the new self checkouts at Home Depot are the bee's knees. Huge, bright and very responsive display. And best part is they actually let you hold a barcode wand so you can scan all your stuff while it is still in the cart! Makes it much, much faster to use because you aren't getting constantly blocked on the machine between each item you ring up.
Unlike every other self checkout, I actually had fun using it!
The Fry’s by my house is a disaster zone of sadness and empty shelves. The Microcenter up the road has completely blown up as a result. It’s regularly packed to the gills.
The employees know it. They’re always referring to how bad it is at Frys and that’s why their store has become so popular.
Microcenter is down right dangerous. There are shelves and shelves of new Ryzen processors and those Bucky ball looking Intel processor boxes. It’s tough to not build a monster rig. I’m even considering heading there as I write this comment - to pick up a water cooler for an old i7 3770k so I can clock it to the moon and revitalize it. (If any hackers here have a 3770k and tips, please share)
I love being able to go there to grab UniFi gear right off the shelf. Being able to walk into a physical store that’s a ten minute drive from my house to grab SFP transceivers and fiber cables is kind of unreal to me.
Being able to get headphones, UniFi gear, a Raspberry Pi Zero W and multiple sensors at Microcenter is very dangerous for me too. And their service to order ahead and just pick it up 20 minutes later is just nuts! I don't have to sift through all the shelves myself!
My local Fry's have gotten a terrible reputation for putting used or broken gear on the shelves -- and they've had that reputation for years. I think they're getting what they deserve, frankly.
Totally forgot about that last part... man, never buy a MB or Graphics Card from Fry's if there's a sticker on it... avoid like the plague, and never buy a laptop/desktop there either... head to BB for that.
There was a time where motherboards were shipping with terrible BIOS, and you could save a bunch of money by buying one of those that was returned and flashing it first thing.For things without a good chance of easy fixes, though, I would probably not buy a previously returned one.
Of course, now they don't really have that kind of merchandise, so this knowledge is pretty much worthless :P
Apropos of nothing, Microcenter's "locations" page is atrocious. Just give me a map!
My Fry's is similarly a disaster zone, so I thought I'd see how close the nearest Microcenter is. Figuring that out requires me to either be familiar with the suburbs of major cities outside my state, or to click through each one to see where they are.
Microcenter's locations are, using metro areas as a location metric:
LA, Denver, Atlanta (x2), Chicago (x2), Kansas City, Boston, DC (x2), Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Minneapolis, NYC (x5), Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Houston.
If you live in the NE, you probably recognize the closest store just by the name of the city it's in. If you don't recognize any names, then it's probably several hours away.
I used the one in Cincinnati and Chicago quite a bit. Cables and other items I'll still get off eBay or Newegg unless I need them that weekend and am willing to pay the retail upmarks, but for a lot of higher end products, the prices are not too far off from online retail stores (I stopped shopping at Amazon in 2016 so I can't compare to that one; just eBay and Newegg mostly).
There are a lot of products on their site that are "in-store only" which is a good model .. if you happen to live near one. I'll even pay an extra $30~$40 for something high end like a monitor since if something is wrong with it, I can just return it to the store and not have to worry about packaging it and shipping it back.
Out of curiosity where are you located? As far as I can tell, all the Microcenters in the Bay Area have closed down.
We still have Central Computer, which is where I had to go to get my last part when Fry's didn't have it (the special screwdriver for opening the newish Mac laptops).
My dad basically runs his business through that Microcenter, and has for the past 5+ years—prior to that Fry's was the place to go, especially the one off the 91 & Kramer.
I just wish it wasn't next to the 5 entrance on the 55. Maybe that is a good thing, if not I would make my way there more often. Reporting from Costa Mesa as well.
There's a Microcenter just a couple of miles from my house, but I haven't ventured inside in roughly 15 years.
Do they still do the RadioShack-style hounding you for a phone number when you checkout? Or did they finally wise up and stop doing that?
The last time I was shopping there, they were AGGRESSIVE about it. Actually got mad when I said my number was unlisted and refused to give it to them. I was so turned off, I just took my shopping online and never looked back.
They aren't that bad, but they work on commission and will try and put little stickers with their barcode on whatever products you are holding in your hand. If you tell them to buzz off they will.
Microcenter on Elston in the 1990s and 2000s was a disaster, run and organized like a flea market. Contrast with the St. Louis one which is like a futuristic Best Buy, clean, organized and well-stocked. YMMV.
