Circuit City’s same store sales for the month of December are down 12% in the U.S., causing some to speculate that firing all the people who understand the products you carry might not be a winning sales strategy.
From the WSJ:
Chief Executive Philip J. Schoonover said, “Our sales performance, while disappointing, was in line with our expectations. The company saw significantly improved performance over the last two weeks of the month, but the sales improvement was not enough to offset the weakness experienced at the beginning of the month.”
So why aren’t you shopping at Circuit City? Tell us what’s wrong.
We’ll get you started with, “Where the hell do you pay?” Every time we’re in a Circuit City there is no one stationed even remotely close to anything that resembles a register. If you do manage to spot someone who is employed by the store, he’s usually c*ck-deep in boxes behind some sort of counter, trying not to cry. If there is something that appears to be a check out aisle, it’s roped off like a museum exhibit. “Gather round, kids. This is what people used to use to execute retail transactions, back in the early 21st century.”
Actually buying something is a 12-step process that involves little public library catalog kiosks that are randomly placed all over the store. Finding someone to able and willing to help you purchase your item is like finding a 1UP in Super Mario Bros., except instead of a free life, you get a sales pitch for an extended warranty. And you’re just buying AA batteries.
Your turn.
Circuit City Sales Fell in December [WSJ]
(Photo:cmorran123)
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I went to CC looking for a Tivo. The sales associate walked me to a shelf, told me “they used to be here” and walked away. Thanks.
1. Rarely anything good is on sale.
2. Video game stock really sucks
3. Anime stock really sucks.
4. Rarely do I actually buy something on sale that is stocked.
Schoonover should have said “no comment” instead. So what if they did as good as they expected? Sales are going down! That’s not a good reason to brag.
People are assuming that firing the 3400 is the only reason that circuit is going down the drain, and thats simply not true. Circuit city recently implemented a new sales plan called “In store customer experience”. So now, instead of having dedicated ‘experts’ who have to keep up with one form of technology, we have high school kids who have to keep up with ALL forms of technology…obviously this isn’t boding well for circuit city. Next time you go to circuit city, just sit back and watch the associates as they stumble through lies and run around like chickens with their heads cut off. Circuit city has screwed over its employees, which in turn screws over the customer. I work there and even I am counting the days till I have to go find another job.
I generally go into Circuit City to get door-buster items. Though, outside of a Sunday morning it is impossible to get anyone to wait on you at a register.
Plus, it takes them like 10 minutes per person to check someone out at the customer service area.
You can’t check out period without giving your phone #, home address, etc. also it seems like.
@tinmanx: I think we mostly hatet CC and BB but would rather take BB over CC anyday simply because CC seems to deliberately confuse AND screw the customer, while BB is mostly about the screwing. Their stores are pretty easy to navigate, and you can usually find a blueshirt hiding somewhere, probably in fridges. Plus their stores are bright. CC is like a massive cave or hole in the wall, especially the dusty “PC Games” section usually located in the back of the store. At least in BB it’s pretty prominent, cause you know, people still use computers.
The circuit city in Daly City, CA is horrible. That is why I only shop at Best Buy.
Circuit City beefs:
1)hey hire teens or very young adults who are more interested in talking with their co-workers or their friends that visit them in the store rather than taking care of the customer.
2) There can be 20 people working in the store, but only 2 working the cash register, 1 at in-store pickup and 18 just milling about chatting
3)Lines are not clearly defined and are long
4)The people working the cashiers are not experienced enough nor trained enough to do their jobs. I once asked a rep a computer question that I knew the answer to but wanted to test him–he got it wrong.
5) The people there don’t care. No smile. No thank you. No help. You have to ask for help.
Because of this, I don’t go to Circuit City anymore. Only Best buy. Service is much better. In a couple of years, Circuit City will go the way of CompUSA.
Customer Service is what it is all about and CC doesn’t have it right now.
Oh, the battle that would ensue if I was paying cash and they tried to get my information. I hate that nonsense. I never give my zipcode or any info if I’m paying cash. None of their beeswax.
