The final hours of Circuit City

March 9, 2009 7:14 AM

The final hours of Circuit City. (via)
posted by Joe Beese (135 comments total)

I must get the name of that mortician. CiCi looks just like I remember her.
posted by gman at 7:32 AM on March 9

Man, these prices are still horrible.

My brother-in-law worked there and said that they will be literally crushing tons of material that didn't sell. His individual store has several large-screen TVs left. The liquidation company for whatever reason did not want to continue reducing the prices until everything sold, which seems odd to me. They had a lowest-possible price to sell certain items. Beyond that they were just dragged to the back of the store for loading directly into an on-site compactor.
posted by odinsdream at 7:37 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

RIP (rot in purgatory)
posted by mannequito at 7:43 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Looks just like the CompUSA near me that went under.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:43 AM on March 9

I think this is more a statement of the inevitable future of brick and mortar vs. Online commerce. Really, I can't remember the last time I bought anything besides groceries or like, socks/soap etc. at an actual store. This is especially true for electronic items, and it should be noted that Circuit city isn't the first to fall, and they may not be the last.
posted by 5imian at 7:43 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

odinsdream: "My brother-in-law worked there and said that they will be literally crushing tons of material that didn't sell. His individual store has several large-screen TVs left. The liquidation company for whatever reason did not want to continue reducing the prices until everything sold, which seems odd to me. They had a lowest-possible price to sell certain items. Beyond that they were just dragged to the back of the store for loading directly into an on-site compactor."

You know, I was going to make some comment along the lines of "they were kinda crappy, but it's still a little sad to see such an iconic company go under". But screw that, these guys are jerks. They're going to crush whatever they sell? Not sell it for cheap, donate it to charity, or even leave them out on the sidewalk for the taking, but out-and-out destroy them? Wow.

5imian: "I think this is more a statement of the inevitable future of brick and mortar vs. Online commerce. Really, I can't remember the last time I bought anything besides groceries or like, socks/soap etc. at an actual store."

Wiki sez they will be reviving the brand as an online-only seller in the near future.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:50 AM on March 9 [5 favorites]

They had a lowest-possible price to sell certain items. Beyond that they were just dragged to the back of the store for loading directly into an on-site compactor.

Can somebody here explain this to me? Why wouldn't they be willing to sell these items at just any low price to get rid of them?
posted by kingbenny at 7:51 AM on March 9

The liquidation company for whatever reason did not want to continue reducing the prices until everything sold, which seems odd to me.

Is that, perhaps, because selling an item below a certain price is less beneficial than claiming some sort of tax writeoff?
posted by mph at 7:52 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

Man, these prices are still horrible.

They built a CC near my house only about 6-12 months ago. (Seems like they could have seen this coming, but whatevs.) Even though I went to the store next door several times in the last few weeks, I never went in to CC. I knew that a massive fire sale reduction would only bring their prices down to "reasonable" (if that) and I wouldn't have anywhere to return the items.
posted by DU at 7:54 AM on March 9

"Wiki sez they will be reviving the brand as an online-only seller in the near future."

When has that worked in the past? Unless I'm the only one not buying from Mongomery Ward, The Wiz, Builder's Square, and Service Merchandise.
posted by ALongDecember at 7:57 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

Well, this just leaves more market share for Federated and Tandy.

Has anyone seen my DAK catalog?
posted by loquacious at 7:58 AM on March 9 [7 favorites]

The liquidation company for whatever reason did not want to continue reducing the prices until everything sold, which seems odd to me.

I'm with mph -- there's probably a loss they can claim on each item if it's unsold and destroyed, and selling below this value would be less economical than crushing it and taking the writeoff.

I'm not super-enraged that those blue iPod cases aren't going to charity, I have to say.
posted by rusty at 8:00 AM on March 9

Sorry for the now unemployed CC workers, but no tears shed for this crappy store.
posted by Sassenach at 8:04 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Sorry for my snarky comment. That was totally unfair to Tandy and DAK. Federated I'm not so sure about.
posted by loquacious at 8:04 AM on March 9

Jeez, I thought I had forgotten all about that Fred Rated guy.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:07 AM on March 9

Beyond that they were just dragged to the back of the store for loading directly into an on-site compactor.

Why wouldn't they return the goods to the vendors who are going to take a bath on their unsecured terms? Seems like if you were Samsung, you'd rather have back 2,000 TVs than to have then crushed and not get paid for them. WTF?
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:09 AM on March 9

I blame DIVX.
posted by ALongDecember at 8:10 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

They had a lowest-possible price to sell certain items. Beyond that they were just dragged to the back of the store for loading directly into an on-site compactor.

Well, obviously people don't starve if they don't get their computers and TVs, but it sounds similar to The Grapes of Wrath where they were pouring kerosene on fruit that wasn't selling to render it inedible, so people would have to pay for their food rather than freeload. They'd rather that people have to buy a computer next year at full prices when their current one kicks the bucket rather than having them get a brand new one now at a steal (literal or figurative) and not buy one next year because they're all set.
posted by dunkadunc at 8:10 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

I didn't realize Montgomery Ward and Builder's Square still existed online. That just makes me sad. It's like thinking your great-aunt is dead, and then finding out she's up in the attic on life support, but she's unconscious and no one ever visits her. I mean, we weren't that close, but can't someone just pull the plug and give the old gal a proper burial?
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:13 AM on March 9 [20 favorites]

I did not go to CC's closeout but I did go to Linens 'N Things because I had often shopped there before. Before the closeout, I always browsed through the discount area, a wall of items that were 50% or less than the original price. You could get 500 thread count pillowcases, for example, at 75% off. When they had their closeout "sale" (all items 20 % off or more!) all the previously discounted items went back to the original price. This made no sense to me, but many shoppers looking for bargains went there and bought things for 20% that the previous day been marked down to 75% off.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:14 AM on March 9

I used to go to the Circuit City in my local mini-mall to use the bathroom - I don't remember EVER buying anything there. There was always something a little sketchy about the place, and their bathrooms were nasty.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 8:19 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

I was at the last day of a CC near me yesterday. It was a very weird scene: no climate control so it was hot 'n muggy in there and there were about a hundred customers just kind of gazing at the last few cables remaining and a broken HDTV. Nobody was really moving, they were just kind of standing around with a thousand yard stare.
Did I just witness the start of the zombiepocalypse?
posted by NoMich at 8:22 AM on March 9

One can only hope that the empty stores can become meeting centers for the upcoming populist revolt.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:26 AM on March 9 [11 favorites]

Manuel cites the 13th amendment.
posted by idiopath at 8:27 AM on March 9

Is that, perhaps, because selling an item below a certain price is less beneficial than claiming some sort of tax writeoff?

