Entirely unsurprising. They've been headed this way since newegg popped up in the early 00s. I remember going into one once in the last several years, to buy a mouse, because they happened to have...
Entirely unsurprising. They've been headed this way since newegg popped up in the early 00s. I remember going into one once in the last several years, to buy a mouse, because they happened to have stock and I needed a mouse that day and couldn't find the mouse that I wanted anywhere else. I was prepared to pay for the extra markup (roughly $10 more than amazon) because I knew they were sticklers about price matching (I remember when they used to require you to bring in the printed ad, and it had to be printed, in order to get a price match) and I also knew that they had wild variation when it came to marking up products. While there I decided to ask them if they had a price matching policy and then asked if it was okay to price match amazon or best buy and to my surprise they did.
I did, however, notice that just like old times, some things were wildly marked up. Some of the 'gaming' branded stuff like headsets and mice were marked up at prices close to $100 when they were $30 online. This kind of deceptive marketing is not lost on consumers, and it's part of the reason I stopped going to their stores. Combine that with archaic price matching policies and you have a recipe for losing your customers. After all, if you're selling tech, you should imagine the people buying tech know a little bit about tech and can easily find out online whether you're the best price or not.
I am honestly surprised they lasted as long as they did. As soon as I heard circuit city was shutting down ages ago, my first thought was 'wonder when Fry's will be next', and it's entirely because they were too slow to adapt to a changing world.
Oh wow! That's kind of sad. While I didn't grow up near a Fry's, I did buy from them from time-to-time as an adult, and almost always in person at their stores. After Circuit City and CompUSA went...
Oh wow! That's kind of sad. While I didn't grow up near a Fry's, I did buy from them from time-to-time as an adult, and almost always in person at their stores. After Circuit City and CompUSA went bust, it was one of the few places you could still get decent electronics and software (before most software moved online).
I actually had a booth at the NAB show in Las Vegas one year when I ran my own company. I didn't even bring a monitor with me. I just went to Fry's when I got there and bought one for like $200. It was nice to have the freedom to be able to do that.
At one time Fry's was my Radioshack replacement for individual components (resistors, relays, servos, etc) and the occasional computer cable, graphics card, case, or other components. Last time I...
At one time Fry's was my Radioshack replacement for individual components (resistors, relays, servos, etc) and the occasional computer cable, graphics card, case, or other components. Last time I was in a Fry's was at the start of 2019 where I picked up a pair of case fans for $5 after mail-in-rebate and even that only involved buying them online and picking them up at customer service. The store was near empty, both customer and product-wise. Couldn't recall the last time I'd been in one prior to that, but I also hadn't needed anything from them either. Tales from friends that did stop by to pick up something or browse on their lunch break was met with the same sentiment of it being a ghost town. Fitting as my local Fry's was western themed with longhorns, stagecoaches, and the like. I'll give them credit for that though, it's nice seeing some unique design instead of the same box store everywhere else, even if it was a little on the nose for a store in Texas.
Most of my PC build in 2019 came from Newegg or MicroCenter and I can't say I've ever had a positive experience shopping at Fry's over the decades. Never had a negative one either, just always meh. Every salesperson seemed annoyed you were there, but insistent that even the tube of thermal paste you got off the rack yourself with no aid from them at all was accompanied by a printout that had their name on it. Price matching was like pulling teeth and like going to any big hardware store, the salespeople were generally less knowledgeable about what they were selling than the customers.
Until the end of that sentence, I assumed you were talking about the old small one in Palo Alto. But I guess the store motifs aren't as unique as I thought. I'd seen probably at least 10 Fry's and...
Fitting as my local Fry's was western themed with longhorns, stagecoaches, and the like. I'll give them credit for that though, it's nice seeing some unique design instead of the same box store everywhere else, even if it was a little on the nose for a store in Texas.
Until the end of that sentence, I assumed you were talking about the old small one in Palo Alto. But I guess the store motifs aren't as unique as I thought. I'd seen probably at least 10 Fry's and they all had their own motif.
Interestingly enough of the four in my area only one had a theme all the others were standard electronics store no different than any electronics store you can imagine past or present.