Yeah, I was amazed when I went to Microcenter recently. I had the impression of them as a discount Circuit City/Best Buy from the late 90s and early 2000s. The workers were more knowledgeable than the competition (basically just Staples, Office Depot, Walmart, Target and Best Buy at this point). The guy in charge of the computer hardware section really knew his stuff and was helpful.
The Fry's in Renton, WA doesn't have much stock, and what they do have is mostly very bad quality off-brand stuff (e.g., the keyboard section has just one or two brands of keyboards, I'm guessing from suppliers that weren't smart enough to ask for cash up front). They had a section of garden tools at one point.
Employees appear to be well trained not to say anything negative, mumbling vague promises of restocking soon.
It's been this way for months. I am surprised they have not shut the doors.
Used to love Fry's in Renton. Was great to go down and see what they had and browse all the items and options. I went to buy a new Ryzen build for my stepdaughter after the old AMD bulldozer I donated to her bought the farm (turned out to be the video card, all other parts recycled into my other ancient AMD bulldozer. Long story short, I had $2500 in my pocket to spend on this build so we could build it together. The MOBO shelves were empty. So were the vid card shelves. I walked out with 50 cents worth of shrink tubing for a different project. Told the cashier "you just lost a $2500 sale". She was indifferent. Stopped at costco on the way home and found an acceptable HP gaming machine for ~1000. The fire for a big build was gone, but the step daughter is happy. It's truly sad. I used to love ComputerStop and HDNW back in the Microserf days. I'm also of the point of view that I don't want to order thousands of dollars of parts without holding them in my hand in the store. Gen X here. We're the last to appreciate that experience I think.
(Before anyone gets snarky about substituting an HP for a true custom build... it was my money not hers and she's happy, so I did save $1500 in the deal. That makes my wallet happy) :)
(Before anyone gets snarky about substituting an HP for a true custom build... it was my money not hers and she's happy, so I did save $1500 in the deal. That makes my wallet happy) :)
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 295 ms ] threadAs far as I know, there's only one in SoCal still open (Tustin).
Same thing everyone else reports: it was dark with a few bored employees wondering around aimlessly. Alternating messy and bare shelves. Absurd amounts of floor space compared to the trade they were doing.
They did have 50' ethernet cables, though.
Multiple aisles of cheap cellphone accessories aren't a good look either, but there were a bunch of Anker boxes - whose cables I like.
It's just a bunch of back and forth on who will pay for what, since they only lease half of that building. I have heard they are doing quite well.
Left, drove to Microcenter, and had to fight my way through the crowds to get to the RAM. They had multiple options, happy associates, and I even poked around with fun 3d printing stuff because the store was so well stocked. It's wild that their situation is so different.
When I visited Fry's in the DFW area last year (Irving Store off of LBJ freeway) I was shocked at how low energy and sad the place was. It was just one big pile of despair. Just a handful of people were shuffling in and out. They shelves were in complete disrepair, and there were areas where there was no stock on shelves. Computers on display were broken, twisted wrecks. The home theater areas had older model sets and speakers strewn about.
It was nothing like the late 90's when the place was an absolute zoo, and you could be guaranteed to have every gadget known to man on display. Christmas time at Frys was waiting in a checkout line 100's deep. It was a fun time.
That last time I visited is the last time I'll ever visit. It's clear Amazon and online retailing has decimated them.
The Fry's in Plano is in a similar state to what parent comment is describing. It's an incredibly weird feeling walking thru. They've stopped restocking, so anything I remotely could use or need isn't there. What's left are things that nobody really wants. I have lots of memories growing up in that store, sad to see it like this. I definitely recommend hitting it up before the inevitable shutdown, it's quite the vibe to take in.
You may also want to check out Altex. They have a store in Carrollton, and my experience visiting there a few months ago is that they're _very_ well-stocked and with excellent prices at that.
Last time I went there was nothing particularly awe-inspiring as far as setup computers. Just a bunch of Dell and Lenovo's with normal looking monitors. Would have been nice to see at least one souped-up uber PC with all kinds of obnoxious leds quad SLI, and 4 8k monitors, or something.
Granted it's still an extremely useful store, and I really wish I had one in the area I live in now.
I'm not sure how they're surviving in the era of online shopping but they seem to be doing well. I wonder if most of the foot traffic is driven by impulse same-day BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup in Store) sales. I'll admit that's how I ended up going to the brick-and-mortar store -- I didn't think that computer superstores still existed in this day and age.
