Circuit City files for bankruptcy

[jocko_nc]

Four trillion dollars is not a tiny blip. More like $40,000 per working family, 50% of which could not scrape together a fraction of that amount. Why do you suppose Circuit City is belly-up and Best Buy is speaking Doom? Look at the auto industry? What do these people see? It is going to be a wild ride.

Before all this happened, we were on the hook for a mere $40 trillion in spending over the next generation. Now we spend more. The math just doesn't work out.

 

[Tinman]

I am glad I bailed out when I did, I was a manager there until 2004. I quite and took a job making $30,000 less but it was the best thing I ever did. They work you like a dog and were always trying to find a way to hose the employees. My favorite was back when they switched from commission to hourly pay. They called everyone in on a Tuesday morning, if you were a good sales person ie. made money and took care of customers, they gave you a severance package and you were escorted out of the building, luckily I was a manager so I dodged the bullet. Where I live now they just moved the CC about 5 miles down the road and remodled it, so I thought they were doing good, but I guess not. On the bright side I did buy a but load of stuff back when they gave the good employee discounts %60 off retail, of course that didn't last long. But I hate to see any business have trouble, it is a sign of bad times. On second thought it might be me, I worked for shoe store in high school they went bankrupt: McDuff electronics, went bankrupt :Wolf Camera, went bankrupt, CC bankrupt: now I work for the government, Oh crap.

I worked for 614 in 98 and moved to 582 when they started closing service centers. I'm glad I bailed before it all went to hell. I remember everything you talked about. A real shame, but blame the jerk on top who got MILLIONS to ruin the company. We all saw it coming when they pulled white goods. It always makes sense (especially now) to stop selling things people NEED and maybe pick up a tv or something while buying that fridge.

Oh well. It was a great ride in the old days.

 

[BruceRPA]

I used to be a regular Circuit City customer because of managers and experienced employees like you folks Tinman and kingbaboon. When they chased good people like you out the door and then made the mind-boggling decision to terminate the remaining senior sales staff, my business went right out the door with you, right to the competition. As I said before, when they made that decision I made a commitment to never shop there again and I did just that. The reason that I shopped there was the good service that I received from the experienced sales staff, not because I was sure that they had the lowest price. The extra value that I received from the advice provided by experienced sales staff made price to be a distant second or third on my list of priorities about where to do business.

I went through essentially the same thing as you folks did after spending more than twenty years with Radio Shack as a co-owner / manager/ franchisee of sorts back in the good old days of Radio Shack from 1967 through 1993. When RS reduced their payroll expense by slashing the pay plans of employees they were not as overt as Circuit City was. In my opinion they were a very sneaky (at best) about how they went about doing so. The results were the same and we all know how well it has worked for them. Circuit City is repeating the same pattern just as Radio Shack repeated what Sears did to themselves several years earlier that almost put them out of business too.

Whoever said that "accountants are people that know the cost of everything and the value of nothing" was exactly correct in these cases.

 

[Manuel64]

While my own time at Circuit City ended in the Spring of 1995, it is very sad to read some of the posts above, because I can't help but think of the people I knew who went thru this stuff. At the time that I left, the only negative changes that I remember were the discontinuation of some the higher end product lines and the trimming of spiffs. We were told that some of the expensive and slower moving merchandise would be cut to make room for merchandise that would sell better. Even though spiffs would continue, they would be reduced. The reasoning was that sales people were selling products based on spiffs and were moving customers toward higher spiff items.

After I left, I kept in touch with a couple of the audio/video sales guys whenever I shopped there. One of those guys had been there since 1987 and was an outstanding salesman. I remember on one of my visits, he told me that all spiffs had been terminated and all sales people now worked for a percentage of gross sales and ESP sales. I think this was in the late 90's. I wasn't there when the white goods were pulled and when they stopped the service center, but I'm sure it must have been pretty bad for the employees.

The last time I spoke with my friend was right after Christmas in 2002. He said that things had gotten pretty bad and he just wasn't making the money that he used to make. This was a guy that used to pull in some serious dollars back in the good days. He had excellent knowledge of everything that he sold and what the competion sold. It was a few weeks later that I heard that all commission sales employees had been replaced. Reading the above posts reminded me that he went thru that mess.

Last year, I purchased a 52 inch Sony TV there. I was horrified at the lack of product knowledge that these kids had. It was obvious that their training was pretty bad and they certainly showed no motivation on providing customer service. I remember back in the old days, we salesmen frequently went out and did house calls if needed for our customers, free of charge. We were always available to help them after the sale. Those days are long gone.

 

[Columbo]

Talk About POOR Planning

There is a brand new unfinished Circuit City building in my neighborhood!! You mean they couldn't see this coming??:scratch2:

I liked The Good Guys better, but they're gone too.

 

[dwightsplace]

If my memory is correct (questionable) they filed back in the early 2000's also did they not?