Interestingly enough of the four in my area only one had a theme all the others were standard electronics store no different than any electronics store you can imagine past or present.
Fascinating. The themes were one of the charms of it. Ones I remember: Palo Alto was western/cowboy themed Vegas was, well, Vegas-themed. The front was a big slot machine and the pylons that...
Fascinating. The themes were one of the charms of it. Ones I remember:
Palo Alto was western/cowboy themed
Vegas was, well, Vegas-themed. The front was a big slot machine and the pylons that prevented people from driving into the store were stacks of coins.
One in or near San Diego was ocean themed. They had a huge overhead aquarium as you walked in.
Sunnyvale seemed to be about old tech? They had a bunch of like oscilloscopes and stuff.
Another one in the bay area was like a Mayan pyramid or something like that
One near LA had a crashed UFO and seemed to be like old sci-fi themed
The one I used to make the trek to go to as a late teen/early 20s in Orange County (City of Industry I think?) I can't actually remember having a theme, though. The front had like a blue grid or something. It's been a while.
I know I've seen others but I can't remember what they were.
ETA: Found a listing. The one near San Diego was San Marcos and is "Atlantis". Sunnyvale was apparently "History of Silicon Valley" and City of Industry was "Industrial Revolution", which I guess makes sense but I don't remember any of the decorations.
Well, that's sad. I spent a year working there while waiting for deployment orders about a decade ago. It certainly had its quirks but I ultimately enjoyed engaging with customers about items and...
Well, that's sad. I spent a year working there while waiting for deployment orders about a decade ago. It certainly had its quirks but I ultimately enjoyed engaging with customers about items and topics. I guess that just leaves BestBuy and Microcenter as electronics retailers?
Never had a Fry's nearby, but only heard good things. It's a shame, and I hope Microcenter doesn't suffer the same fate. They're consistently a great place to source PC and maker parts and they've...
Never had a Fry's nearby, but only heard good things. It's a shame, and I hope Microcenter doesn't suffer the same fate. They're consistently a great place to source PC and maker parts and they've always been 10x more genuinely helpful relative to any other electronics store.
Oh, you've probably not heard things about Frys for the past few years, then. They've been on a slow death spiral for a while. They have giant retail spaces, but they have appeared to have stopped...
Oh, you've probably not heard things about Frys for the past few years, then. They've been on a slow death spiral for a while. They have giant retail spaces, but they have appeared to have stopped buying new things quite a while ago, and as a result they were just large empty spaces with some vaguely electronic-related things and a bunch of DVDs nobody wanted to buy.
On the contrary, my local Microcenter is so busy that they are often limiting the number of people they let in. They get positively packed and always have a great selection of products in stock.
Sidebar: My local microcenter had the best covid protocol of any retail store. Person front of store for mask and sanitizer enforcement, running a clicker to keep track of headcount. Rigid...
On the contrary, my local Microcenter is so busy that they are often limiting the number of people they let in
Sidebar: My local microcenter had the best covid protocol of any retail store. Person front of store for mask and sanitizer enforcement, running a clicker to keep track of headcount. Rigid wipedowns of all carts before re-entering the rotation.
Thankfully Microcenter seems to have done a much better job running their show. My local one has always been jam packed with people, even the times I remember going with my family as a kid. Their...
Thankfully Microcenter seems to have done a much better job running their show. My local one has always been jam packed with people, even the times I remember going with my family as a kid. Their stores look to be significantly smaller, and if my local one is any indication, they're fine with cheap, no frills real estate-- it's in an old, pretty run down shopping center (and backed to one that sat abandoned for over a decade in a market where real estate, both commercial and residential, never sits for that long typically), and aside from redoing the layout to make it more covid-friendly, hasn't changed its interior fixtures and design in over twenty years.
Plus, it's the only one in the state, and indeed even for 500+ miles around, so it's guaranteed to have a large base to draw customers on.
Also seems like it's a good place to work, there are five or six people that I remember seeing working there as a child 20 years ago that are still there today-- something I can't say I've seen in any other electronics store.
