General > General Technical Chat
Fry's Electronics Going Out of Business?
Sal Ammoniac:
We have half a dozen Fry's in the SF Bay Area and all of them have been like ghost towns recently with nearly bare shelves and very few employees to be seen in the vast expanses these stores occupy. Are they going out of business? It sure seems like they're circling the drain.
Anyone have any definitive info on why the shelves are bare? They've been an icon here in Silicon Valley for 35 years, but given the current state of the stores, I don't give them long. Looks like they'll soon be joining Circuit City, CompUSA, and Radio Shack in oblivion.
EEVblog:
I was surprised at the variety of electronics stuff they had at the time, but that was a long time ago. Yeah the stores are huge, must be worth fortune to rent, or maybe they own them?
windsmurf:
Yes they're circling the drain now...
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/67191/frys-electronics-stores-soon-close-seeing-same-fate-toysrus/index.html
Gyro:
The last time I visited their Sunnyvale store, admittedly a few years ago, it seemed to be a woeful collection of fairly mediocre stuff but the locals seemed to rave about it. The one thing it had was floorspace. Their small electronics components / test gear section made even our local Maplin store look good (maybe a little harsh).
Bill158:
All I can relate to is what has happened to me and friends at Fry's in the past. I would buy computer hardware at the local store in Sunnyvale at the time, but not at the present location. I needed a 5.25" diskette drive (yes this is how far back I go with Fry's). So I drove around 15 miles from South San Jose to the store, got a drive and came home. I couldn't get it to work no matter what I did with the jumpers. The drive didn't look new at the time but was "shrink wrapped" but not in a box. So I drove back to Sunnyvale, went to returns and got a voucher so that I could get another drive. No problems at the returns. So I pick out another drive from the stack they had on the shelf and went to checkout. While standing in line I was looking that the "new" one that I had selected. On the side of the drive someone had written "BAD" in felt tip. But still it was shrink wrapped? So I asked to see the store manager who told me to get yet another drive. At least this one did work when I got home.
My guess is that the returns "checkout" tech gave my original one (which was probably bad to start) a quick check and declared it "good" and shrink wrapped it even though someone else had returned it before I got it because it didn't work.
A friend who I worked with wanted a TI laptop. He went to Fry's and bought one in the original packaging. He got it home and began to use it when it suddenly crashed and then rebooted. He went through several iterations of this and then called TI support to get it fixed. When he gave TI support the serial number the tech asked for his name. But this TI laptop had already been registered to someone else before him. So again Fry's had gotten back a bad unit, did a fast checkout and then shrink wrapped it and sold it again to my friend as brand new. I had a few other incidents with Fry's and equipment before I realize that they were, shall we say, less than honest. I bought an inverter (12V to 110V) got it home and hooked up the 12V battery, turned it on and it immediately started to spark and smoke. I went back to exchange it and inspected a few others that were on the shelf. One had a rattle inside when shaken so I didn't take that one. But again all in the original packages and shrink wrapped.
Bottom line here is that Fry's was investigated by the Santa Clara County District Attorney for reselling returned equipment as new and using the shrink wrap to fool customers into believing that they were getting a brand new unit! This was more than a few years ago but I simply quit buying ANYTHING from them because I couldn't trust what I was getting. I wouldn't even buy magazines for fear that they were defective somehow.
Bottom line Fry's may well be going out of business because they have lost ALL customer confidence and trust and no one will buy from them. I am surprised that it took this long for people to realize how bad they really are!
Just one man's experiences,
Bill
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