I'm assuming (as is my brother-in-law) that it has something to do with this kind of thinking.
posted by odinsdream at 8:27 AM on March 9

Is that Kristine "Joyce Summers" Sutherland in the first commercial from the link's final video?

I remember having this same sort of ghost-town experience a while back when the Sam Goody store at the Pioneer Place mall in downtown Portland was clearing out. We went in on one of the last days, and they had gotten around to tagging all the empty shelves, the spare cash registers, the wall fixtures.

There were some racks with half-price new major-label CDs that nobody wanted, and a big bin full of dollar-a-go small-label and local-act stuff that was getting a fair amount of idle sifting; wife and I bought three or four discs, a mix of stuff that looked like it might be good and stuff that looked like it would be exceptionally bad.

By the register was a big display of Scott Stapp's new double-CD solo album. Half price, which meant like eleven or twelve bucks anyway. There weren't any missing from the display.
posted by cortex at 8:28 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

I hit up a CC near me because it happened to be next to another store I had planned to visit. There was NOTHING in the store except for a box of brackets and another box with some TV connector cord thingys.
posted by sperose at 8:29 AM on March 9

there were about a hundred customers just kind of gazing at the last few cables remaining and a broken HDTV

Everybody was probably waiting for them to start giving away the secret stash of plasma TVs and notebook computers.
posted by diogenes at 8:30 AM on March 9

Customers Burned In Circuit City Closeout Sale.

Customer Gina Reis paid $1,100 for a big screen Samsung TV at the liquidation sale, only to get it home and discover it was completely unusable.

"It's shattered from here all the way up, and then on the other side as well," said Reis.

When the couple took the set back to the store ... "They said, 'Sorry, your problem, not ours," Reis said.

I'm hoping with enough stories like these, the liquidation companies will be digging their own graves. I will say that it floored me back when CompUSA was folding how many people on blogs / electronics sites thought they were dealing with CompUSA during a liquidation and not Gordon Brothers, a completely different operation. I hope people educate theirselves a little better this time around.
posted by crapmatic at 8:30 AM on March 9 [3 favorites]

A few weeks ago I went looking for a Circuit City. I found that both in the area were closed, but I found a Costco instead. Going to Costco for the first time was a much more memorable (and Kafkaesque) experience. Had they not been closed, the afternoon would have been much more disappointing.
posted by hellojed at 8:31 AM on March 9

Why wouldn't they return the goods to the vendors who are going to take a bath on their unsecured terms? Seems like if you were Samsung, you'd rather have back 2,000 TVs than to have then crushed and not get paid for them. WTF?

Most companies don't actually sell their items on consignment. Samsung has likely already gotten paid for that merchandise, at whatever the standard discount off MSRP is--probably something like 50 percent, though considering CC's actions, that might be significantly less, maybe 30 percent. Say the TV is MSRP $1000: CC pays Samsung $500 (or $700) straight-out, up front, and then is free to charge any price they like for the TV. Of course if they charge less than $500, they're taking a loss, and obviously, except when it's on sale, they're going to charge the full price.

I know that most industries work this way because the book publishing industry does sell on consignment, for the most part, which means that the bookstores don't give publishers anything until the book is actually sold to a consumer, and if the book doesn't sell it can be returned to the publisher. This is considered unusual in the world of business.

(I don't know this is the way it works for a fact, but it seems likely, considering the crushing of unsold merchandise and the fact that the book industry's consignment sales are, indeed, considered unusual. This doesn't of course cover things like manufacturer's warranties, and the example of how it works above doesn't necessarily apply for liquidation sales.)
posted by Caduceus at 8:36 AM on March 9 [4 favorites]

my favorite part of the closing of my local store was where some smart ass had blocked out letters on the "firedog" sign to read "fired"

and 20 bucks for really scratched sauder knee-high cabinets? - 40 bucks for banged up file cabinets? - they're not going to convince an experienced thrift-store shopper to buy at those prices

i did get a 50 back of dvds for 12 bucks - that was alright, but not great
posted by pyramid termite at 8:44 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Customer Gina Reis paid $1,100 for a big screen Samsung TV at the liquidation sale, only to get it home and discover it was completely unusable.

didn't they see the sign that said "no returns" - or the print on their receipt that said "no returns"?
posted by pyramid termite at 8:46 AM on March 9

there's probably a loss they can claim on each item if it's unsold and destroyed,

There is.

and selling below this value would be less economical than crushing it and taking the writeoff.

I don't think it would.

There's some exceptions (books, in particular, are wholesaled under some weird contract that lets the store get their money back by destroying unsold copies and mailing back just the covers), but generally accounting rules are straightforward: if you buy something for $1000, fail to sell it for $2000, and have to destroy it, you get to book a $1000 loss, which saves you r*$1000 on your taxes. If you buy something for $1000 and have to sell it for $200 instead of $2000, you get to book a $800 loss, which makes you $200 and saves you r*$800 on your taxes. Since the tax rate r is much less than 1, selling for any price at all should leave you with more money than writing off a total loss.

They'd rather that people have to buy a computer next year at full prices when their current one kicks the bucket

Who's the liquidation company here - Best Buy? Fry's? Your logic makes sense for a monopoly or a limited oligopoly, but I'd be surprised if the company trying to unload Circuit City's computers this year will be selling more computers next year. Capitalists will sometimes destroy their own products when it would be more expensive to sell them (E.T. the video game being the most hilarious example), or when they might be liabilities to sell (cars or anything similiarly heavily regulated), but generally if you're out to make a buck you don't set your bucks on fire.