Buying from Circuit City is like applying for a loan. It is, indeed, a 12 step process.
Me: I want to buy PaRappa the Rapper please.
Associate: I need your full mailing address please.
Me: But I just want to buy this game.
Associate: Dude, this exploding collar will kill me if you don’t give me your mailing address.
Me: SIGH.
As much as I _hate_ Best Buy, their purchase process is much easier, like buying beer.
Generally, when a customer is trying to give you money, I think a good strategy is to grab it as quickly as possible. The fact that Circuit City doesn’t understand this simple concept makes me wonder why they haven’t gone out of business sooner.
I’ve had good luck with CC buying car stereos. The firings will probably keep me from shopping there, I don’t want to talk to a guy in the car audio section that knows less than I do.
1) bring back commissioned sales associates who will fight tooth & nail to get a sale
2) stop trying to imitate Best Buy
3) if you’re going to insist on selling warranties, make sure their policies are clear and prices are reasonable
4) the kid with the rusty nail for an earring? stop hiring him… he knows where to cop the best weed but doesn’t know a damn thing about computers
5) don’t forsake the reasonably-priced accessories for the over-priced Monster Cable ones… you might make more on Monster Cables but you might actually make up the difference in volume on the cheaper ones.
6) demos? make sure they work. And set the floor for open box items lower.
BTW, I used to work at Circuit City back when the company was booming. When Best Buy came around and took our customers, the company stopped focusing on service and emphasized numbers. All the high-earners were fired and they suddenly expected the idiot 17-year-old to care about getting the sale (when he was more interested in getting into the cute customer service chick). Service sucks. They don’t know their stuff. And there is a very “K-mart” feel to the store now… nothing like it was 10 years ago.
@ShadowFalls:
Yes. They could “just” open a register. Do you even understand how much time is involved in opening a till? Someone working in the cash room must first count out a till. Then the person to whom it is assigned must count it again, and possibly run some sort of report on opening the till. Then they get to go out to a register and sign in. At this point, there are likely five people left in line.
After ringing up those five people, the person (who likely isn’t in a position which allows them to be on a register in the first place) has to go count the till down, run a report on that, and return the till to the cash room where it has to be counted again.
The process can take anywhere up to 30 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on whether or not anyone is even working in the cash room and how many interruptions they have to suffer during the process.
I’m not defending Circuit City here, but I’m defending every store (Not counting Wal-Mart. If you have 30 registers, you should have more than one open at a time.) where the customers say they should “just open more registers.”
It would help if people would not have 20 minute long conversations with the cashiers, too, or spend 15 minutes doing a CC charge with a self-scanner.
@Blueoysterjoe:
Further, while you can get a lot of marketing BS from some of these companies, others simply use the information provided to look up the transaction later on.
Unless you know *precisely* what the info is being used for, don’t blame the store.
A certain other medium-sized computer retailer only uses the info to (e)mail you the sales circular and look up the transaction when you act like a dick and try to return an item without the receipt.
@rimclean:
He’s supposed to pull one out of his ass?
Seriously, not exactly the best customer service, but what do you expect him to do for minimum wage? He can show you where they *should* be, but that’s it. He has no magical powers allowing him to generate products from thin air.
Their customer service people are idiots. Tried to sell me a $90 optical cable because “the signal quality will be better than the $60 one.” I said, “But it’s digital. Either the data gets there intact or it doesn’t.” He said, “Well, the $60 cable will have audio drop-outs. The $90 one won’t.”
I couldn’t believe this idiot. I informed him that if the cheaper cable dropped any audio AT ALL, then it was defective and was he claiming they were all defective? He insisted the $90 cable would “sound better” and have “fewer drop outs”. I tried in vain to educate him. He refused to listen to the voice of reason and just continued pushing his flat lies.
I went across the street to Home Depot and bought an optical cable for $20. I haven’t bought a thing from CC since and tell every non-techie I know to avoid them like the plague.