I would just walk the aisles to see if anything looked interesting. And sometimes you would see people you knew, or knew of.
On one of these random walks, I ran into Linus Torvalds in the Campbell store. Good times!
I won't be going back. Microcenter, Best Buy, or an online retailer for me..
You mean Amazon doesn't police your receipt and merchandise at a checkpoint as you got out of the store?
My practice when I used to shop at Fry's was to stop and let the receipt checking person mark my receipt with their pink marker, if no one was ahead of me in that line. This was only to let them feel good about their job, not because I had any legal obligation.
If there was anyone in the receipt checking line I would just smile and wave and walk by. They never stopped me, nor could they legally, but the people waiting in line would often look at me and look at the receipt checker, puzzled that I could get away with it and they "couldn't".
Aside from that, it's a security theater tactic to discourage shoplifting, which also happens to discourage regular shopping.
Finding something you may have forgotten at the checkout is the only possible benefit to the consumer, so they play it up as a point of customer service, to partially counteract the unreasonable queue they create for exiting the store.
If the genuine concern was forgotten items, they would do the additional QA check at the point of sale, where the item is most likely to be found, rather than at the exit doors.
Don't parrot the corporate propaganda without giving it your own analysis first.
The veracity is easily checked. Buy a small, disposable item with your regular purchase, and put it in your pocket after checkout. If the receipt checker notices the item is missing, note a positive result. Put the receipt in your pocket with the item. Next time around, take the item out of your pocket and put it in the cart, and see what happens. Make sure you project the confidence that yes, that object in the cart is yours, and was lawfully purchased during a previous visit. Beware that this sort of testing may get your membership revoked.
I've considered using a collapsible box that I bought at Costco to pack my items after a shopping trip there. I wouldn't have the original receipt for it though, so I don't know how much hassle it would be. Haven't tried it yet.
It's a moot point, because good QA is not the goal.
You could swap collapsible boxes with someone who shops at Sam's Club, if it worries you.
Other stores don't have the processes for it, but legally they could bar you from return visits to their properties.
Their considering me a thief by default has provoked me to spend elsewhere. The poor buggers manning the front door never gave me any grief for blowing them off, but the unanswerable managerial thought that put them there in the first place makes it a no brainier to shop elsewhere.
And yea, that is despite the pull of preferring to fondle and drool on the merchandise in person.
And yet, somehow, Best Buy is doing fine apparently.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgriffin/2018/07/27/best-buy...
Every time I go in there I have to ask the cashier for the price on the web site. The stores and site have different prices. I guess it makes sense because you capture 5% from everyone who doesn't bother to do that.
My point is, Best Buy has never been a one-to-one comparison to me. There are things that Fry's has that Best Buy simply doesn't.
[1]: https://www.frys.com/product/1000013 [2]: https://www.frys.com/product/1003503
They probably own the buildings (maybe even the land, too.) Potential buyers of a commercial building would want said building's internals in good condition (i.e. not wrecked by looters.) And the simplest way to ensure the building stays in good condition is to keep it running.
Those were the days :)
I kept joking to my friend that it felt post-apocalyptic because it looked like it had been looted. There were rough and cut-open boxes on empty shelves, empty and open packaging on the floor, no signs for the aisles to show what they had on them, employees that looked dead in the eyes, rows of shelves that were just empty or had maybe two or three items on them. It was legitimately sad to see.
We were on the hunt for a dual monitor setup. They didn't even have a 4k monitor on the shelves. That was how poor their selection was.
I've heard they're having issues even paying their vendors, so yeah. I'm pretty positive Fry's is in big trouble.
Sad to see them slip away, one of the joys was wandering the aisles looking for things I didn't know I needed/wanted.
I used to love Fry's, they had a great selection for system builders and hobbyists. Although I will say it always had a kind of grim, penitential air to it - all the employees in their black and white outfits and the massive black locked cages behind the rows of registers. It seemed oppressive, like you wouldn't be surprised to find out that the managers were beating the cashiers or something.
Still, sorry to see it go. I've been disappointed with the other system-builder-oriented place in town who knowingly restock broken merch. I guess it's Newegg from here on out!
Yeah. A weird vibe. The wood. The faux “luxury” trim. The yellow. Dudes in cheap looking suits trying to corner you so they can “ring up your order” for their commission.
Yeah. Fry’s was a weird place. The branding just didn’t match the service or experience at all.