Of course, sometimes the capitalists aren't in charge. In The Grapes of Wrath they were referring to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, an attempt to prop up farm prices by destroying food. There is a lot of "New New Deal" talk floating around, and some people even seem to be pining for the stupidest parts of the old New Deal, but so far the Obama government hasn't been biting.
posted by roystgnr at 8:46 AM on March 9 [4 favorites]

Oh, I should totally go into marketing. Because here's what would have been cool -- rent some sledgehammers and let people whack some plasma screens and stereo systems for a dollar a pop.

Probably would have recouped about the same amount if not more.
posted by bardic at 8:47 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

Hellojed: "Going to Costco for the first time was a much more memorable (and Kafkaesque) experience."
We live in sad times if the meaning of Kafkaesque has sunk to a level that includes Costco.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:57 AM on March 9 [5 favorites]

I remember having this same sort of ghost-town experience a while back when the Sam Goody store at the Pioneer Place mall in downtown Portland was clearing out.

Yeah, me too. Sam Goody was one of the first stores I got to watch go out of business. I wasted a lot of teenage dollars there on crappy music. I think the last thing I bought was the the soundtracks to Akira and FLCL (it was a phase!)

What baffled me about Sam Goody was that they not only stocked adult titles, but some hentai as well. I mean, there I was in the middle of middle-America and I could procure a shrink wrapped copy of La Blue Girl or whatever, and this was within a stones's throw of a christian-themed store. Sure, there was local outrage when a porn store opened up next to the highway, but did they bother to check the local Sam Goody?
posted by hellojed at 8:58 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

We live in sad times if the meaning of Kafkaesque has sunk to a level that includes Costco.

Believe me, there was no other word in the English language that I know of that could have described the experience.

Massage couches next to electric motorcycles, bags of chips the size of sleeping bags, and I didn't even know they made soda packages that were 36 cans big. What a Brave New Store with such merchandise in it.
posted by hellojed at 9:01 AM on March 9 [11 favorites]

Somehow that photo of a blank-faced, lip-glossed Mary J. Blige staring out from the cover of a discounted CD at Circuit City (I've seen her face staring out from racks at Circuit City, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart more times than I can count) seems emblematic, for more reasons than one.
posted by blucevalo at 9:02 AM on March 9

One can only hope that the empty stores can become meeting centers for the upcoming populist revolt.

I feel like that would cheapen our glorious uprising... I mean, think about what the flier would look like:

YOGURT MAKING AND FREE DISTRIBUTION COLLECTIVE MEETING:
THURSDAY MARCH 12 @ CIRCUIT CITY!

I would see that and think: "Oh, forget that, I don't want to go to Circuit City! I'm going to Best Buy for the fascist enslavement workshop, I'm sure it will be a better deal there..."
posted by fuq at 9:03 AM on March 9 [12 favorites]

there was no other word in the English language that I know of that could have described the experience

My first time in a Costco actually put in mind of the Coneheads. Seeing a 128-oz bag of Cheetos made me want to consume mass quantities.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:03 AM on March 9

i did get a 50 back of dvds for 12 bucks - that was alright, but not great

I bought a 100 pack of HP DVDs from Staples yesterday for $18.99 so, yeah, alright but definitely not great.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:07 AM on March 9

Massage couches next to electric motorcycles, bags of chips the size of sleeping bags

Whole families shopping at night!
posted by octobersurprise at 9:09 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

We live in sad times if the meaning of Kafkaesque has sunk to a level that includes Costco.

Well, last time I was at Costco, I turned into a bug.
posted by billysumday at 9:14 AM on March 9 [15 favorites]

> I'm hoping with enough stories like these, the liquidation companies will be digging their own graves.

That would be nice, but the liquidation firms fly under the radar. The publicity only falls on the name of the defunct company.

When CompUSA folded all their local stores, I visited one near the end of the liquidation to see what there was to see. The sale was proceeding in a reasonably ethical way: The damaged goods were sectioned off into their own part of the store, while available general merchandise was kept on the slowly-shrinking store floor, progressively marked down as the sale went on.

Mixed with the damaged goods were the tools from the repair department. I got some oddball pliers and a couple sets of allen keys for a buck apiece, and felt I did okay.

Circuit City, by comparison, I visited on the first day of their remaindering. A lot of the merchandise on the floor was tagged as discounts off MSRP but in reality were marked up from the actual price they were sold at weeks before. I didn't have to spend long there.

I dunno if different companies managed each companies' liquidation, but they sure were managed differently.
posted by ardgedee at 9:19 AM on March 9

What a Brave New Store with such merchandise in it.

Not to be pedantic, but perhaps you mean Huxleyesque? Although I admit that it isn't a very euphonious term...
posted by Squid Voltaire at 9:20 AM on March 9

Can somebody here explain this to me? Why wouldn't they be willing to sell these items at just any low price to get rid of them?

There is a [perceived] problem with retail right now that nobody will buy anything unless it's a super duper sale. Retailers are struggling with how to emerge from these conditions and make money, and manufacturers are struggling with how to still move enough merchandise to stay afloat while maintaining their brand image and the higher prices they command over their competitors due to those images.

The result is that everyone is willing to cut prices to a certain amount, but no lower, as a way to "control the bleeding." They would rather not sell product at all than continue to fuel the current "fire sale only" consumer mentality, conditioning a generation of folks that normal sales aren't good enough conditions to impulse buy.
posted by fusinski at 9:24 AM on March 9

Pyramid Termite:

Yeah, I came for the office furniture and left about five minutes later when I realized that they were serious about asking $60 for a file cabinet that looked like it had been attacked with a frontloader. It was locked, so I asked about the key and what might be inside it (it was way too heavy to be empty), but they just shrugged.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 9:25 AM on March 9

It seemed like every other story on the local news for the past month has been about how liquidation company "sales" are rip-offs. Now that (most) people are aware of how crappy these companies are, I wonder if they are going to change their business model. (Or figure out a way to be sneakier about what they're up to.)