@RvLeshrac:
Maybe if you can understand that when accepting any credit transactions they don’t have to go through that entire lengthy process. Apparently you don’t understand that this can be done or choose to be judgmental on a whim.
In one case only, I have seen a Circuit City employee who was smart enough. When they had to get a manager, the employee opened up the other register for credit transactions till the manager got there.
The environment at the last CC I visited was so sad and pathetic that comparing it to Wal-Mart wouldn’t do it justice. It was more like an ailing general-merchandise store circa 1979 or so — think Woolco or Duckwall’s, or a city-downtown Sears — where the air would always smell like flop-sweat and surrender, with just the faintest whiff of popcorn.
CC a contrary view
Since CC revamped their website and came up with the 24 minute in-store pickup they’ve been a favorite of mine.
For almost all electronics purchases why would anyone wander around in a store or ask a salesman chosen at random what is best for them?
First I’ll consult online reviews (Consumer Reports, CNET, etc.) and then read through the user reviews online and look at the detailed product specs.
These can bring out issues about the product that you won’t get from any salesman (even a tech savvy one) and you might not have realized were important for you.
CC is price competitive with BB or other internet sources and in-store pickup makes sense in cases when shipping costs will exceed sales tax.
with CC website you can check in-store availability at all the stores near you.. even if I don’t buy online I’ll know what they have.
I’ve done in-store pickups lots of times and have never had a problem. What’s not to like?
@SpiderJerusalem: Fry’s? *cringe* That’s about the only place on Earth WORSE than CC.
Hubby & I went to CC to look at GPSs for XMas. They had one we wanted on sale for $400 down from $550 – but the very nice boy working that department slipped us the tip on the fly that Costco was selling the same model for only $300. A quick trip to Costco and we were in business!
On the other hand, a recent trip to purchase a new-release computer game that they had taken presells for AND was featured in their ad was a 60-minute nightmare. All I could find on the shelf was the pre-order box – which, obviously, did not have the game on it. I explained this to FOUR different employees, all of whom insisted the actual game was in the box. I finally got through to someone – coincidentally, the same boy who had given us the Costco tip – and he explained yet again that I needed a real copy of the game. After being told it wasn’t out yet (I showed them the copy of THEIR ad sitting on THEIR counter that had the game GUARANTEED in store on that day) and that they must be sold out (even though two OTHER employees said the computer showed plenty of stock), someone finally found it. The whole time they were just laughing – no one apologized. I had a $24 GC from a failed internet order (another story altogether…) that I wanted to use for most of the game, and it took another 10 minutes to pay because the stupid kid kept swiping it as a CC and not a GC…
*sigh* The only thing CC is good at anymore is loss-leader DVDs and stuff. Everything (and I do mean nearly EVERYTHING) else is overpriced, including the GPS units they are STILL selling for over $500 when the same model in every other store I look at is $300-400 (depending on sales).
CCity – M. Island Florida -
1- ‘red dot clearance bins’ all over the store – nothing in the bins priced. One that was filled with ‘Skull Candy’ headphones was labeled POPCORN…???
2 – Sunday add states a big game clearance with hundreds of titles – nothing marked and salespeople knew nothing about the sale.
3 – — 10 people — in a stalled single check out line and it takes 15 minutes for 2 people to show up and open another line.
I’m sure I’m just restating what everyone else has said, but here’s my CC rants:
1. They never have what you are looking for.
2. You can guarantee they don’t have a sale item in stock.
3. If you just walk in and look around the shelves are usually pretty bare.
4. The place looks like a dump (and I’m not saying this about 1 store, it’s any CC you walk into).
5. Good luck finding anyone there who knows anything about technology. They fired all those people. Listening to them explain HDTV technology is laughable.
At least walmart and best buy have registers opened though. I realize that front line register work isn’t the priority of the store but honestly, its the place that matters MOST to customers. No one wants to be kept waiting in a line, most people want to grab an item and go, and CC is not set up like this while BB, Walmart and just about any other store is.
