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 ran into CC the other day just to see if they had something I was looking for (they didn’t)
There was a big sign out front declaring “NOW HIRING! ALL POSITIONS!”. I immediately thought of the 3400 poor souls who used to hold those jobs.
I should be placed as CEO, I could fix CC in minutes. Reinstate all the commissioned sales agents and offer commission bonuses for sales. Through people I knew, a sale rep at CC could make 50,000-100,000 a year with commission. A few years back CC moved them to salary based off an average of their performance (ie their 3 worst months of the year was used) and dropped them into the mid 20s range. From the pleasure this caused, these same employees had talks of burning down the store… seriously not sarcastically. Now I imagine these same sales people that didn’t quit or burn their respective stores were the ones that got fired to be replaced by idiots for $7.00/hr.
1. They never have what they’ve advertised as on sale.
2. It’s hard to find people to help you.
3. They never have what you’re looking for.
4. They never have what you’re looking for.
and finally…
5. They never have what you’re looking for.
Oh, and I forgot. They keep new releases behind the counter of the one checkout they actually have open so you have to stand in line for literally at least 10 minutes just to find out if they have something in stock (which they didn’t).
I know a guy who is huge in stereo equipment, applied for a job at futureshop (canadian bestbuy), and was told he was told that he was to smart to work there.
“Our sales performance, while disappointing, was in line with our expectations.”
It must comfort investors to know that the company expects to fail!
CC is a lousy place to shop. The help sucks and the selection is horrible. Since Best Buy opened up where I live, I don’t even bother with Circuit City. They treated their customers like crap for years, so what do they expect?
I have to say that only ONCE out of the, maybe, seven times I’ve been to Circuit City I’ve had lesser-than-good experiences – ESPECIALLY the CC at Tyson’s Corner in Virginia. You can’t find what you came for; DVDs are seldom in any sort of order; the place is filthy; and YES you can never find a darn cash register!
I hate saying this, especially on this site, but I actually have good experiences with Best Buy… except when I use that service where what you order online will be ready for pickup in-store. That, honestly, has NEVER worked right.
I bought some printer ink a CC the other day. They had it in stock…and the cashier was cute, even though I couldn’t find her at first behind the displays stacked infront of the check out counter. That was the best CC experience I had.
I checked them out this Christmas while looking for an HDTV. Bad selection, high prices.
I concur. CC needs to get rid of the kiosk idea and organize their darn checkout areas. There is probably a dozen or more areas to checkout in our store in Ann Arbor and nobody is to be found anywhere. I like walking in to Best Buy, grab my stuff and proceed to checkout. It’s like a cattle drive in Best Buy…but guest what, it works! It gets people in and out quickly…and with less cash then when they entered. Are you listening CC?
I last set foot in a Circuit City about 8 or 9 years ago.
I disliked the extended warranty pitches, but I guess that’s standard operating procedure at all electronics retailers these days.
I hated having to hunt down a register monkey to checkout.
No one I spoke with had even basic knowledge of the products being sold.
They also used to have an excellent CD inventory, but they cleared it out in favor of “hot new releases”.
CC is the next CompUSA, no doubt. They’ll be in bankruptcy by the end of 2008.
Oh and remember DIVX? What were they thinking?
Last time I went in there was to get a computer game that was on sale for $10, plus an additional $10 gift card.
First off, the stereo department had some bass-heavy rap playing at level 11 that rattled the metal of the shelves. It was painful just to remain in the store.
Then, the sale price didn’t come up when the hard-to-find cashier rang it up. I showed him the flier (I brought it in, fortunately), about the sale and the $10 card. He rung it up again, same price as before. I called him on it, and he said the gift card brought it back up to the original price. I showed him the flier again, and the offer was $10 off PLUS a $10 gift card. He told me to go up to customer service.
I go to CS, and I wait at the counter while the rep is on the phone with another store, checking stock on something. They are just chatting while some poor stock boy runs in the back, all the while I wait right in front of her.
She rings it up the wrong way too. Finally, a manager (I assume) gets it figured out.
30 minutes after I walk into the store, I have a headache from the gangster rap, and a $10 gift card I may never want to return to use.
Last weekend I helped my parents buy a new HD TV, CC had the TV they wanted at a good price, so they ordered it online and we picked it up in store. At the service counter there were 4 employees all talking to each other. Then, one by one, they all left. Eventually we got the TV, DVD player and all the cables, but man, that place was sad-looking. Too many employees and not enough customers, and none of the employees were all that helpful. The store was set up strangely, too. The cables were spread out over four different sections, and naturally the non-overpriced ones were in the back.
I had to reply to this one. The following is why I will never set foot in a Circuit City store.
