Circuit City to close ALL Atlanta locations... (for sale, Home Depot)

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by jdubvjt

Did they consider that if they left one Atlanta store open, it might no longer underperform?

That's what I was thinking.

Example: If they went ahead and closed the Acworth, Douglasville, and Hiram stores - BUT, left the Barrett Parkway (Kennesaw/Town Center) location open, they would draw people from the entire West metro area into that store. Barrett Parkway is already one of the busier stores, but it would boom if it were the only store on this side of town. If they did that in just 3-4 spots in Atlanta, those stores would thrive.

It seems they made some stupid decisions while in business - and now, while they're closing they're just as stupid. duh.

[crux]

for a stock valued at .27 its not surprising. They'll be nonexistent next year.

[Merin]

I am not surprised. Remember when they laid off every employee making over 15.00 a hour?

[VJP]

I am not surprised, nor do I See it as a sign of the times. Circuit City has a top 100 list of priorities and I think customer service and satisfaction is #100. :/ How about last year when sales peeps who were the most knowledgeable, hence highest paid at a whopping max of fifteen bucks an hour were let go to be replaced with 9 dollar an hour workers?

Goodriddance to poor sorry companies who don't care about their customers. This is one of the best tenets of the [mostly] capitalistic supply and demand country we live in. I just hope someone does something cool with that space. I have some good ideas, but no money, :lol:

-VJ

[coolyfett]

Originally Posted by atlantagreg30127

I would suspect after Xmas this year that there will be some good inventory closeout sales going on if you can get to them, though.

Liquidation actually starts Thursday Greg. More people, more lose of jobs, man this is so lame. CC installed my car alarm when I lived in Jacksonville. My brother says they are closing two there in Jax. The alarm still works too. Prior to mp3s I used to get a lot of CDs from CC. This ain't a good look. I wonder who is next.

[meadgrad]

Originally Posted by Merin

I am not surprised. Remember when they laid off every employee making over 15.00 a hour?

Clark Howard railed on CC today because of this...apparently they laid off anyone with experience and loyalty with the company to save a buck.

so they got their just rewards.

[atlantagreg30127]

Think of all the extended warranties on items they were selling up until about a week ago. The " you can carry it back in and we'll take care of it " warranties. Now there won't be any stores left TO carry that stuff back in to. I see lawsuits over that alone.

I understand that distribution center costs are a factor, but to completely pull out of a large market area to me seems like it opens up more problems than it solves unless you're completely going under (which they're not).

[RoslynHolcomb]

I would imagine that they not only chose to close underperforming stores, but also the ones that cost a lot to maintain. I would imagine that property here costs more than some of their other locations, especially in smaller markets. If the market costs a fortune it has to do better than average to compensate. If it doesn't, you're just throwing your money away.

[billl]

Circuit City has declared bankruptcy. No surprise. The only surprise, really, is that they lasted this long.

Circuit City files for bankruptcy | Reuters

[10scoachrick]

Sounds like a few of you had very different experiences with CC compared to mine. Three different times, I tried to spend over $2000 at Best Buy Perimeter and three different times left empty-handed. No product in stock, no phone call regarding availability(we waited and then returned a week after we were told the products would be in--nothing), sales people who only wanted to sell extended service plans, not products, etc. We ended up at a long-time local business in Sandy Springs for those appliances...very good service...returned many times. CC wasn't my favorite but I did get a large TV and returned for a wall mount at the Marietta location...ended up at Office Depot for the next TV and Sears for the latest. Would have tried Hi-Fi buys but they were shrinking fast.

BB seems to be popular here since we moved to Austin but I'll hold to my vow to not return. Sorry to see CC going under. Maybe CC should have tried a Sears/KMart move with BB.

In another life, I worked with Sports Authority when they were owned by KMart...so many of the new store openings were about real estate deals and not about retail sales. It doesn't matter how good your real estate 'buy' was if you don't get people in the door.

Businesses haven't gotten much smarter in the last few years...I was in a smallish but nice suburban mall recently...FIVE jewelry stores(not to mention plenty of jewelry in the nice dept. anchor stores), SIX cell phone kiosks and two calendar-only stores within sight of each other. Hmmmm, I wonder how long those will last.

Austin is only about 1/3 the size of ATL but, unlike Atlanta, 'we' don't have EVERY type of business at EVERY large intersection. We might even drive 5 whole miles to get to a Lowe's, HD, or Target(we try to 'buy local' as they say here in Austin, but sometimes you just need BIG) instead of having every store in every neighborhood. By comparison, Atlanta retail development seemed to just plow down every tree and build another strip center, never mind that every retail concept was already located within a couple hundred yards. Opening your own dry cleaners across the street from one of your existing locations(widely practiced in ATL) is quite different from developing and maintaining 80-100,000 sq. ft. of big box retail. The Atlanta model wasn't unique for CC and smarter locations might have made a difference in many markets...too late now. Let's not even start talking about HD and Lowe's having over 100 stores in the ATL metro...convenient, yes. Good business decision...time will tell. Hang on...it's going to be a bumpy ride!