The thing is there are 2 CC’s here and one is radically different than the other (its organized and labeled and you can find things in it and doesn’t have a retarded store layout), but the good CC is about 45 min to an hour away from here. I think there are a few registers at the departments too so that you don’t get pushed to that one-register line near the front of the store. So if you are buying video games you can just pick out your games, pay in the games dept and then go.
Just shop online, retail sucks.
The checkout has always been the most perplexing aspect of the CC experience. Alsothe high-pressure sales-douches stalking every aisle, hair geller, poised to accost. People want a more self-serve atmosphere, and Best Buy gives them it. These days, most customers have already researched similar products and prices before every setting foot in the store– they know exactly what they want. Apart from (perhaps) the opportunity to experience a product such as a screen or a camera UI in person, customers just want to pick up a box and head directly to the registers.
@RvLeshrac: Admittedly, in the case of Circuit City if they have someone that can jump on a register then none of that process is necessary, mostly because Circuit does *not* track cash per register by individual employee. All you have to do at CC is count down the $50 that’s in the register (which takes about two minutes at most,) and many members of management usually doesn’t care if you just put $50 in the penny category if there’s a customer standing there waiting (this is against corporate SOP, but I’ve seen it.) Also, once the employee is done at that till, they can just move on and the register will remain available until the end of the day – no close, no count. The system keeps track of every employee who uses a till during the day, and their name is on the register print-out at close, but there’s no countdown and nothing is done in the cash office until the very end of the day.
Now whether they’re willing to spend the labor to have someone to jump on the register is a completely different story.
Shopping at circuit city is just painful all around. Finding anything, be it DVDs, new releases, games, etc is a pain in the rear. Finding help is often a pain in the rear, and why the employee tries to help, most of the time they just have no idea what your talking about even in their own department.
And as pointed out, buying your stuff is a guessing game. Do I go to this spot or that? Is that line for returns or purchases? I usually spend more time buying stuff then I did finding it. Never a good thing.
Basically the only time I shop at CC is to take advantage of a really good deal but otherwise I don’t bother.
@RvLeshrac: “Yes. They could “just” open a register. Do you even understand how much time is involved in opening a till? Someone working in the cash room must first count out a till. Then the person to whom it is assigned must count it again, and possibly run some sort of report on opening the till. Then they get to go out to a register and sign in. At this point, there are likely five people left in line.
After ringing up those five people, the person (who likely isn’t in a position which allows them to be on a register in the first place) has to go count the till down, run a report on that, and return the till to the cash room where it has to be counted again.
The process can take anywhere up to 30 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on whether or not anyone is even working in the cash room and how many interruptions they have to suffer during the process.
I’m not defending Circuit City here, but I’m defending every store…”
And your point is what?
Retail is hard?
Guess what, I don’t care, not my problem.
I did my part by coming into the store and finding what I want, now it’s the stores turn to do their part and finalize the transaction painlessly.
Because all the Circuit City’s that I’ve been in in this area tend to be grungy.
And the fact that when I did find a good price on a Samsung 204B, after waiting three weeks for something that was supposed to be in later the week I ordered it AND PUT A DOWN PAYMENT ON and constantly calling them and getting absolutely cluelessness for an answer (They had one 45 minutes away, but couldn’t/wouldn’t get it from that store), I took my down payment back, picked what I wanted right from Best Buy’s stock — I didn’t even need anybody to pull it, and went home with what I wanted that day.
Finally.
So I’m not giving them any of my love at this point. Now with CompUSA gone (I may get one of the Tiger Direct stores, who knows) I may not have much choice. I’d really like a Microcenter (I’m originally from Columbus and truly miss my Microcenter) or a Fry’s to come here and horn in on the action.
I currently work at Circuit City as Customer Service.
Registers are opened at the beginning of the day and any employee can use that register until it’s closed which is usually at the end of the day. And there’s no way any register would only have $50 for a float amount. The minimum is 100, while most registers have 200. A $50 float couldn’t break a $100 so that makes no sense. It takes me half an hour to open all registers in my store. (11 Registers)
And a video game may be “Guaranteed” in that day, but that just means we may have it at one point, but it’s not guaranteed to be there when you get there.