In early 2006 I had my hard disk crash in my Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop. The laptop was out of warranty so I decided to go buy a hard disk to replace the one that just crashed. I went to my local Circuit City where the resident “Computer Wizard” (it’s on his badge) told me that Dell uses proprietary hard drives and I would not be able to buy one there. Luckily I had the laptop with me so I popped the hard drive out (2 screws) and showed him it’s a regular hard drive. He disagreed and told me that the brace that holds the disk in is proprietary and they do not supply those. So I removed the hard drive from the brace (4 screws) and showed him it was exactly the same as the hard drives they were selling there. He relented but told me unfortunately he could not sell me a hard drive without a “Professional Install” which is basically a $120 charge for them to screw in 6 screws and slap an OEM copy of Windows on my laptop. I said no to the professional install after which the “Computer Wizard” told me “no install, no hard drive.”
So the long and short of it is I just sauntered over to Best Buy, bought a new 120GB hard drive with no hassle and in about 2 hrs. I had my laptop up and running again.
I would have to say that Circuit City, at least in this instance, would benefit from losing it’s “smart” employees since this guys arrogance and ignorance cost them at least one customer.
@shawna_m:
#1 They Never Have What’s Advertised on Sale
This past Sunday they had an ad for their Video Game Blowout and they show XBox 360 titles (NCAA Football 07, NHL 07, Madden 07) for $8.98. I wanted to purchase NHL 07. I end up going to 3 CCs and none of them had ANY 360 games in their BLOWOUT BIN. It was all PS1 games and Xbox games….great advertising!
I know someone who got a $450 AC for $150 because the CC sales associate was too lazy to bend over to scan both units and instead just scanned the obviously smaller and cheaper one on top twice.
So my tip for CC: Don’t do that if you want to stay in the black. Or keep doing that if you want more people to come into your stores. Either or.
There’s a brand new CC in a new mall by my appartment. The thing looks huge on the outside, but inside it’s just one small circle of stuff. Lots of empty space with no merchandise. My future in-laws went there to look for an Xmas present for me; they took one look around, walked straight out the door, and high-tailed it to Fry’s.
@brendanm14: To be fair, that was obviously a clearance sale. The one I went to had plenty of 360 games (but not Project Sylpheed, doh!).
I don’t know why CC is getting killed by BB. Both stores seem equally awful. Maybe CC should concentrate on price, rather than service?
I miss Radioshack. Yea, used to have Radioshacks here but for some reason one day they all became named “The Source by Circuit city”.
…Since that day I noticed the quality just dropped dead… The service stinks, the clerks think you’re a retard, and they are just so SLOW.
PS: they did try to sell me a guarantee for my recharchable AA batteries… I mean… um… COME ON. BATTERIES.
Circuit City may never have what I’m looking for, but the upside is their 24/24 guarantee…apparently, their inventory tracking is also sub-par…of the three times I’ve ordered something online (that said it was in stock) to pick it up in the store, they only had the item in question once, which comes out to $48 in gift cards for me!
After reading all these articles on Circuit City and Best Buy, I’m a bit ecstatic for them to come to Puerto Rico. With DACO here, I wonder how long it’ll take for them to shut down the store because of pulling al the shit you write about.
Seriously, you basically tell them of any of the things that all of you write about, and it’s basically an automatic $10,000 fine. After a certain number of fines, they shut down the store.
@IrisMR:
We still have RadioShacks in FL, but they suck. Horribly.
The article summary sounds a lot like BEST products final days in VA back in the ’80′s.
@IrisMR: We have radioshacks here…the people are good. But they are overpriced and have really cut back on their little parts, and now sell the big ticket items. Which I go there for little crap to solder onto bigger crap. So, that store is phasing itself out.
I got my Wii at circuit city, no problems, and I got my phone at circuit city, at the Verizon kiosk (local Verizon supplier), also no problem, but not a CC employee.
But whenever I’ve looked for video games or movies there, they never have what I want. I thought I just wanted weird things (I don’t go to mainstream media stores very often), but apparently their stock is just bad.
PS Irismr: I HATE radioshack! They never have ANYTHING in stock and their customer service people are EEEEEEVIL and the upselling is ridiculous!
I don’t shop at CC because they closed the one near me and there are other choices.
Whenever I go to CC they always seem to want a lot of personal information no matter what I wanted to buy. I’m sorry, but they don’t need that information for batteries , at which I was told that they could not sell it to me without the information. I walked out and haven’t been back to CC since.
For the past few times I’ve bothered to go to a CC, I’ve been let down each time. Usually they would have a new release CD or DVD that was marked down a few bucks cheaper than BB and since they’re almost next door to each other, it’s definitely worth the 2 minutes more of driving to save a few $$. Every time though, the never had the CD or DVD. Asking one of the kids there (assuming you get one from the right department) warrants no answer beyond “check the new release rack” which seems to move around more than Castro as it’s never in the same place when I visit.
