Not surprising at all. One of their warehouse stores is closing by me so I might check it out for the hell of it and do some price comparisons.

Wow... Sadface...
Dear Circuit City,
your gonna have to try harder when you hold these "sales"
maybe next time yall will get this right and actually hold a real sale, and *gasp* actually have prices that are actully lower then real electronic stores!

Yup, about as much excitement as I was expecting, after having lived through a CompUSA store closing. Either they'll wait until the good stuff is gone before slashing prices, or they'll keep prices where they are and ship the leftover stock to the stores that haven't closed.

Dear Circuit city,

Try charging people to come into the store. Sams, Costco and B.J.s does this successfully. The next deception you can try is to mark everything down 20% more to make everything look like a great deal. Then simply charge a 10% checkout fee. At least you can catch people off guard and make a few bucks on the unsuspecting people thinking they'll get a great deal. No one here will fall for it, but the general public might. Hurry before it's too late!

So isn't that the way that liquidation works?

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that X company actually buys the merchandise and takes control of the store. They pay CC a little bit less then its all worth with the hope that they can move most of it without slicing prices to much so that they come out with a profit.

Its a gamble for them. They hope to move most of it at a higher price so that when they move some of it at a lower price they're still maximizing their profit. If no one is buying anything they just slide their scale until people start buying. Again they're going to try and hit a point where they're getting more then what they original paid CC but part of the gamble is they may have to take a loss to move the merchandise.

Sounds like the CompUSA "sales" and the similar ones going on now at Linens-n-Things. Like those, this one gets put on "ignore."

@buckfutt: yeah, I went to my local LNT Saturday morning. What a disappointment. I should have just slept in.

I was hoping to see something a bit better come out of all this. The nearest closing store (to me) is about an hour's drive away. I'm going to be doing a lot of driving this weekend. (Almost too much as it is) I doubt I'll go there this weekend but I'll try there next weekend to see what all the fuss *might* be about.

I know a few stores in my area (Lowe's for example) have a tough time selling in certain counties/locations even though we are around St. Louis. Some would suggest "an element" prohibits regular sales; on average their prices are 20 - 30% lower than stores 30 minutes away. That is where I'm getting all the appliances for the new foreclosed house I'm purchasing.

The old bait and switch. I used to work at CC years ago, when they paid you for what you sold. You could make pretty good money once upon a time. They would routinly place items on sale that were not instock and switch you to a more expensive item. It was pretty bad.

@tande04: Your right, my brother inlaw works in car installation and they had everyone in the night before marking all the prices at least 5% over retail so the sales associates have some bargaining power and to make it seem like customers are getting a deal when u give them a discount. Since the liquidators took over they told everyone to just sell. Screw customer service and just get things out the door

There's one just around the corner from work. I might see how low they can go on a nice, entry-level Canon Xsi kit.

When Tower Records went out of business this was the best thing I was able to get:

And it was just $2.00 plus 17¢ tax

Liquidation company's aren't in the business to give the customer a good deal. I'm surprised no one's been reporting the inevitable junk that shows up at these liquidation events. Stuff that the chain store never carried. Stuff that came from other places the liquidation company liquidated.

Usually the good stuff's been sold to other retailers and the liquidated store just carries open boxed goods, the above mentioned junk, stuff that's outdated (512MB USB drive for $10 anyone?), etc.

Although with the downturn the economy they may actually have to liquidate some good stuff. Don't see other retailers pulling together quick cash to buy big amounts of the good stuff from the liquidators.

@Triborough: Tower was the best. I miss them so. They always managed to train up their wage-slav... err, associates to have a cheerful yet unobtrusive and barista-like attitude towards the guests, which I appreciated.

I find it funny in this day & age that these companies think people are easily fooled when it comes to price comparisons. I'm sure they still get a few rubes off the street who see 30% off signs and believe they're getting a deal without looking elsewhere but for the most part - especially in economic times like these - most everyone I know is looking everywhere to comparison shop.

If this is being handled by a third party, they have incremental discounts. Week 1 is 10-30%, week 2 is 30-40%, week 3 is 50%, etc until they're bringing in junk from other liquidations that hasn't sold until the lease runs out and they have to vacate the building.

@quail: [en.wikipedia.org]

I'll be going back to my CC that's closing and ask once more for the price of a 256mb flashdrive (was quoted as $39.99). If it hasn't dropped to x<$2, I'm not going back for anything.

Ahh, the difference between the connected world and the NOT connected world.

If you have access to the web and are viewing sites like this you would NEVER step a foot inside a Circuit City that is being liquidated.

If you do not have access, you really have no clue of pricing, so with all the signage and all the stuff that goes along with the carnival atmosphere that a store liquidation brings to the table, people get caught up in the perceived bargains of 30% off MSRP!

Would almost say that it is an issue that takes advantage of the people who really cannot afford access and end up paying more!

What is it that, I believe, The Men's Warehouse chain says... An educated consumer is our best customer. Well, in the case of the liquidators of Circuit City store it may be that... The uneducated are their best customers!

@thrlsekr:

Actually, I think that's SYMS(sp?) slogan...as I think they are more upscale and are trying to sell quality over price.

Yeah, I've notice with places going out of business that the first week, it is only like 10% off (which is usually more expensive than buying online. Still, everyone thinks they're getting a good deal so they buy all the good stuff up. Then it's 20% off the next week, etc. By the time it's 50% off (when the deals are good), you have to have eccentric taste to get anything you want (since everything most people thought was good was bought at 10,20, 30, or 40% off.