The reason checkouts never have someone there is because we don’t hire cashiers. Circuit City hires people as floor people who are stationed in different departments.
Customer Service people are chained to the customer service desk which happen to have registers there so we get stuck doing returns, sales, questions, complaints/issues, etc.
As someone who really cares about the customer and the job I was hired for, it’s frustrating for me when I get ignored by managers, and people on the sales floor who are just goofing around. But then there are coworkers who I love working with cause I know I can depend on them to make a customer happy and informed.
I agree our DVD and video games collection sucks.
And about not having sales items in stock, the ads are printed out weeks/months in advance. We normally do not get shipment of the sale item, and a lot of a time we will be sold out of that sale item for a while and it just happens to be in the ad.
And in our location (the new register system) we take your phone number for purchases over $100 dollars. If your phone number isn’t in the system, we add your information (I just add first and last name with a 00000 zipcode) This is done because we don’t take returns without receipt and if you paid with cash, the only way to look up your receipt is with a phone number.
I worked at a store as the lead CSA (customer service associate) and loved my job. We were in a new store and I had a 4 years experience and knew how to treat customers. I could do things with the computer the managers had problems with.
The day they fired the majority of the employees we lost a lot of experience. From the warehouse to the computer area, they were all gone.
The weeks after that were total hell. The new kids didn’t know anything or how to talk to customers.
We were told we must have 1 cashier at register one at all times. I couldn’t keep anyone at the register. They called in sick, came in late. Couldn’t find anything.
Customers should have been checked out in the department where they were buying things but the managers would never make them do it. Most registers never worked right so they sent everyone to me at customer service.
I walked out one afternoon because I got sick and told the manager. He just looked at me and then got in his car and drove off. It was that lack of concern that caused the downward spiral they are in now. Some of the people fired had over 14 years service. The killer is, in November they sent letters to the people fired and ask them to come back (at less pay of course). Since that time, the Director quit, the Ops manager was fired, a very good game expert left and many more. If they had done things to make the employees happy to work there, things would have been looking up!
we have a futureshop here
the other day i was looking at PS3 games and even though the console wasn’t even purchased there the sales person still tried to sell me an extended warranty on it
DUH! Fire competent people, customer service drops, sales drop.
Last time I was in Circuit City, they had a 22in monitor for 200 dollars on the shelf. I go to buy one and they said they are sold out but could order one. When they go to put the order in the computer they told me it was an old tag, but they could still honor the price. But then the computer denies the pricematch because the new price was 300 and the computer doesn’t allow them to discount an item by 100 dollars even though according to their own policies they are supposed to. So the workers told me store policy says they should do it, but the computer isn’t letting them so there is nothing they can do. Never been back since.
I’m glad that I got out of there while I could. I used to work at a store in Philadelphia and I surely would have been one of those laid off. I left shortly after the company cut commissioned sales. It was just about the most frustrating place in the world to work. Very little training or time to get to know the products, outdated computer systems (which they finally updated after I left, so now they’re working with 1996 technology instead of 1986). I’ve bought a couple of things in the last year or so there, but only web specials that I bought online and picked up there. Knowing what the average associate knows about the product, researching on the internet, purchasing on the internet, then picking up there was the best choice for me.
Consumer electronics are commodity items unless they are new cutting edge technology that people don’t have. The only way Circuit City makes money is by selling over priced accessories and worthless extended warranties. If you just want to buy something without accessories or a warranty, the sales person would rather not sell you anything. If the salesperson doesn’t sell enough accessories and warranties, they will be fired.
Gotta say, the buy-online-pick-up-in-store option has been really convenient for me. Due to an everlasting grudge against Best Buy, CC has been my electronics retailer of choice for a while, and I have no complaints.
Once again a shining example of pandering to the “stockholders” instead of the customers.
Let’s see, whats the total so far ?