CC used to be pretty good, my last solid purchase there was my home theater receiver about 6 years ago. Since then they’ve gotten me to the point that I don;t even consider going there because I either can’t find what I want or they don;t have it at all (despite being advertised in the flyer on the same day the flyer comes out).
I’ve never been able to find what I wanted there. They will advertise an item on sale, but not put a sticker or anything next to it saying that it’s on sale, which makes me wonder if it IS on sale. Since I can’t find anyone anyway, I just leave without the item in question.
The fact that they only have ONE register in the entire store, and that there is no one even standing near that register 90% of the time.
The fact that their customer service counter has ONE employee working it with a lineup of about 20 people which equals about a 30 min wait for each person, you could easily be in line for 2 hours at CC just because it takes so long to move people through the line. I don’t know anyone who has this kind of time to be waiting in lines like this these days, people want quick service.
Their store is a mess and is disorganized and hard to find things in. In order to find the section for one particular video game system I am often wandering around aimlessly just wondering where they put the section. They never have what you want either, and its not clearly labeled with the correct price, and if its on sale, there are no sale signs so who knows if its actually on sale, and I am not standing in a 30 min register line to find out since there are no self-scanners in the store.
I hate disorganized stores and stores that are hard to find things in, if I am left wandering in a store for too long looking for the desired item, then I just leave without buying anything. There are much more convienent options for customers these days, often within minutes of each CC location.
The last time I shopped at Circuit City, I was forced to because I needed a surge protector quick, and there was nowhere else to go.
The checkout experience was exactly as you described. Despite 3 or 4 employees walking around doing god-knows-what, I had to wait for 15 minutes behind some guy who was trying to return something. This was, of course, after I FOUND the checkout aisle.
Thank god for Amazon.com.
the last time I went was way back in the early oughts. The one salesguy was kind of a d*ck. Then we figured out how close the closest Fry’s was. I don’t need experts to help me out, I just need people able to tell me where stuff is, and to check me out quickly. YayFry’s.
I brought a printer there about 2 months ago.Never again.
I went in and wandered around until I found the printer section, then spent ages trying to figure out which price mached which set of boxes, and then finally figured out that the printer I wanted was on display but no box. Finally I managed to flag some sales monkey down, who proceeded to wonder off into the back for 5 or so mins.
He came back with a little card thing that I took upto the register. Register monkey scanned it and then tried to push the warrenty on me. After that I then have to go and stand in line to get my box…
Seriously, how hard is it to jsut put everything on the shelves, keep it neat, have people not monkeys and use a stock tracking system that orders new stock as you sell the old stuff?
Its Dumb. At least in BB I can walk in, grab what I want and walk back out. They are still pretty bad but faster than using my beloved newegg.
Along with many friends I’ve been boycotting Circuit City since the firings. Did they really think no one would notice?
I think some of the issues are that they have more people at their customer service area than stagged at registers. They only have 4 registers, if you are lucky 2 are open. The only time I have seen all 4 open was on Black Friday. Even on Christmas eve, the most they had open was 2.
Yet you seem to see employees standing around doing pretty much nothing while the lines got long and they could have opened a freaking register. When you do ask these employees questions, they don’t know the answers. That is assuming you can find someone anyone, it seems when you need to get into a locked case, no one is around.
A new Circuit City opened about five minutes away from me. I went to visit about two days before Christmas, and the place was DEAD. I couldn’t figure out why until I needed to ask someone a question about a TV: the employees just don’t care. They’ve got no reason to help you when they’re making $7.50 an hour, and if they DO get a raise, they’re then working with the threat of being fired for making too much money.
I used to work for them, about three years ago now, and it’s saddening to see how much the company has changed. They didn’t make a point of caring about their employees back then, but my store was at least fun and won all sorts of awards for customer service. Now it’s just… meh. I feel bad only for the employees.
I’m just commenting to say that the second paragraph is hilarious. Well said.
Also, the other part I forgot to mention. I was in Circuit City looking to get a PS3 bluray remote, they were on sale at the time. They checked the computer and it said they had 6 in inventory left. They went to look for some as none was on the rack and alas, none could be found.
Regardless of bad inventory or not, 6 is alot to go missing. Perhaps their sales are down because either they don’t have the products people or looking for or the employees are thieves. Though what would you expect from minimum wage minors?
They burned me a few years ago on a faulty Sony SR1 HD Camera. It was near Christmas & as they didn’t have any more, or similar in stock, I had to get a refund, for which I was stung a $180 restocking fee. After complaining the next day to HQ, they only thing they would do, is offer me the fee back towards the purchase of another one. When they did finally get them in stock, I went to pick one up, but they refused to take my AAA 10% coupon, saying they couldn’t take it, as they had already gave me a discount of $180. Well CC, don’t think we’ll be back as we have no where else to go. We do & I’ve not set foot in your store since.