I was absolutely gutted to see the state of the store. It's immense, which makes its hollowness even more shocking. I remember when the store opened during my highschool years (2004'ish?) it was a pilgrimage to go there and see double-stacked shelves of every part you could imagine.
The employees (probably a 15-20 in the huge 400K sq.ft. store) looked shellshocked and didn't seem to have any inclination to ask me how they could help. I talked to a security guard who was maybe 17-18 and he mentioned something about renegotiating contracts with vendors or something, but I could tell even he didn't buy it.
I don't think there is any question of whether Fry's is in dire trouble.
The roof leaks water everywhere, so they have shopping carts with buckets all over the store; the computer section is now entirely empty ("we're switching to a consignment model") is what one employee told me; just very, very sad.
I'd guess perhaps they spent too much on real estate (that store could be 1/3rd its size and still fit everything) but no idea.
Since Fishers succumbed to Carmel disease and started putting traffic circles in everywhere, it's even more difficult to get to from the north.
I'd say they spent too little on real estate, and tried to repurpose a bad building in a bad location. They would have done better in the old shuttered Marsh supermarket on 96th St., if it had closed up shop before they moved in to Indy. Actually, they could probably move right now, for all the shelf-stock they're likely to still have on hand. The old building should just be razed and replaced with class-B office park offices. It has never had enough casual traffic to be good retail.
Otherwise, plan ahead and use online retailers.
The Greek Islands restaurant used to regularly drive a van to Chicago and back, because Kronos wouldn't ship their beef-lamb doner kebab cones for vertical gyro rotisseries all the way to Indy, so they were about the only place in town you could get a real gyro. I guess it's about the same for electronics.
You could maybe ask around the IUPUI or Purdue electronics engineering professors, or the robotic therapy/prosthetics lab at the IU hospital.
Lol, driving 6 hours to browse a store and getting an eco-green feeling.
I just think they’ve got too much crap in there at RadioShack prices. It’s hard to find something I’m looking for and when i do find it, have to make the mental choice to pay twice as much for it in store or wait 2 days for Amazon Prime to deliver it.
So just anecdotally as a guy who shops there, I’m not surprised they’re struggling.
Seriously?
Had to stop going there when some manager got upset I was came back in asking for a price adjustment per the store policy and they told me to never come back after handing me cash.
I went there on Black Friday this year to find the shelves still empty.
Now, the nearest Fry's is 45-60 minutes away from me, so I've only been in about 3 times in the last decade. The most recent was equally depressing. We didn't find what we were looking for and it probably would have been damaged even if we had.
I know the history of computing technology pretty well... but it was striking to see it laid out like that, in the context of changes with art, culture, domestic and international politics.
Retrospecting on that, in the heyday when Moore's Law was so visible, before the PC revolution gave birth to the Internet revolution, new computing devices were changing so fast. You could go into a store a month later and see a lot of things that are new. I remember the Columbus OH Microcenter. There was a tiny used computer store nearby. Both were packed. That business worked because there was so much turnover.
You don't really see that nowadays. The most exciting thing that come out tbese days is the Threadripper, but for most consumers, it isn't necessary anymore.
Most of the rapid changes are taking place where people can't really see it anymore (unless you are an insider) -- in the cloud, with AI.
Even though changes are still happening rapidly, I think the _visible_ changes have petered out for the consumer.
What I am saying is that, even if Fry's were able to compete on price with internet retailers, something more fundamental has shifted.
Now maybe I am just saying this from the perspective of the US. I hear that in China, the development and competitiveness of smartphones is a lot greater there than in the US. Apple has a difficult time competing in China because there are many stylish, hot smartphones within that domestic market. If so, then perhaps it isn't that changes are no longer being visible ... but that the US is no longer the focal point of consumer product innovation that it one was.
I remember the holidays at that time with the checkout line being so long that they couldn’t keep up with even 30 registers open. Now, they have maybe two registers open at any given time and the checkout line is never more than a few customers long.
I find it sad and disconcerting. But I have to admit to being part of the problem: I haven’t bought much at Fry’s since I built my last PC 2-3 years ago. Every time we go now, it’s depressing and we end up only buying a cable or a memory card.
That is the same in and vaguely specialist shop. Most of the workers will be the cheapest to employ or the least willing to fight back about a bit of unpaid overtime here or there. Having knowledge and/or skills is no longer a significant competitive advantage in that employment market.