As a dedicated spaver*, there's nothing I hate more than fake liquidation sales!

*spending money to save money
posted by JoanArkham at 9:26 AM on March 9

Believe me, there was no other word in the English language that I know of that could have described the experience.

Massage couches next to electric motorcycles, bags of chips the size of sleeping bags, and I didn't even know they made soda packages that were 36 cans big. What a Brave New Store with such merchandise in it.

'Surreal'? How is any of that that 'Kafkaesque'?

From Wikipedia:

The term, which is quite fluid in definition, has also been described as "marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity: Kafkaesque bureaucracies" [1] and "marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of impending danger: Kafkaesque fantasies of the impassive interrogation, the false trial, the confiscated passport ... haunt his innocence" — The New Yorker. [2]

It can also describe an intentional distortion of reality by powerful but anonymous bureaucrats. "Lack of evidence is treated as a pesky inconvenience, to be circumvented by such Kafkaesque means as depositing unproven allegations into sealed files ..." Another definition would be an existentialist state of ever-elusive freedom while existing under unmitigatable control.

The adjective refers to anything suggestive of Kafka, especially his nightmarish type of narration, in which characters lack a clear course of action, the ability to see beyond immediate events, and the possibility of escape. The term's meaning has transcended the literary realm to apply to real-life occurrences and situations that are incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical.

posted by delmoi at 9:26 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

I didn't realize Montgomery Ward and Builder's Square still existed online. That just makes me sad. It's like thinking your great-aunt is dead, and then finding out she's up in the attic on life support, but she's unconscious and no one ever visits her.

Not only that, but by my count Home Depot is mentioned more times than Builders Square is on its own web site.
posted by niles at 9:28 AM on March 9

Just last night I was at a Chinese restaurant drive-through (formerly a Checkers) looking at the closed and boarded-up former Durango steak house across the street ("lost our lease") and thinking it had been closed for at least 2 years. Thinking of the Ponderosa a few blocks away (also "lost our lease") which had been closed for a similar length of time. I thought of starting a photo blog of abandoned stores locally, with some kind of database of just how long the buildings have been vacant. I don't even think this is a particularly hard hit area, and there are a lot of them and the rate of closing is obviously accelerating.

I also wondered what kind of idiot landlord would rather have a property sit vacant than agree to reasonable lease terms.

Of course, two years ago everybody's property was still supposed to make them rich(er).
posted by lordrunningclam at 9:30 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

they just shrugged

They died as they lived.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:31 AM on March 9 [14 favorites]

We live in sad times if the meaning of Kafkaesque has sunk to a level that includes Costco.

So it bugs you, in other words?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:31 AM on March 9 [9 favorites]

Could it be that the liquidators were under some secret agreement with the manufacturers not to sell at too much below MSRP, for fear of harming the same products selling elsewhere?
posted by JHarris at 9:33 AM on March 9

I went to the Mervyn's, Linens N Things and Circuit City closing sales at various points in their progress, and the final days were always weird. Circuit City felt the most desolate, both in atmosphere and the milling masses of consumers. By the end, there was only the dredges left at Circuit City - no more expensive equipment of any sort, just the weird games and sub-B movies (or mainstream dreck that wouldn't even be funny to purchase as a gag gift).

Amusingly, or sadly, Circuit City and Linens N things were part of the local Big Box expansion into newly-developed lands, which was previously grazing yards for cattle. With CC and LnT located at the end of the new development, backing up to the remaining open fields, I dream of the buildings being over-run by nature, abandoned and forgotten. It won't happen, but I'll keep hoping.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:37 AM on March 9 [3 favorites]

Fourth pic on second page contains these words:

"Cleaning fairy Fired! Clean up after yourself!"

Man, the job market's tough for everyone. Maybe she can get into teeth?
posted by JHarris at 9:40 AM on March 9 [3 favorites]

So it bugs you, in other words?

It's the steady encroachment upon its traditional meaning, yeah.
posted by cortex at 9:44 AM on March 9 [4 favorites]

I can't respect anyone who isn't already or who can't quickly learn to become a Costco Ninja.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:48 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Believe me, there was no other word in the English language that I know of that could have described the experience.

Yeah, just to underscore, "Kafkaesque" is not synonymous with absurd or surreal visual imagery. Sounds like you were maybe in the Daliesque Costco, if anything.

Now, if to buy one of those sleeping-bag-sized chip bags, you had to exit the store through a rear corridor, only to be led brusquely into an abandoned Circuit City where two clerks sat stonily behind wickets and when you brought them the chip bag they handed you an elaborate loan application form and then promptly disappeared, leaving you to wander aimlessly through a sort of waking nightmare of your own impotence, only to return to your car to find its tires removed and a terse notice taped to its windw informing you that it was in violation of some unintelligible statute, that would've been Kafkaesque.
posted by gompa at 9:55 AM on March 9 [28 favorites]

The thing I really like about abandoned places is how I get to fantasize about strip malls and shitty suburbs returning to a semblance of nature.

This economic downturn is certainly going to spell hard times for me and everyone I know, but I would love to see grass growing over the shopping district that's been growing like a tumor out of Ellsworth towards Bar Harbor. Every time I drive past the new Kohl's, Home Depot, and Super Wal-Mart they put in along the "Acadia Highway" I fantasize about the whole place getting wiped out in some freak accident. It's nice to dream.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:55 AM on March 9

Gondryesque, even.
posted by cortex at 9:56 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Beyond that they were just dragged to the back of the store for loading directly into an on-site compactor.

At one of my first jobs, shutting the place down meant heaving a working Evans and Sutherland color vector machine out the second story window into a trash bin. Just didn't have the space for it at home.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:57 AM on March 9

I can't respect anyone who isn't already or who can't quickly learn to become a Costco Ninja.