@Goatweed: COM phones for the win!

@thrlsekr: You're not going to like the way you look (after typing that). Just kidding ;-)

@mbz32190: Yeah. That's the Syms slogan, though I notice that they're not using that slogan anymore at the end of new ads

I checked out a nearby Circuit City (Phoenix Area) today. I was in the same store last Thursday looking for a portable hard drive. All of the game consoles are gone and any new game released in the last few weeks with the exception or the large rock band 2 kits. DVD’s and Blu-ray’s are all set to full release day MSRP then discounted. The portable hard drives were actually marked way up then discounted to a higher price then they were last week. There seems to be more off brand iPod accessories then last week. They must be hoping for people are easily confused.

One plus is the employee apathy. My friend bought a few car speakers (they actually had a price close to what was available on-line). They employee ranged up the first speaker that was $40 dollars and then ranged up the other 5 speakers at the same price. Four of those five speakers were priced at $80. So yah for employee apathy.

Being that Jerkit City isn't comletely going out of business in most markets, maybe this isn't a true "Liquidation Sale" in the context most are used to.

Can't they just send what didn't sell at the closing stores, to their other stores?

@segamanxero: If I'm not mistaken, Circuit City already sold these stores (the businesses, not the buildings or premises) to a liquidation company. It's the liquidation company that's operating these stores now.

@Raiders757: I suppose it isn't cost-effective to transport every piece of merchandise.

Circuit City: They can't even do their closing liquidations right.

@segamanxero: @NilzXX:

Yeah, you're right on, except that Circuit City already sold their store to a liquidation company, so it's the LIQUIDATION COMPANY'S FAULT.

I know everyone thinks Circuit City is hell on earth, but you're placing the blame on the wrong company here.

Question- The WSJ reported that CC doesn't have enough cash or credit to buy adequate inventory for the holdiay season (for those stores remaining open...for now). Why do they not transfer much of the inventory from closing stores to ones remaining open? At least the high-dollar or best selling items? Is it logistically difficult to the point of being unprofitable?

Then again, they probably know that they'd just be transferring to stores they'll be closing sooner or later....or sooner.

@Meg: you say sad, i say "funny"
or "fail"

I went to the CC in my area today, not realizing that they had started the liquidation process. I was actually wanting to check out a Toshiba M305 that has been on sale for $599 for a few weeks ($250 off). It was around 4pm and I was shocked to see only two other cars in the lot.

Inside, the discounts were unimpressive. There were fewer employees than normal standing around- and they were as unfriendly and as useless as always!

Despite the CC website showing it in stock at this location, they were out of stock. I asked the store manager if he wanted to deal on a laptop that they DID have in stock- he offered me the same $250 off (as the sale item I went to see) but I wasn't impressed with what I saw.

I went across the street to Best Buy to see if their selection was any better. They had another Toshiba that I really liked, normally priced at $949 and on sale for $799. I told the dept manager about the offer from the CC manager- he matched it on the spot! So the $949 computer cost me $699...and I got my nephew's Xmas gift checked off the list!

My local CC (Tallahassee, FL) was very unimpressive. The TV's were 10% off, but the discount was based on the TV's highest MSRP. I'm sure they will get people who know nothing about prices of tv's to buy something because they see the 10% off discount, but for someone who knows what they are looking for and have researched how much the product should cost they aren't going to sell a thing. BB's prices are lower than CC's liquidated prices.

@ElijahGolem: So let me get this straight - The dept. manager at Best Buy matched Circuit City's price without proof? or did you have proof (did they call CC)? Because around here that's so unheard of I'd almost call you a liar.

in my day, a liquidation MEANT something.

bye circuit city, good riddance.

Maybe if they had resonable prices to begin with, they wouldn't be going bankrupt. I worked for a Circuit City for a short time, and can attest that their buying and selling practices are completely short-sighted and retarded. Most of their high prices and bankruptcy are due to exploiting their employees, thereby causing an expensive high turnover rate, a HUGE internal theft rate, and a sizeable customer theft rate (since employees don't care enough to stop them). In purchasing manpower, they also pay for needless and rather extensive background screens for everyone (the same employees that pass do end up stealing, mind you, it just isn't on their records because they're good at it), and then top it off with a week of paid "training" (videos), during which no actual work can be done. Prices go up to compensate.

They attempted to compensate for the customer loss due to high prices caused by this crap, by adding value-added services like Firedog... which further exploit everyone. As a Firedog "tech", it was mandated not to stray from the corporate protocol on troubleshooting and repair, regardless of whether said protocol actually fixed any problem (which it usually didn't). Further, the Firedogs are primarily still salesman. That leads to stores having their service people telling customers "the computer is broken" when it isn't, to get sales, and "the computer is fixed", when it isn't, to justify sales. Of course, word of mouth on this crap causes customers to avoid the store altogether anytime in the future. Fewer customers, and prices go up to compensate again.

On top of that, they try to justify the high prices with "fake" humanitarian efforts that waste money and insult the public ... for instance, they toss most broken electronics in the *TRASH*, where it can poison the local water supply, and then hold "benefits" for the local kids with cancer to come into the store and play video games. Wow.

I hope this company bites the dust. Seriously, don't buy anything at all from them if you can avoid it. Just wait until someone's got a whole "warehouse full of Circuit City leftovers" listed on Craigslist, and maybe then it'll be a good deal =P

These are great comments, confirms my prior experiences seeing folks manipulated in paying same or more than online with other stores, plus with the added insult of wasting your time in traveling to the store.