CNet explains:

According to a form Circuit City filed with the SEC Thursday, the NYSE said the company's stock was "below criteria" because the average closing price was less than $1 per share for the 30 previous days. NYSE requires any company's minimum average over that time period to be $1.

Circuit City's stock closed Friday down 4 cents to reach 26 cents.

Now that Circuit City has received the notice, it has six months to get the stock's act together. As long as the average 30-day closing price is more than $1 sometime during the next six months, it can stay listed.

Circuit City has 10 days to respond to the NYSE that it plans to get its stock back above $1. In the meantime, the company's CC ticker symbol will be followed by a ".BC" to show it's below continued listing standards.

Things are not looking up for CC.

Circuit City gets delisting notice from NYSE [CNet] (Thanks, dohtem!)
(Photo: cmorran123 )

"Great selection" - Maybe what you're looking for is on the shelves, maybe it's not.

"Friendly advice" - Try gum-popping and monotone.

"We'll beat any price from any other store, any membership club, anybody." - We beat ANYONE, except for retailers who are online or farther than 10 miles away.

"We all have one goal: pleasing you" - We all have one goal: spiffs.

"Service is state of the art" - No, but the cigarette sculpture people are help building in the alley out back is pretty amazing.

More reasons why Circuit City is dead.

This is more to vent than anything else, but I had an unforgettable experience at Circuit City the other day. I didn't go there specifically, I just wandered in...

The Price Match
I'd been thinking about getting a new 1TB internal hard drive for movie storage, so I thought that I'd see what they had on offer. What they had on offer was outrageously overpriced, so, after some online browsing from my phone, I decided to see if they would price match. It took the girl about 10 minutes to let me know that they wouldn't price match B&H. She couldn't tell me why, just that they wouldn't. I asked to see their written price match policy. She said that they didn't have any copies on hand despite the huge sign behind her that indicated otherwise. I ended up looking it up online, with my phone, at which point I spoke with a manager. They tried insisting that B&H wasn't a "local" store, until I pointed out that B&H was less than 10 miles away and about 4 stops on the Q train. After about 20 minutes of waiting and talking, they finally gave in - I saved $80.

The Repack
When I got home, I opened the box only to realize that the box contained a used, 800 GB, IDE hard drive, NOT a shiny, new 1TB SATA hard drive. I immediately went back to exchange the drive. The exchange was pretty painless, until...

Drive #2, Manufacturing Defect
I opened the new box while still in the store, to ensure that it wasn't another repack. The model number was correct, but I something was wrong... I realized, much to my amusement, that the entire PCB (printed circuit board - and thus, power/data connections) was missing from the bottom of the drive. Not CC's fault, obviously, but they didn't handle it well...

The Non-Tech-Savvy Tech
Exasperated, I brought the drive back to the front counter to notify the cashier of the defect. Some manager-type nearby, wearing a "FireDog" (their tech support division) t-shirt, jumped in - "that drive do not include connectors! If you have a problem with that, you have to take it up with Western Digital (the manufacturer). We are not going to open another box just because it don't meet your wants. Also, where in the manual do it say that it includes the connectors?"

I was infuriated. "IT'S A SATA DRIVE! Have you ever SEEN an internal hard drive?! How can a SATA drive not include SATA connections?!" Turning, and shouting to the store in general, "GET SOMEONE OVER HERE THAT ACTUALLY BUILDS COMPUTERS!"

Mr. FireDog Manager-Type, "I build computers, sir!"

"Oh really?" Reaching in to the box, I grabbed the red SATA cable included with the drive. "We can agree that this is a SATA cable, right?! Why don't you show me where this SATA cable connects to this SATA drive?"

He actually looked at the thing for about 30 seconds, which is along time to look at something that's hardly bigger than a wallet. He finally went to the shelves to get another box in hopes of showing me an identical drive, missing PCB and all.

Box #3
Upon opening the box, he saw a blue SATA cable with an extra little dongle that Western Digital likes to put on their cables - he thought that it was a completely different type of cable... he hands me the cable and says, "sorry sir, your box was missing this cable, you should be all set now."

I exploded. "THIS IS THE SAME FUCKIN' CABLE! Why don't you show me where THIS cable connects to the drive?!?!" He actually started to reexamine the drive, blue cable in hand... I shouted "look at the other damn drive!!! Look at that - it's got a damn PCB!!! And look - SATA connectors!!! Whodathunkit?!?!"

Head down, he finally gave in, gave me the third and final box, and I was on my way. My 1TB drive only cost me $150... and about 4 hours of my life, about 30 minutes of which consisted of shouting, my heart hammering in rage.

No, I'm not going to be wandering back any time soon.

Retail Nightmares - What's Your Worst? [Brooklynian]

One out-of-court solution the company is studying would likely lead to the closing of at least 150 stores and the elimination of thousands of jobs, said people familiar with the company's plans. This would let the retailer liquidate about $350 million in inventory, which it could use to pay off certain real-estate costs, such as leases on abandoned sites. It would then hope to press existing landlords to renegotiate leases, many of which Circuit City regards as overpriced. Circuit City's investors have homed in on those leases as a threat to the company's health.

Many were negotiated when real-estate prices were booming earlier this decade. Roughly 90% of the leases don't expire until 2014 or later, and about 80 are for vacant locations.

Circuit City's stock has plummeted since July, when Blockbuster Inc. rescinded an offer to buy the company for at least $6 a share. In 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading Friday, Circuit City shares closed at 39 cents, down from a 52-week high of $8.72. It hasn't had a profitable quarter in more than a year.

The company has hired the same lawfirm that took Kmart through bankruptcy, but is trying to avoid that option because of (fairly reasonable) concerns that consumers will not trust warranties from a company that is currently bankrupt.

Circuit City Weighs Broad Cuts (subscription) [WSJ]

"One Price Promise assures Circuit City shoppers that they will be treated fairly and equally regardless of how they shop with us," said Jeff Maynard, vice president, marketing at Circuit City Stores, Inc. in a press release. "Customers have been telling us how important this is to them, and we want to give them a strong and competitive value proposition when making purchases."

"We plan to let consumers know about One Price Promise in a big way," added Maynard. "We are launching an aggressive national advertising campaign that includes print, broadcast, Internet and in-store marketing tools, and we believe this message of consistency, simplicity and transparency will resonate strongly with consumers in today's world."

This flies in the face of conventional electronic retailing wisdom — where its considered "ok" (if not legal) for stores to set up special "fake" websites that look like the real ones but feature "in store" prices and the most common policy is to refuse to price match all websites— even their own.

Will this be thing that saves Circuit City?

Circuit City Launches 'One Price Promise' to Assure Consistent, Dependable Pricing in All Sales Channels [Circuit City]

Motley Fool thinks so. They placed Circuit City at the top of a short list of retailers that you could "kiss goodbye."

The new CEO recently hired some independent advisers who will presumably work to save the company from itself, but is it just too late?

Circuit City's shares are currently trading at $0.42. You might want to use up your remaining gift cards... just in case.