Not to be confused with a CosoNostra Ninja, whose only job is to deliver pizza in less than 30 minutes.

Now that's a company that will never go under...
posted by 5imian at 9:58 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

I have always enjoyed going to Costco and getting a 20 lb box of nutmeg and a life-sized Mrs. Butterworth.

Also, the local news lead-in last night was "Circuit City closes: the end of an era." "The end of an era"?? Please do not let the time I lived in be defined by Circuit City.
posted by GuyZero at 10:10 AM on March 9

Well, I learned some new words today.
posted by hellojed at 10:11 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

I'm waiting for a chance to use the word Clearyesque.
posted by Dr-Baa at 10:16 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

(Wait, I think that was it)
posted by Dr-Baa at 10:16 AM on March 9

Just last night I was at a Chinese restaurant drive-through (formerly a Checkers) looking at the closed and boarded-up former Durango steak house across the street ("lost our lease") and thinking it had been closed for at least 2 years. Thinking of the Ponderosa a few blocks away (also "lost our lease") which had been closed for a similar length of time. I thought of starting a photo blog of abandoned stores locally, with some kind of database of just how long the buildings have been vacant. I don't even think this is a particularly hard hit area, and there are a lot of them and the rate of closing is obviously accelerating.

I imagine in the future Archeologists will find all these sites and wonder, "Why didn't they put their leases in a secure location?"
posted by wcfields at 10:20 AM on March 9 [4 favorites]

Good riddance! More please?
posted by jeffburdges at 10:20 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Please do not let the time I lived in be defined by Circuit City.

DivXed we stand, divXed we fall.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:21 AM on March 9 [3 favorites]

Seussesque.
posted by odinsdream at 10:22 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Good riddance to ye, Gimbel's!
posted by Mister_A at 10:31 AM on March 9

Dangeresque
posted by hellojed at 10:32 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Could it be that the liquidators were under some secret agreement with the manufacturers not to sell at too much below MSRP, for fear of harming the same products selling elsewhere?

Selling too low could also harm the liquidator's ability to close-out other stores in the future.

It may even be that former competitors have some stake in the process. (I've heard of smaller scale companies playing some role in liquidating former competitors.)

On that note, I also wonder if the surviving companies buy product wholesale at a price that's below their normal cost but one that's also favorable to the liquidator (especially considering the security in quantity). It'd only make sense that there'd be an agreement to lock the minimum sale somewhere around that price.

It's probably fair to guess that all the things that have been suggested are factors (of some percentage) in these decisions, and that there is some magic formula that determines that absolute minimum sale price before it's a better investment to just destroy the product.
posted by pokermonk at 10:32 AM on March 9

I can't respect anyone who isn't already or who can't quickly learn to become a Costco Ninja.

Ok, I'll bite. What?
posted by cavalier at 10:33 AM on March 9

Now if Best Buy would only follow CC's lead, the world would be a better place.
posted by doctor_negative at 10:34 AM on March 9

The thing I really like about abandoned places is how I get to fantasize about strip malls and shitty suburbs returning to a semblance of nature.

Burlesque?
posted by mazola at 10:34 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Also, I think the word we are looking for is: Joe-Johnstonesque, which alludes to the surreal contrasts and dwarfing sensation of Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Jumanji, and Jurassic Park III.
posted by pokermonk at 10:37 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

Now if Best Buy would only follow CC's lead, the world would be a better place.

As long as MicroCenter stays where it is. I'm not sure what literary work to compare it to yet.
posted by hellojed at 10:39 AM on March 9

Clearyesque

"largely concerning the activities of mice who drive toy motorcycles, latchkey kids who put burglar alarms on lunchboxes, and young girls named Ramona."
posted by dirtdirt at 10:42 AM on March 9 [3 favorites]

The only thing Mr. F and I ever go after at store liquidations is cheap Blu-Ray discs, an endeavor for which an iPhone (or a G1 Android) and a copy of SnapTell Explorer is pretty damn useful. Being able to shoot a pic of the packaging and get the Amazon price right there makes it easy not to be taken by the liquidators.

Circuit Shitty pretty much treated me like a shoplifter every time I walked in there, so I'm just as glad to see them go. The last thing I tried to get out of them was a netbook, during the liquidation, only to be told that they weren't reducing prices on those. Newegg was happy to provide better support and better pricing, fortunately.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 10:44 AM on March 9

Me, I've been waiting for a chance to use the word Lavesquesque. Got a nice rhythm to it, dontcha think?

Also Yossarianian.

Milosevicic?

Parrishish?

Freudoid?
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:49 AM on March 9 [7 favorites]

esque-esque
We opted to model our model of a model after a model modeled after a model model of a model speculation. It might have engendered the possibility of approximating an indefinite flux, though decidedly "other" pseudo-realities and peripheral influences allowed, tentatively, an equivalent though dissimilar yet potentially temporary state of indefinite static. Our pool of "experts" have never doubted this dubious realm of variability, and have conjectured that it is both singularly diverse and diversely singular. The semi-transitive nature of such co-imitative quasi-clusters imply a vague possibility of ever forming a provisionally expressible semblance of a conditionally comprehensible version of a question regarding an aspect of the aforementioned model modeled after a model model of a model speculation on the speculative notion of life.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:50 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

"Gondryesque, even."

Koons-esque.
posted by klangklangston at 10:58 AM on March 9

This was a discount store,
Now it's turned into a cornfield
you got it, you got it
posted by klangklangston at 10:58 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

mazola - interesting analogy, though I feel his style is more of making nature look like (fantastic) modern sculpture. I think bio-walls are more of a sustainable way to naturalize buildings (though I think duncadunk was imagining more of this).
posted by filthy light thief at 10:59 AM on March 9

How is any of that that 'Kafkaesque'?
...marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity...
...intentional distortion of reality by powerful but anonymous bureaucrats...
...in which characters lack a clear course of action, the ability to see beyond immediate events, and the possibility of escape...