Going to a Fry's the past couple years has been like visiting a store post-apocalypse. Merchandise scattered everywhere, zombie-like employees shuffling around doing nothing (except for people at...
Going to a Fry's the past couple years has been like visiting a store post-apocalypse. Merchandise scattered everywhere, zombie-like employees shuffling around doing nothing (except for people at checkout), perpetually empty shelves, product that hasn't been "new" for years, and just a general visible decay like I've seen at no other failing store still in operation.
For instance, my nearest Fry's just gave up and left the Halloween decorations they put up in like 2014...giving the store a further strange and old look year-round. Fake cobwebs, faux-stone gargoyles and all.
That really is like a post-apocalyptic video game. "Environmental storytelling"
For instance, my nearest Fry's just gave up and left the Halloween decorations they put up in like 2014...giving the store a further strange and old look year-round. Fake cobwebs, faux-stone gargoyles and all.
That really is like a post-apocalyptic video game. "Environmental storytelling"
And I just learned (on a recent trip to Arizona) that there's a Fry's grocery market. The Fry's Electronics around me always felt like a swap-meet, of sorts.
And I just learned (on a recent trip to Arizona) that there's a Fry's grocery market.
The Fry's Electronics around me always felt like a swap-meet, of sorts.
The Fry's grocery chain (which is also in California) and electronics stores were started by two brothers. For a long time, we all thought the stores were related, when it was just the founders...
The Fry's grocery chain (which is also in California) and electronics stores were started by two brothers. For a long time, we all thought the stores were related, when it was just the founders who were.
Entirely unsurprising. They've been headed this way since newegg popped up in the early 00s. I remember going into one once in the last several years, to buy a mouse, because they happened to have stock and I needed a mouse that day and couldn't find the mouse that I wanted anywhere else. I was prepared to pay for the extra markup (roughly $10 more than amazon) because I knew they were sticklers about price matching (I remember when they used to require you to bring in the printed ad, and it had to be printed, in order to get a price match) and I also knew that they had wild variation when it came to marking up products. While there I decided to ask them if they had a price matching policy and then asked if it was okay to price match amazon or best buy and to my surprise they did.
I did, however, notice that just like old times, some things were wildly marked up. Some of the 'gaming' branded stuff like headsets and mice were marked up at prices close to $100 when they were $30 online. This kind of deceptive marketing is not lost on consumers, and it's part of the reason I stopped going to their stores. Combine that with archaic price matching policies and you have a recipe for losing your customers. After all, if you're selling tech, you should imagine the people buying tech know a little bit about tech and can easily find out online whether you're the best price or not.
I am honestly surprised they lasted as long as they did. As soon as I heard circuit city was shutting down ages ago, my first thought was 'wonder when Fry's will be next', and it's entirely because they were too slow to adapt to a changing world.
Oh wow! That's kind of sad. While I didn't grow up near a Fry's, I did buy from them from time-to-time as an adult, and almost always in person at their stores. After Circuit City and CompUSA went bust, it was one of the few places you could still get decent electronics and software (before most software moved online).
I actually had a booth at the NAB show in Las Vegas one year when I ran my own company. I didn't even bring a monitor with me. I just went to Fry's when I got there and bought one for like $200. It was nice to have the freedom to be able to do that.
At one time Fry's was my Radioshack replacement for individual components (resistors, relays, servos, etc) and the occasional computer cable, graphics card, case, or other components. Last time I was in a Fry's was at the start of 2019 where I picked up a pair of case fans for $5 after mail-in-rebate and even that only involved buying them online and picking them up at customer service. The store was near empty, both customer and product-wise. Couldn't recall the last time I'd been in one prior to that, but I also hadn't needed anything from them either. Tales from friends that did stop by to pick up something or browse on their lunch break was met with the same sentiment of it being a ghost town. Fitting as my local Fry's was western themed with longhorns, stagecoaches, and the like. I'll give them credit for that though, it's nice seeing some unique design instead of the same box store everywhere else, even if it was a little on the nose for a store in Texas.