The quality and depth of information available online, especially via forums, far exceeds what one can expect from a single employee. I don’t see how any store could compete on that aspect, although the online info is probably limited to people who are adept at reading English.
This always chapped my hide. It absolutely killed my favorite local technical bookstores.
Fry's was the only store I visited on "Black Friday". Some of the other customers were looking at the bare shelves, like "what happened"? I bought a few items I thought would be useful, but I was not in the market for any big-ticket items.
On that day I overheard one of the employees say the "trade war" was the cause of the company's problems. Partially, I'm sure, but not totally. I'd read about an employee at the Fry's corporate office who was caught lining his own pocket with company money: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14906339
I think Fry's has a chance because it owns most of its buildings, and it's presumably not being looted by vulture capitalists (as happened to Sears). The stores have been well-staffed for months in spite of their having little to sell.
I still shop at Fry's because I don't always know what I'm looking for, and it's nice to be able to browse.
Thinking back, Fry's was a perfect place to spend my teenage years - I had little money, and not enough technical knowledge to be a discerning consumer. As an adult it no longer serves its purpose - I can afford to buy higher quality goods, and have the time and knowledge to find them.
>[link:] PAGE ONE -- '90s Kids Find New Hangout -- Computer Store
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/PAGE-ONE-90s-Kids-F...
>Harrison's one complaint is that the game manuals are not near the demonstration computers. "You have to figure out what weapon to kill what people with on your own, and that's hard to do without the manual," he said.
In the late 70's - early 80's, I used to hang out at the mall Radio Shack after school with a few other regular kids, where we played games and learned to program BASIC on the TRS-80's.
They had a similar attitude about kids hanging out there, and gave us a place to store our cassette tapes, because it helped sell computers to the adult customers, who we would demonstrate the computers to all the time.
Plus we got to listen to great music (like "My Sharona" by The Knack, who were supposed to be the next Beatles) as the Radio Shack sales people sold stereos and speakers to customers.
Kids these days know "My Bologna" better than "My Sharona" and Weird Al better than the Beatles. (And JavaScript better than BASIC!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hxLaFJf9Jk
The last time I went to Fry's was maybe 1 year ago. If you walk around, all of the electronics are older models, the game shelves are filled with games that are all several years old, even things like hard drives, etc are all old and expensive.
There were no salespeople to help except in places like the TV area. The car stereo area, which is what I was interested in, was empty and no one showed up. The car stereos themselves were older models. Nothing worked.
Why on earth would I ever return? The entire shopping experience at Fry's is worse than clicking through on Amazon.
Fry's is dead. Chalk one up for Amazon and automation a-la Andrew Yang. 30% of retail stores will close in 5-10 years and it's because of online stores like Amazon, that suck money out of local stores and diverts all the money to Seattle, except for the local warehouses where minimum wage workers are being worked like robots. This only gets worse unless we figure out how to rejig the economy with 21st century solutions like UBI.
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Fry-s-exec-dropped-mill...
It's easy to say that, but then the retort is why isn't Micro Center suffering the same issues? The two should be facing exactly the same pressure from Amazon, so the reasons for Fry's failures has to be more nuanced than "internet retailers are sucking everyone dry."
For my part, I'm much more willing to buy computer parts in person because a) I get to walk out with it and set it up that day and b) I'd rather carry >$1000 worth of equipment on my person than hope no one steals it between its delivery time and my getting off of work.
I have no idea which part of the country you live in, but I would be shocked if in the Bay Area, Micro Center would be considered a "success". I can see how some stores, depending on their business agreements, might be able to stay alive through support, etc.
But for example, last year I ordered a graphics card on Amazon and it arrived on a Friday. I tried installing it on Saturday, and discovered it was broken, so I ordered a new one on Saturday afternoon. It arrived on a Sunday, before 9am. It was the most amazing experience.
I also shy away from amazon for some computer components because of all the fake stuff Amazon is now filled with. At MC you're much more likely to get the actual real part you ordered.
For non-sale stuff, they're usually in a competitive ballpark, although I wouldn't necessarily say cheaper, and I don't have to worry about counterfeits, or the "might be used/refurbed" roulette.
I don't buy anything complex on Amazon anymore, just books and stuff that I don't care are fake.
Also, as far as I know, Best Buy will do price-matching against Amazon, just like Fry's does, except with much less fuss about it. And Best Buy is way better about actually pricing their stuff competitively with Amazon to start with rather than hoping you just don't notice.