You know, that sounds exactly like my last few trips to CostCo.
posted by lekvar at 11:02 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

There's something uniquely eerie and interesting about seeing a store in its death-throes. I can't say which literary figure it most resembles, but after working for 6 years in a bustling grocery store, and hanging around an empty store whose entire for-sale inventory was a handful of baby food jars and random single items lined up on the end-caps, it was some special kind of bizarre.

In fact, this piece reminds me of the pics I took during this time. Here's some pictures (self-link)
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 11:10 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

Generally, you can't have a tax write-off if there aren't any profits to write off against. If there were profits they wouldn't be closing.

More likely, the employees are being told the stuff is being destroyed for some corporate nonsense reason. Left over stock is probably being sold en-mass to someplace like Liquidation World. That is what happened to all the Radio Shack Canada stuff. If you deplete absolutely everything at a ridiculously low price, the buyer will know that they shouldn't bid as high...

There is another possibility. Presumably none of this is house brand stuff, so maybe they have agreements with their suppliers, "we won't flood the market if you let us pay $0.25 on the dollar", or whatever.
posted by Chuckles at 11:15 AM on March 9

I was in one of these stores last week, and found it pretty much as the OP link did. But for some reason, I also found dozens of copies of I Am Legend in what was left of the DVD section.

It sort of fit the mood of the place.
posted by JDHarper at 11:16 AM on March 9

The thing I really like about abandoned places is how I get to fantasize about strip malls and shitty suburbs returning to a semblance of nature.

Reminds me of that bit in Ecotopia where the narrator describes citizens going through old suburbs, gutting them for anything useful (copper, wire, bricks, wood) and returning them to forests and fields.
posted by emjaybee at 11:22 AM on March 9

Reminds me of that bit in Ecotopia where the narrator describes citizens going through old suburbs, gutting them for anything useful (copper, wire, bricks, wood) and returning them to forests and fields.

Apart from the intent, how is this different from present-day Detroit?
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:23 AM on March 9

I bought a few items at Circuit some years ago, preferring that smaller place to the nearbye BestBuy. But then when they began to hurt, they fired all their workers and told them they could be re-hired but at a much lower salary. At that point I refused to go there. Now I can understand the store (chain) trying to lower its operating costs to survive, but I wondered at the time if the salary cuts were made among the many managers.

I think that the notion of online purchases (see aboive) is right. Many of us will go to stores--say Barnes and Noble, scout about, find what we want, and then order it online.
posted by Postroad at 11:26 AM on March 9

Where was the article posted recently where the writer referred to Kafka himself as Kafkaesque? Now that's Kafkaesque.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:34 AM on March 9

I thought of starting a photo blog of abandoned stores locally...

Somebody started a photoblog of my hometown, Saginaw for Sale. It was a GM town, then GM spun off it's steering business into Delphi. As the domestic automotive industry died, so did the city.

I managed to pick up a copy of Galactic Civilizations for $3.17 at Circuit City, so it wasn't all bad. Their electronics were still all overpriced.
posted by formless at 11:47 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

NPR's story on the end of Circuit City. And apparently their low price guarantee died with online shopping, or maybe when BestBuy and WalMart came to town (though that may have been a ruse, too).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:54 AM on March 9

> The thing I really like about abandoned places is how I get to fantasize about strip malls and shitty suburbs returning to a semblance of nature.

Why fantasize? In some parts of the country it's been going on for quite a while. For example, the Harborcreek Mall [self-link], Harborcreek, Pennsylvania. Shot in 2002.
posted by ardgedee at 11:55 AM on March 9

They have Loblaws in the US? Huh.
posted by GuyZero at 12:03 PM on March 9

mazola - interesting analogy, though I feel his style is more of making nature look like (fantastic) modern sculpture.

I know.

I just wanted to say burlesque.
posted by mazola at 12:20 PM on March 9

Now, if to buy one of those sleeping-bag-sized chip bags, you had to exit the store through a rear corridor, only to be led brusquely into an abandoned Circuit City where two clerks sat stonily behind wickets and when you brought them the chip bag they handed you an elaborate loan application form and then promptly disappeared, leaving you to wander aimlessly through a sort of waking nightmare of your own impotence, only to return to your car to find its tires removed and a terse notice taped to its windw informing you that it was in violation of some unintelligible statute, that would've been Kafkaesque.

Costco? Phppht. If you add a passage about being chased around by hordes of ghostly, cannibal children, it pretty much describes every visit to Walmart I've ever made.
posted by Avenger at 12:22 PM on March 9

More likely, the employees are being told the stuff is being destroyed for some corporate nonsense reason. Left over stock is probably being sold en-mass to someplace like Liquidation World.

Just to clear something up, my brother-in-law worked as the head of the computer repair section, and is/was working til the last hour. He personally was involved in moving these things into the industrial crusher, which they brought on-site for this specific reason.
posted by odinsdream at 12:23 PM on March 9

> They have Loblaws in the US?

Had.
posted by ardgedee at 12:27 PM on March 9

I can't respect anyone who isn't already or who can't quickly learn to become a Costco Ninja.

Ok, I'll bite. What?

I'm wondering too. I'm guessing a Costco Ninja is someone who is good at finding deals at Costco. I'm not sure though. There's a chance that it refers to some sort of game that's popular in the Midwest. After learning about cornholing, I've lost my confidence that I'm "with it."
posted by diogenes at 12:37 PM on March 9

I will miss their online site. It was really helpful with reviews and comparing different products, even if I didn't buy the products at Circuit City. But when I did buy from them, their shipping was really fast. RIP CC.
posted by NoraCharles at 12:40 PM on March 9

The term's meaning has transcended the literary realm to apply to real-life occurrences and situations that are incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical.

Delmoi: It would appear to me that, being generous, the authors experience, by your provided definition, was kafkaesque.

My understanding of a more literal interpretation of kafkaesque is that the phenomenon is quite often a bit of internal mental trickery that can make any locale terrifying, bizzare and otherwise threateningly creepy. So, to decide if a Costco experience qualifies for the more restrictive definition of Kafkaesque, one would have to go into the authors mind if their prose wasn't sufficiently florid.