@Syd: Seconded on the Tyson’s Corner location. I was in there not long ago with a friend looking for a cheap stereo ($100-$200). Nothing fancy, just something to hook an iPod up to for a little party. We found the one we wanted on display, but none of their employees would go in the back and get it for us. 3-4 different people just passed us off to somebody else. Managers of neighboring departments told us “someone will be by in a minute.”
If their sales force was on commission we probably would have been fighting them off with a stick for such an easy sale. After 15 minutes, we left and got the same unit in 90 seconds at Best Buy.
@darkened: Of course, then you’d get complaints about people being harassed to buy things due to the salesclerks getting commissions for every sale.
Karma. Is. A. Bitch.
I wonder if Big Ol’ Phil is getting his beauty sleep with the investors blowing up his cell phone at 3am wanting to know what the eff happened?
Fire your people who actually knew your products and stood behind your company with loyalty and commitment, and watch all your shit crumble.
I don’t miss Circuit City for anything, I hope they DO go bottom up. Soon.
I worked at Circuit City for a few years, and left about 3 months before this layoff happened. I almost didn’t take the job because of loyalty to Circuit City, but the pay at my new job made the decision for me. When I worked there, the computer dept started out at 9.25 an hour, and we recieved raises if performance was good. Not bad for a retail box like this.
Thank God I took this other job, because I was making more than my department capped at and would have gotten canned anyway. The managers I worked with were always VERY customer focused, and I saw more than one associate let go due to lack of customer service. Unfortunately, the managers in the stores are powerless to the orders coming down the line.
I hate to see the Circuit City I worked for going down the tubes as they are, but I guess one good location can’t save a chain.
I saw a few people saying they hoped to see Circuit City go down, and all I can tell them is to remember competition brings about better prices. If you don’t like the prices on things now, wait until Best Buy’s competition is all gone. With no Circuit City or CompUSA to keep it in check, I fear retail electronic prices will be too high to continue shopping at local retail.
Every retail store has had people who felt as if they got a raw deal. Sometimes the complaints are legitimate, and sometimes they are not. For every person who gets angry at Circuit City and goes to Best Buy, there is someone walking out of Best Buy on their way to Circuit City, of course…… if Circuit City had stayed customer focused instead of forgetting that CUSTOMERS make the bottom dollar they are trying so desperately to make, they would be in a prettier boat right now.
The story of Circuit City truly is a shame
Uh… I actually don’t know why I never shop there. I have been in a Circuit City exactly twice in probably the last 8 years.
I bought a camera there a few months ago and the guys were mega-helpful, did a price adjustment cheerfully and quickly, weren’t pushy or rude…
It was a pretty good shopping experience.
I’ve never understood that weird kiosk-based sales model. The technology more than exists for the actual sales clerks who help you to be able to sell you something on the spot, one second after you’ve picked up the box, if you’re using plastic.
Either have registers like Worst Ripoff, or have roving employees like The Apple Store. Look at how much money *they* rake in per square foot.
Well, that’s not quite the same thing.
I can’t say I’ve ever had a terrible experience at CC, but that’s because I buy from their website and pick it up. I don’t like how you can see something on their website, go to look at it, and it just isn’t on the floor for display.
My partner is actually looking to work at a CC – I think he wants to be warehouse – after just quitting OfficeMax. (A friend works there, and it’s literally across the parking lot from his old job.)
When money’s the bottom line, nothing else matters. Why do you think retail’s such a mess? Companies try to figure out how to make numbers bigger, and the fastest way to do that isn’t to make people happy, it’s to trick them into buying stuff they don’t need or even want, and refuse to pay employees enough money that they want to behave well in front of other humans.
I’m not particularly anti-capitalist in theory, but at some point, when you’re sitting around in a boardroom going, “what can we do to make sure our stock price doesn’t drop any more?”, you lose touch with what you actually need to do to make people want to buy things at your store.
@rustyni: Yeah but if CC goes up then BB is the only chain big box left for electronics…then we’re REALLY screwed. Then again I haven’t shopped at a CC in at least 5+ years…come to think of it I haven’t actually bought anything from BB in 2+ years. The last thing I clearly remember buying was a TV for my birthday (26th and I’m now 28->29)
Wait, I’m confused. Do we hate CC and like BB or do we like CC and hate BB?
Seriously, I blame this on the stock market. Why is it that when companies fire people the stock prices go up? Don’t any of these “investors” realize the company could be firing the very people that makes the company money? Oh right, it’s all about the numbers at the end of the year, I forgot.