I actually purchased a 34" ultrawide monitor from the Rockville store recently specifically because it was the best price I could find at the time, and I went and got it the same day.
Went to a Fry's way out in the burbs of Chicago long ago, in the mid 2000s or so, it was pretty lively then. Not even sure if that one is still around.
There even used to be a TigerDirect location just south of Micro Center on Elston for a while. In my mind they always competed with NewEgg though and looks like NewEgg won out. I don't think the physical location was around that long. Might have even been a CompUSA around there too if I remember correctly.
Went to Microcenter later that day. Moderately busy store, fully stocked shelves, and a decently knowledgeable staff.
I also just bought an open-box video card there last weekend, which ended up saving me another $35 USD. I like having the option to just return it to the store if there is a problem, I'm a little more worried about doing this via an online retailer.
Amazon returns are nice, but store warranties are where MicroCenter shines. When my Samsung SSD died after six months, I waited weeks for the manufacturer to ship me a replacement. I've gone with store warranties since then; if something breaks they'll just hand you a replacement off the shelf.
One possibility is that Fry's didn't focus enough on it's core competency: computer components for enthusiasts. Last I was there they were selling a bunch of very tangentially related things, like a lot of kids toys.
That's the kind of stuff that nobody really cares so much about seeing before they but them, so easy for online retailers to serve.
Seems like many successful post Amazon businesses focus on a particular niche. Of course, I imagine that with their huge retail buildings, Fry's had to fill them with something to justify the cost of that space.
Retailers are just as much selling an experience as they are selling goods. The novelty of the Fry's experience just wore off for most people. Believe it or not there was a time when people would take their families there all weekend long as an outing.
People just aren't as impressed with consumer technology now as they were then ... and they're sort of right. The changes in recent years haven't been that wonder-inducing from a consumer perspective.
1. Many Speciality retailers 2. Single speciality retailer 3. single speciality retailer with limited stock 4. general retailer or substitute
With each step the market shrinks some, but it's still possible to capture profits.
Like you can chart videogames in this way
1. funcoland, electronics boutique, software etc, gamestop 2. gamestop (expansion) 3. current gamestop (limited game selection, focus on other high margin goods) 4. (future) gamestop folds, wal-mart and general retailers become focus of physical game retail.
In my town, bookstores are like this:
1. Waldenbooks, B Daltons, Books a Million, Borders 2. BOrders, then BAM 3. BAM, limited book stock, focusing more on high margin accessories 4. (in my local area) Goodwill, tiny book shelf at Walmart
The market will contract as Amazon increases to fit the reduced need for physical. So Micro Center is able to fulfill the demand by themselves, and it was just who had better business governance that chose who survived to take over the shrinking market, i think.
Seems like a store that big is only sustainable if you've got a ton of daily foot traffic.
Microcenter on the other hand has much smaller stores and a more focused set of product offerings. Also much better service. You can count on Microcenter staff to be helpful and informed, while Fry's staff was hit or miss but mostly pretty useless.
Fry's is not paying better than Amazon and Amazon's workers do not earn the minimum wage. Show me where Fry's has a national $15 minimum wage policy (they don't), ie nearly 100% higher than the Federal minimum wage.
I think meijers might do it too?
It IS illegal for them to try to stop you from leaving if you decline, unless they are detaining you for suspected shoplifting (which they must specifically inform you of).
And if they actually go so far as to physically prevent you from leaving? Congratulations, you just won the lawsuit lottery.
The customer service is definitely atrocious though. It took 40 minutes to find someone who could unlock the RAM I needed from a cage (and this was after I had to get a printed PO from someone on the "sales" floor).
They're spending a ton of labor for things that don't matter (like keeping a cafe open). No wonder they dont have money to keep their shelves stocked with anything other than as seen on tv junk.
Contrast to going into a local computer store, they had full stock of all the latest parts/components and competitive prices.
Would be interesting to know what's going on within the leadership of this company. They must know what the situation is, but how do they turn things around?
Central computers just opened a store almost right across the road from the Sunnyvale Fry's.
In fact, for my home-built machines, I typically buy them at Central, who will assemble the CPU, RAM, and Motherboard, showign that it POSTs (I've had plenty of times when I've purchased what I thought was a compatible group of hardware that wasn't).
I haven't been to Anchor yet but several of my ham radio friends have recommended it.
Jameco in San Carlos also has a lot of components. It's not a retail store, other than a small display up front of mostly closeout stuff, but you can order online for will call and they will have it ready by the time you get there.