Circuit City
Home Depot
CompUSA
Just got word today (Wed. Jan. 9) via internal DPS E-mail system that CEO Phil Schoonover will be stepping down effective Thurs. Jan. 31, 2008. Apparently his resignation was called for at a recent board meeting after stockholders hounded the board to find a replacement. The memo also says interim CEO will be George D. (Danny) Clark, Jr. (Executive Vice President, Multi-Channel Sales) until a replacement for Schoonover is found. A press release will most likely follow in the next few days
Mikael Salovaara, the lead Board Director, was the first to call for Schoonover’s resignation. With his background at Goldman, Sachs he most likely isn’t buying into Schoonover’s transitioning plans.
Although the change is needed, this probably means bad news for the company because the road to recovery is a long and treacherous one for electronics retailers. Tweeter and CompUSA are the perfect examples and unfortunately Circuit City may not be far behind.
You all got this all wrong, bonuses and incentives are only for management not for the “looser” hourly employees. Circuit City needs more bad ideas so this is why retaining its current corporate upper management is important. Making sure that the upper management get as much bonuses and incentives preferably in cash from the company before it goes under is the ultimate goal.
cc mgmt
You’re right – a friend of mine who works there says they really don’t give a s#!t at CC, since they have seen so many of their friends receive the threaded fastener treatment. And the atmosphere is one of run this way, run that way, and it changes every few days. Obvious the top dogs haven’t the foggiest notion of what to do, so what can the poor shmucks on the floor accomplish. CC mgt has gone from bad to worse with the recent changes, but don’t worry about the top dogs- they gave the previous CEO failure millions to retire.
Here’s a couple other items of interest
1: When you buy one of those socalled extended warranty’s do you realize that over half of your money is pure profit for the store, while another 25% goes to an administrative agency. Only one quarter, yes one quarter of your money actually goes toward the shops that fix the products or replace them. YOU ARE BETTING AGAINST YOURSELF 4 TO 1.
2. Extended warranty’s on computers only cover hardware. Many CC (and maybe BB also – not sure) will charge you, despite the warranty, $100 to $200 to just look at your computer. They claim the money is for getting rid of viruses etc, and if software is not the problem they will return it. I am told that is a fat chance statement, because there is hardly any pc in the world that doesn’t have some infection, and there is desperation level corportate pressure to bring in $$ from their service business. So the warranty insurance is not only a bad deal economically, but one can at least ask the question – is the charge a scam, given the cost despite the warranty for even looking at a pc with problems?
As for small stuff like cameras, that biz is basically a throwaway product- if it fails, buy another.
As for the big stuff like largescreen TVs – you buy one of those multi-thousand $$ jobs expecting it to last you 10 years or more. The warranty’s are only for 4 years max. give me a break, and most likely the mfr warranty covers the tv for a year anyway. The usual situation re electronics is either the problems show up real early because of manufacturing or design problems, and then 5-15 years out there are, from what I’ve read – I don’t know a lot here but my experience seems to agree – wearout mechanism, but of course the warranty has long since expired.
Let the buyer beware.
Actually, I’m kinda sad to see C-C go under the waterline but before you judge, let me first explain.
I found that I could price barter with the store manager on a few large ticket items that I’ve purchased from them over the past few years. About a year ago, bartered with them on a 46″ Vizio flat screen – got the unit with a modest HDMI cable for right over $1000.00 w/ tax. Compared to WalMart, Costco, and B-B I saved about $100.00 not even considering the HDMI cable that was my guess $30.00. Just purchased a Toshiba 46″ with lots of goodies on it – same deal – but saved over $200.00 against others selling the same unit in the DC area. Also, you can find great deals on items via the Internet but sometimes the freight offsets the savings – esp. with large items like flat screens. I also found that in most cases, the staff was nice – at least at the store that I dealt with. Best Buy is dirty – yes their prices are good – but NEVER use your credit card there. About 3 years ago, they hired Accenture to help them get their business back on track – Accenture is the same company that was responsible for Enron under the name Arthur Anderson.