I went to my local Circuit City yesterday... most items in the store were 10% off, including games. My son bought an XBox game and I bought two PC games and when I presented my Gamers Savings Club card at the register (kind of like a Barnes and Nobel member card; knocks 10% off the price of games) they tried to tell me since they already applied 10% off on the games the card was no good. I told the cashier that she could just remove the 10% and make it 20%, since the card is good until March. After huffing a sigh at me she did it.

Woohoo! My TiVo S3's extended warranty isn't worthless! :)

Are Circuit City's extended warranties affected by the liquidation?

* No. Circuit City Advantage Protection Plans® (extended warranties) have been backed by third-party independent companies for more than 15 years and as a result, are not impacted by Circuit City's closing.
* Currently, all Circuit City Advantage Protection Plans are fully backed by the Assurant Solutions companies. Assurant Solutions operates as Federal Warranty Service Corporation, Sureway, Inc., and United Service Protection, Inc. Assurant Solutions is part of Assurant, Inc. (NYSE: AIZ), and its extended service contacts are backed by an Assurant insurance subsidiary rated A "Excellent" by A.M. Best Co.

@wchamilton: Bad math FTW! :)

10% off an item that is already at 10% off is not 20% off, just don't tell Home Depot cuz I've played that game with many big appliances. Of course, at the price of a video game, it's negligible. When you are getting a washer/dryer combo, fridge, etc, it's $10 per $1000.

I have only purchased two items in the past 3 years at Circuit City, but I'll still miss having it around. Most of my shopping is online, but I enjoy browsing brick and mortor locations. Plus it is nice if you need some sort of odd electronics in a pinch. Once they are gone, my only local options are Best Buy, K-Mart and Wal-Mart >_<

Looks like they have an actual status page now.

@RevRagnarok: What happens if Assurant Solutions declares banruptcy?

@RevRagnarok: Yeah, I figured when I left that I had probably bilked them out of a couple of extra dollars. But until they hang something up that specifically says these cards aren't good anymore I intend to make them honor them.

Where im from, Circuity City is the only major Electronics Retailer of its type, Best Buys are hours away, leaving people to now shop at Walmart or even Sears for their Electronics.. Such a Shame..

Oh Well..

Circuit City now reminds me of Earth in the BSG series: Bleak, dead, and highly radioactive.

Check the site again... it redirects you to [www.circuitcity.com] detailing their going out of business.

Now they can go through unemployment with Fallout Boy!

@thebluepill: Yeah, I suspect most of America is in a similar situation to you. CC expanded nationwide LONG before BB, especially into smaller metro areas.

Luckily, Walmart and Sears carry a lot more electronics than in the old days. Plus, the internet (Crutchfield, Amazon, NewEgg, et al). And I hope this might benefit some of the smaller local shops, too. When consumption slows down, service becomes more important. And if many CC critics are to be believed, service/competence can make the difference in a sale.

@wchamilton: I agree. The cashier doesn't care, they're losing a job within weeks. Technically, the card represents an agreement with a company that no longer owns the merchandise (the liquidator does now), so I don't think they should honor it. But on the other hand, kudos to anybody getting money from the liquidators who mark prices up before marking them down. ;)

@wchamilton:
They actually aren't valid, and you're lucky she did the discount. So if other people reading this want to try using it anyway, go ahead, but associates don't have to do the discount.
And no, the Gamers Savings Club isn't refundable.

And there is signs up that says they aren't good anymore, it falls under "stacking discounts" - At least those signs are up in my store and *should* be in the store you went to.

circuitcity.com has had that page since Friday.

@edrebber: Well sure, there's always the possibility of that since we've learned recently that a good amount of these "Excellent" ratings are meaningless. However, it's not guaranteed to be useless like it would if it were by CC itself or even worse "Circuit City Extended Warranty Co, a wholly owned subsidiary of Circuit City."

We actually had a new Circuit City ad in our newspaper yesterday. Which...surprised me.

@Front_Towards_Enemy: Thanks for not using spoiler tags and killing the remaining interest I have in seeing BSG!

@MissPeacock:

It's not being honored.

We had the circuit city circular in the Los Angeles Sunday paper but the advertised "specials" were not that special and on some of the tv's there was a lower price in the Best Buy ad.

i like how they indicate blame falls on the consumer with the repeated phrase "bleak economic environment" and "economic climate."
if they had better service to begin with i might have shopped there more than once in the last .... oh, wait, my entire lifetime.
and that was just because my dad bought me a printer there and the ink cartridges are [were] exclusive to them.
good thing i mostly only use it as a scanner, although i guess i should see if i can find them online at lexmark now...

@bxbrett:

Circuit City as isn't being honored anyway.

@Ash78:

I agree with ya there, for certain.

Really, Circuity City was a strong business until they stopped paying commission to their sales staff. After that, the place lost its appeal and became just another clearing house for electronics. Most of the people I know with any money are not all that in to electronics and just want someone to explain what is what when they buy something. I would wager to say that most folks need to be "sold" on something, if not, it is just an exercise to buy what ever is the cheapest, not necessarily what they need or want.

Does sears still have commissioned sales people? If so, I could see this being a HUGE boon to them..

@catastrophegirl:

I wish I could edit it to say "Due to idiot decisions by bad management...."