One more Bay Area source I like a lot is SF Cable. As you can guess, they have mostly cables. The ones I've bought from them have been good quality at a good price. I particularly like their flat Cat 6 Ethernet cables. I don't think they have a retail store at all, but if you're in the Bay Area it's overnight shipping.
https://www.jameco.com/
https://www.sfcable.com/
I have to say too that the San Jose store has smelled horrid the last year due to what seems like super old carpet smell. If they won't even pay to clean their carpet they don't deserve to be in business.
One time I had to get a laptop last minute, they (fry's) tried to get me to buy one laptop, told them I will look around first, which I did and foud what I wanted, asked them to help me get that model after which they basically ignored me and refused to interact with me for like half an hour to 45 minutes where finally a manager stepped in and personally helped me.
Another time, I wanted to buy some game I think as a gift. I declined to give my name/address since I was paying cash and suddenly I needed to show my id and a credit card or else I'm committig fraud or some ridiculous thing.
I've seen them make nasty comments about a customer's appearance to the customer's face too.
And this is at different locations. Microcenter started to get their way,but I was so shocked how they turned around. It's hard to explain,like the sales people will helpfully just ...help you find things without being rude. The cashiers will ask for an address (and get pushy at times) but they are fine without one.
I will just buy online if I have to give up my name anyways. Cash gift cards and deliver it to a trusted person. All the variety I want too. The one advantage aside from accessibility retailers had was privacy and that's outthe door now. Amazon/newegg does not do facial recognition,gait analysis and track my phone in order to buy something in their site.
Online stores aren’t great when you are just in need of a $1 component. ideally you’d be able to just nip to a real store and quickly get what you need
Not a walk in store, but you can order online and pickup.
I once bought a PC from them that wouldn't boot reliably. In the process of trying to get an OS installed on it, I accidentally wiped the recovery partition on the drive. Eventually I gave up and tried to return the PC.
"Sorry, we can't take this back. We can't restore the OS," said the returns tech.
"It won't even boot. That's why I'm returning it."
"But it means that we can't put it back on the shelf."
I don't remember what I said to get my money back, but I did, and it was the last PC I ever bought there.
I've been going to Fry's since they opened on Lawrence Expressway in the 80s. Fry's was a fun, wacky place to take out-of-town guests to, and they were great for the occasional emergency keyboard or HDD, but you were taking a risk on expensive items. Won't miss them much.
How are brick and mortar stores still a thing for products that are NOT either things I try on (clothes), things I need to see before they arrive (groceries) or impulse purchases? The fact that the last one didn't close in 2010 is a monument to how humans refuse to try anything new past a certain age, no matter how much cheaper, easier, faster or better quality you make it.
It's not just about price. Sometimes you want a reasonable assurance that what you're buying is the real deal. Amazon continues to get worse in that department.
Brick and mortar is also still faster. Not everyone or every item can be delivered on the same day, but going to a store can get me that item now instead of tomorrow or 2 days from now. Usually I'm not in that much of a hurry, but sometimes I am.
But enough about computers. I think the products that keep Best Buy in business are the vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, washing machines, and other large big-ticket items that people would rather not select from pictures on their phone, let alone ship.
Hence the 25 dollar Best Buy USB cables; "Ah Crap.. Do I drive to Walmart?... Nah"
Edit: But actually yes. I was pretty peeved about the cost of a basic A/B USB cable there.
There's something about being able to browse, touch and discover new things that the online experience doesn't provide. Even Amazon's strategy includes B&M these days [2] (Amazon Books, Amazon Go, Amazon 4-star, Whole Foods, etc. -- all of these can be found in the Chicago area and other parts of the country)
[1] New retail technologies:
https://www.retaildive.com/topic/technology/
[2] https://www.amazon.com/find-your-store/b/?node=17608448011
The shelves in most of the store were empty. Much of the store was blocked off with caution tape, with buckets out to collect rain water dripping from the ceiling. I looked for graphics cards, but the aisle was completely bare. There were very few workers in the store, and even fewer customers.
In the front, I found fragrances. DVDs and Blu-rays were mainly obscure or poor films priced as high as $40. The only computers I could find were antiquated machines for the workers running Windows XP (or possibly Windows 2000) with 4:3 monitors.
One of the workers said that they were 'restructuring' their supply contracts - a clear attempt by management to keep up morale in a failing business. A store that size does not move to a consignment model.