So, I give him the benefit of the doubt, who knows what kind of strangeness could go on in the mind of a Costco shopper.
posted by jester69 at 12:42 PM on March 9

Judgesque?
posted by diogenes at 12:44 PM on March 9

The Shadow knows!
posted by cortex at 12:47 PM on March 9

This Kafka, does he enjoy beans?
posted by Brak at 12:49 PM on March 9

Generally, you can't have a tax write-off if there aren't any profits to write off against. If there were profits they wouldn't be closing.

First of all, firms in bankruptcy certainly have profits. Just not enough to continue as a going concern. It's not as though the business came to a halt one day and does zero business.

But more importantly, the liquidator definitely has profits. And so they can take a write off.

Not sure if this is what is going on here but your comment is pretty off the mark.

Let's also not forget that all the speculation as to why they would destroy merchandise is based on one person's anecdotal "my brother-in-law said..." tale. Not that it isn't true, but it's quite possibly bunk.

Looks like the liquidators will be receiving at least a 3.5% agent fee.
posted by jckll at 12:58 PM on March 9

With so many chains closing, how is it that Radio Shack is still operating?? Who shops there?
posted by Sassenach at 1:10 PM on March 9

Apart from the intent, how is this different from present-day Detroit?

... aaaand there it is. Good work, George.
posted by joe lisboa at 1:11 PM on March 9

I think Radio Shack just sells your postal code to marketing companies over and over, from that one time you actually gave them your postal code when they asked for it when you were buying batteries.
posted by autodidact at 1:12 PM on March 9

With so many chains closing, how is it that Radio Shack is still operating?? Who shops there?

[timidly raises hand]

I needed a cable to plug my iPod into my car stereo and the Shack had a store close enough to my workplace that I could make it there and back on my lunch break.

They didn't even ask me for my phone number - which is progress.
posted by Joe Beese at 1:14 PM on March 9

I shopped at Radio Shack a few months ago.
I wanted an adapter so I could plug my laptop adapter (which can take 240V) into a European socket. The guy tried to sell me an $80 voltage-converting filtered power supply you could run a space heater off of, since "I never know what I might want to do!". When I paid, he tried to sell me batteries and then wanted my ZIP code, and when I didn't want to give him that he got all huffy and held the $20 bill I paid with up to the light to check it wasn't counterfeit.

Most of the salespeople there are quite happy to lie and say you can use product X with product Y just to make a sale. My brother went in looking for a cheap guitar amp and they tried to sell him a CB radio that had a PA system in it. Screw Radio Shack.
posted by dunkadunc at 1:27 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

With so many chains closing, how is it that Radio Shack is still operating?? Who shops there?

Well, I had to buy an RS232 cable the other day in the middle of fucking nowhere for about $20, so I'm sure that 200%+ profit helped at least a little.
posted by odinsdream at 1:30 PM on March 9

dunkadunc: I'm pretty sure radio shack salesmen still work on commission, actually, so I've always assumed that was a big part of the hard selling.
posted by absalom at 1:44 PM on March 9

NoMich : I was at the last day of a CC near me yesterday. It was a very weird scene: no climate control so it was hot 'n muggy in there and there were about a hundred customers just kind of gazing at the last few cables remaining and a broken HDTV...

I was in one about two weeks ago and had a similarly weird experience; it was like a best-effort flea-market look from a low budget cyberpunk film. The doors were mostly open to a Wisconsin winter, and the heat was going full blast in the back of the store leading to some weird climate effects inside, on the computer side of the store, techno was playing at top volume, but on the TV side, they were going with ganster-rap, equally loud.

Whole sections of the store were roped off with plastic tape, but there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to where they shut down, half of the back, two aisles up front, one corner on the side... it was like a rat's maze, and the fact that half the lights were off only added to the surreality.

And there was merchandise everywhere, piled up, boxes broken open, cables spilling out. Occasionally you would see an employee go sprinting past on some urgent mission to be elsewhere, but most of the time they were kicking back and mostly ignoring the customers. Which is for the best, because most of the non-employees were just wandering around sort of confused.

I really wish I had thought to being my camera. Good shots were there to be had.
posted by quin at 1:47 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

When my local CC closed I was in the middle of building a computer, bought from NewEgg. I didn't buy an internal DVD drive, thinking I'd salvage it from other machines, only to find out I had no working drives (and thus couldn't load Windows). It was Friday and I wasn't about to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday to have my drive shipped to me. CC is closing, great I can buy an overpriced internal DVD player for like $30-40! Wrong, not only were things kind of picked over, the cheapest drive they had was $90! I didn't even need a writable drive, though I didn't have a choice. With discounts it came to $69.99 and there were all kinds of warnings about not taking it back, which sucks, because now I'm saving $20 and can't return it if the shitty thing doesn't work. So including the fact I have no warranty what so ever, I probably didn't save anything.

The only items with heavy discounts were high markup things like Monster Cables and the like. And even with discounts were more expensive than generic cables. I even, fleetingly, considered buying a larger television if a 50" Pioneer Elite could be had for a 15-20% discount, but all they had were overpriced sets from second rate manufacturers. Again, with terrible discounts. And no returns.

Oh and I was checking out the two teens behind the counter were excitedly talking about how they bought a DVD player in the store that could play different codecs and how they burnt Ghostbusters after downloading it from BearShare. Even the employees' file sharing applications are second rate. My God.

... and there were all sorts of Indian men, presumably bachelors. wandering listlessly around. I kept having visions of the Chungking Express meets Children of Men.

There is an Office Depot next to me that's also closing (this must be the end of the world), again the prices are just barely matching Internet prices, and within the no return clause I consider that pretty shitty. So now I have like 5,000 recordable DVDs and CDs, if the next depression hits I'll still be able to burn mixtapes!
posted by geoff. at 2:16 PM on March 9

With so many chains closing, how is it that Radio Shack is still operating?? Who shops there?