Good luck with the Lexmark printer ink, I was trying to locate it at the Lexmark site yesterday and couldn't find it :/ (Really slow internet at work though so I only briefly checked the Lexmark site) :(

@MissPeacock: The ads are probably submitted to the paper some time in advance. I know the retailer that I work for gets our in-store copies of the color supplement ads about a week ahead of time.

I don't get going out of business sales that are done by professional liquidators. Every time I go in, its one of two things: 1) Thinks are marked up to statospheric levels and then discounted to net at about 10% off. 2) It's totally picked over. I guess if you can hit the sale at the right time, you can find something.

Might as well see if things are actually marked down, as opposed to being marked up 20% before being "marked down" 10%. Not holding my breath, but the husband and I would be up for some video games or something, if things are actually on sale.

Hmmm. There's no spot on my September Madness chart for them. Maybe I should pencil them in for one of the banks that got seeded.

@puyro: i am not too worried if it's not there. it was a free printer that was bundled with a computer and it makes a great scanner. i can get a better printer just about anywhere and probably for less than the price CC was charging for the ink cartridges

@thebluepill: I'm torn on the commission thing. I worked a brief stint at Home Depot, selling large appliances, countertops, cabinets, etc (all non-commission). It definitely did not give me much incentive to sell hard, but on the flipside I never had any incentive to push something that was more than the customer needed. The "vulture mentality" was one of the reasons I didn't go into CC for quite a while. I actually thought it'd be a good thing when they eliminated it.

Maybe some kind of a flat-fee commission structure would be ideal. That's how places like Carmax work. Give the salesperson SOME incentive to sell, but don't base it on the price of the item.

@puyro: Can't agree more about the "bad management". Although, I don't agree with the time line of the CC death, my opinion is that CC started it's decline when they stopped selling major appliances!

@puyro: I guess since they're already out of business it doesn't matter too much, but the liquidators are going to have a tough time... liquidating the inventory like that.

@WalkTheLine: That's a spoiler? Srsly? C'mon, people, TV shows wait for no one!

@ajc308: ...I don't get it. They have stores in Canada? That will be untouched by the company not existing anymore? How?

@WalkTheLine:

If you where that big of a fan you would have watch it by now.

@jamar0303: Canadian Circuit City stores are operated by InterTan. InterTan also operates Canadian RadioShack stores under the name "The Source by Circuit City"

[en.wikipedia.org]
"InterTAN filed for bankruptcy protection (under the [Canadian] Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act) at the same time as its U.S. parent in late 2008. However, the Canadian division is not directly affected by Circuit City's liquidation process announced on January 16, 2009. A sale process for (at least) the Canadian division's retail assets is currently underway, and may be completed within a few weeks"

Consistent with federal labor laws, Circuit City associates are receiving 60-days notice of the termination of their employment. Those who stay on to help with the liquidation, of course, will receive pay and benefits. Those who are dismissed earlier will be receiving pay and benefits for the 60-day period beginning January 16, 2009.

@Ash78: It's hard to sell big ticket items when you are making wages that barely provide you with the ability to run out and do it yourself. I always wanted to work for a big electronics store, but at the same time I wanted to stay away because my one motivating factor (earning money to buy gadgets) would be my downfall. I could penny-pinch my way to eventually afford things, but as a teenager I grew up around many that even today demand instant gratification.

When I go out shopping, I've done enough research that I'm either locked in to a specific product or a particular set of specs - it's merely just a matter of overall value versus price. If both are working in concert the store has my business, otherwise I'm off somewhere else. I'm more picky now about what I get and when I get it because I usually have three tag-alongs, my wife and our two children. I can't spend the 45 minutes to an hour a big box store like I used to. I have to go in, pull it off the shelf or ask for help, pay, load it up and then leave.

If I had a pushy sales rep driving various products down my throat along the way I'd likely just get up and leave. In the months leading up to the end of CC, I would go in the store near me and it would be nearly empty minus the staff. You couldn't get anyone to check you out at the register to save your life.

Not really new news. It's been redirecting us to circuitcity.com/closed for a couple days now.....

@catastrophegirl: If these were vendor specific, they might have a particular cartridge shape or ID chip making them difficult to find. I'd suggest Cartridge World, or a refill service instead.

@MissPeacock: Those ads are submitted weeks or even months in advance to the newspapers.

@thebluepill: As far as I know, yes they do still work on commission. I have a friend who worked there a couple months ago in home goods and he was getting commission.
... Maybe it's by store or department, that I do not know.

@corkdork: @midwestkel: Thanks. I didn't know how that worked.

@jamar0303: Umm, yes, it is a spoiler. Apparently @Ben_Q2: @jamar0303: Are you kidding? Get with the 21st century, not everyone watches it live anymore. Ever heard of Netflix or Tivo?

@WalkTheLine: And people who do should wait for those who use Tivo (if you get your TV show fix on Netflix that should put it well into the "safe" category for most people)?

@Ben_Q2: Or, I could have been waiting for it to come on Netflix so I do have to pay through the nose for cable. But, I suppose not everyone wants to save money in these troubled economic times.

On the redirected website, if you mouse over the logo, the text pops up "Title of some sort?". Nice way to go out, CC!

@midwestkel: They can't cancel?

@MissPeacock: I saw that too, it was kind of sad seeing it there; like checking your e-mail and finding a cheerful message asking if you would like to go out for lunch from someone who died two days ago.

I was surprised that they were not able to get it pulled out before the ad sections were out into the paper. A slight consolation is that there did not seem to be any really good sales this week anyway.