Is Fry's Electronics in trouble? Yes.
Somewhere there will be a chapter in the book of Fry's demise about how they never modernized their point of sale system. That thing is fucking ancient and looks like some kind of weird homebrew monstrosity that the owners nephew (you know, the one who "knows computers") cooked up for them way back when they started. That thing has to have been a boat anchor that kept them from tinkering with their business model.
Fry's in Wilsonville had some tough shoes to fill -- the building started as an electronics megastore called Incredible Universe, and in the beginning at least it was an event to go there. When Fry's moved in, they ditched all the theming (side note - this store never got a unique theme like many other Fry's stores; it was always promised to be "coming soon" but never did), and changed the layout to be a bit of a hodge-podge by comparison.
I really miss Incredible Universe's "bent and dent" room, where they sold items that were missing bits, slightly damaged, unboxed, etc, at a pretty steep discount.
I did go to the AMD roadshow in the parking lot one time, and both my friend and I won Athlon CPU/Mobo combos, that was cool. That may have been the last time I was there. Sounds depressing.
The employees at both places are only really knowledgeable about gaming stuff. As soon as I ask them about other things they have a deer in headlights look.
At Lowe's, I had to buy a few things for a desk Im building. I noticed the following: 1) the staff size was the same, but 2) I had to check out my own items at the self checkout which is 3) user hostile and requires assistance for about 30% of the items. 4) they only had 1 person for 8 self checkout stations and this person was super busy and checking out took unnecessarily long
I vowed then to never go back. It just so happens I had a plumbing issue, so I went to home depot. As luck would have it, they have done the same thing. However, their self checkout was reasonably polished and more user friendly. That said, I still was not happy with the process and will revert to going to one of the fewer and fewer ACE hardware stores whenever possible. I shouldnt have to know any code or special information about a product to buy it. If I have to check out my own items I shouldnt see 15 employees loitering around the store chatting.(true at both Lowes and Home Depot). I shouldnt be paying 8 dollars for a 25 foot roll of painters tape if I am checking out my own items.
Unlike every other self checkout, I actually had fun using it!
The employees know it. They’re always referring to how bad it is at Frys and that’s why their store has become so popular.
Microcenter is down right dangerous. There are shelves and shelves of new Ryzen processors and those Bucky ball looking Intel processor boxes. It’s tough to not build a monster rig. I’m even considering heading there as I write this comment - to pick up a water cooler for an old i7 3770k so I can clock it to the moon and revitalize it. (If any hackers here have a 3770k and tips, please share)
I love being able to go there to grab UniFi gear right off the shelf. Being able to walk into a physical store that’s a ten minute drive from my house to grab SFP transceivers and fiber cables is kind of unreal to me.
My local Fry's have gotten a terrible reputation for putting used or broken gear on the shelves -- and they've had that reputation for years. I think they're getting what they deserve, frankly.
Of course, now they don't really have that kind of merchandise, so this knowledge is pretty much worthless :P
My Fry's is similarly a disaster zone, so I thought I'd see how close the nearest Microcenter is. Figuring that out requires me to either be familiar with the suburbs of major cities outside my state, or to click through each one to see where they are.
https://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/default.aspx
LA, Denver, Atlanta (x2), Chicago (x2), Kansas City, Boston, DC (x2), Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Minneapolis, NYC (x5), Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Houston.
If you live in the NE, you probably recognize the closest store just by the name of the city it's in. If you don't recognize any names, then it's probably several hours away.
There are a lot of products on their site that are "in-store only" which is a good model .. if you happen to live near one. I'll even pay an extra $30~$40 for something high end like a monitor since if something is wrong with it, I can just return it to the store and not have to worry about packaging it and shipping it back.
We still have Central Computer, which is where I had to go to get my last part when Fry's didn't have it (the special screwdriver for opening the newish Mac laptops).
they have handful of store around the bay
Do they still do the RadioShack-style hounding you for a phone number when you checkout? Or did they finally wise up and stop doing that?
The last time I was shopping there, they were AGGRESSIVE about it. Actually got mad when I said my number was unlisted and refused to give it to them. I was so turned off, I just took my shopping online and never looked back.
Employees appear to be well trained not to say anything negative, mumbling vague promises of restocking soon.
It's been this way for months. I am surprised they have not shut the doors.
(Before anyone gets snarky about substituting an HP for a true custom build... it was my money not hers and she's happy, so I did save $1500 in the deal. That makes my wallet happy) :)