Most of my PC build in 2019 came from Newegg or MicroCenter and I can't say I've ever had a positive experience shopping at Fry's over the decades. Never had a negative one either, just always meh. Every salesperson seemed annoyed you were there, but insistent that even the tube of thermal paste you got off the rack yourself with no aid from them at all was accompanied by a printout that had their name on it. Price matching was like pulling teeth and like going to any big hardware store, the salespeople were generally less knowledgeable about what they were selling than the customers.
Until the end of that sentence, I assumed you were talking about the old small one in Palo Alto. But I guess the store motifs aren't as unique as I thought. I'd seen probably at least 10 Fry's and they all had their own motif.
Interestingly enough of the four in my area only one had a theme all the others were standard electronics store no different than any electronics store you can imagine past or present.
Fascinating. The themes were one of the charms of it. Ones I remember:
The one I used to make the trek to go to as a late teen/early 20s in Orange County (City of Industry I think?) I can't actually remember having a theme, though. The front had like a blue grid or something. It's been a while.
I know I've seen others but I can't remember what they were.
ETA: Found a listing. The one near San Diego was San Marcos and is "Atlantis". Sunnyvale was apparently "History of Silicon Valley" and City of Industry was "Industrial Revolution", which I guess makes sense but I don't remember any of the decorations.
Well, that's sad. I spent a year working there while waiting for deployment orders about a decade ago. It certainly had its quirks but I ultimately enjoyed engaging with customers about items and topics. I guess that just leaves BestBuy and Microcenter as electronics retailers?
Never had a Fry's nearby, but only heard good things. It's a shame, and I hope Microcenter doesn't suffer the same fate. They're consistently a great place to source PC and maker parts and they've always been 10x more genuinely helpful relative to any other electronics store.
Oh, you've probably not heard things about Frys for the past few years, then. They've been on a slow death spiral for a while. They have giant retail spaces, but they have appeared to have stopped buying new things quite a while ago, and as a result they were just large empty spaces with some vaguely electronic-related things and a bunch of DVDs nobody wanted to buy.
On the contrary, my local Microcenter is so busy that they are often limiting the number of people they let in. They get positively packed and always have a great selection of products in stock.
Sidebar: My local microcenter had the best covid protocol of any retail store. Person front of store for mask and sanitizer enforcement, running a clicker to keep track of headcount. Rigid wipedowns of all carts before re-entering the rotation.
Thankfully Microcenter seems to have done a much better job running their show. My local one has always been jam packed with people, even the times I remember going with my family as a kid. Their stores look to be significantly smaller, and if my local one is any indication, they're fine with cheap, no frills real estate-- it's in an old, pretty run down shopping center (and backed to one that sat abandoned for over a decade in a market where real estate, both commercial and residential, never sits for that long typically), and aside from redoing the layout to make it more covid-friendly, hasn't changed its interior fixtures and design in over twenty years.
Plus, it's the only one in the state, and indeed even for 500+ miles around, so it's guaranteed to have a large base to draw customers on.
Also seems like it's a good place to work, there are five or six people that I remember seeing working there as a child 20 years ago that are still there today-- something I can't say I've seen in any other electronics store.
Going to a Fry's the past couple years has been like visiting a store post-apocalypse. Merchandise scattered everywhere, zombie-like employees shuffling around doing nothing (except for people at checkout), perpetually empty shelves, product that hasn't been "new" for years, and just a general visible decay like I've seen at no other failing store still in operation.
For instance, my nearest Fry's just gave up and left the Halloween decorations they put up in like 2014...giving the store a further strange and old look year-round. Fake cobwebs, faux-stone gargoyles and all.
That really is like a post-apocalyptic video game. "Environmental storytelling"
And I just learned (on a recent trip to Arizona) that there's a Fry's grocery market.
The Fry's Electronics around me always felt like a swap-meet, of sorts.
There is also no Microcenter in the Phoenix metro area. Its kind of sad that there is no where to buy PC parts in person anymore in the valley.
The Fry's grocery chain (which is also in California) and electronics stores were started by two brothers. For a long time, we all thought the stores were related, when it was just the founders who were.