I had to buy a stereo to mono jack to plug my Game Boy into my distortion pedal. They seemed pissed that I wasn't there for a cellphone or some crap like that. In fact, their entire business model seems built around selling cell phone plans. The actual stereo/radio stuff seems like an afterthought.
posted by hellojed at 3:34 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

I'd swear there was an XKCD comic about going to Radio Shack to buy a radio and being told "no, we don't sell radios anymore, but we're got a GREAT DEAL on D CELLS!"
posted by dunkadunc at 3:43 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

The US baffles me. Radio Shack brand is long gone in Canada, but has been replaced by The Source by Circuit City.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:36 PM on March 9

dunkadunc - are you thinking about Cory Doctorow visits Radio Shack? Probably not, but I thought I'd toss it out there. The closest I could google was a 2005 post in iPodLinux.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:39 PM on March 9

Do you remember when Radioshack sold computer parts? This scenario sounds familiar, but it could be imaginary.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:43 PM on March 9

Heck, I remember when Radio Shack sold radio parts. (Daughter of a ham...)

The little LED lights used to fascinate me.
posted by JoanArkham at 4:47 PM on March 9

Reminds me of that bit in Ecotopia where the narrator describes citizens going through old suburbs, gutting them for anything useful (copper, wire, bricks, wood) and returning them to forests and fields.

At night, neighbors can hear the thieves come out. March 4 2009
posted by telstar at 6:18 PM on March 9

well, i must be the only one in the country to have scored a bargain at circuit city's closeout sale. i dropped by last week, hoping to find some discounted camera stuff. of course everything good was gone and what was left was mainly shitty dvds and random ipod accessories, just like in this post.

but then i spotted it! locked in a cabinet, tucked away behind a couple empty boxes, a nikkor 70-300 vr zoom lens. unboxed, but in excellent shape otherwise, just a little smudgy. so i picked up a $600 lens for $300. yay, recession!
posted by sergeant sandwich at 6:33 PM on March 9

dunkadunc: "They'd rather that people have to buy a computer next year at full prices when their current one kicks the bucket rather than having them get a brand new one now at a steal (literal or figurative) and not buy one next year because they're all set."

This doesn't make any sense. "They" in this case is Circuit City. They're not going to be around next year, or any time past liquidation. They're dying, and being given one final pass through the wringer for the benefit of all the bondholders/shareholders/etc. I can't think of any scenario where it makes sense to destroy a TV rather than sell it, even for pennies on the dollar — the only beneficiaries are Circuit City's competitors.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:41 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

The Circuit City in my town has always smelled strongly of BO. When all this false "sale" business was going on I checked in there a couple of times to find a tropical hell (c.f. someone's no-climate-control comment above) packed with meandering people and lines worthy of Disneyland, and you could practically chew on the armpit in the air. I think I was in there about 3 minutes when I just started gagging and had to sprint outside before I suffocated. Before I passed out from the noxious fumes, it seemed to me that all their junk was still expensive and the lines were too long to justify the brain damage I would receive trying to purchase anything.

And within the past 6 months I have purchased LEDs, switches, capacitors, transistors and wires from Radio Shack.

And most places, I have found, stop insisting that a zipcode and/or phone number is required as soon as I tell them to just go ahead and put their own in.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 8:11 PM on March 9

My last trip to Circuit City ("Only 1 Days Left!" read the sign) reminded me exactly why I stopped shopping there to begin with. Their 50-90% off was more like 25-50% if you factored what non-MSRP pricing would be and you didn't want something in badly damaged condition. No service whatsoever, and it's funny that Hal Mumkin mentioned a smell because our CC has always stunk of something between cabbage and electrical fire. I do not want to know what was happening in that place to generate this smell...
posted by rollbiz at 8:50 PM on March 9

Just to clear something up, my brother-in-law worked as the head of the computer repair section, and is/was working til the last hour. He personally was involved in moving these things into the industrial crusher, which they brought on-site for this specific reason.

in some distant, much more ecologically sensitive future, this incident will be cited by those who wish to prove that we were a bunch of ignorant, backwards barbarians who did dumb and wasteful things to propitiate our great god COMMERCE

(nothing against your brother, he's just doing his job, but ... how utterly lame that we have a system in which such actions are considered sane)
posted by pyramid termite at 9:02 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

by the way, i've noticed that my local best buy has rearranged their computer section to look a bit more snazzy - but it seems to me that they have less stuff than they used to there
posted by pyramid termite at 9:08 PM on March 9

Best Buy is next.
posted by android09 at 10:45 PM on March 9

I was in a CVS pharmacy yesterday and they had a big pile of CC gift cards on the counter. For the life of me I could not figure out why they were on the counter and not whisked away out of sight in the back, but I didn't want to confuse the poor addled cashier by asking any deep questions.

I dream of the buildings being over-run by nature, abandoned and forgotten. It won't happen, but I'll keep hoping.

And I dream of legislation saying that any building abandoned for more than a year must be bulldozed and the concrete removed. Highway 70, which is the main artery in my neck of the woods, is a melange of strip malls, green open spaces, and abandoned businesses. Gwen's Curtain (Yeah, we made the obvious joke about how she only had one curtain to sell and once it was gone she closed up shop) has been abandoned for a few years now and it looks like hell. A cement shanty with broken windows, cracked concrete, and crooked signs with missing letters doesn't quite have the charm of roofless barns and leaning wooden cabins slowly being slowly strangled by jasmine and honeysuckle.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:03 AM on March 10

I guess the word hasn't gotten out to Canadian 'the Source' by Circuit City, because there are no sales, the lights are on, tv's all on... nope, doesn't look like they're wrapping up at all. Are they owned by a certain cable telco or something here?

I must say, they used to be called Radio Shack here, till it became the Source by Circuit City and I purchased a cheap and cheerful clock radio a year ago. It was $9.00. When I got to the counter, the sales associate asked if I wanted a 3 year absolute replacement warranty for another $5.00. I said no way.

What a piece of junk that thing turned out being. That's the day I learned that Nexxus is a pile of garbage and not worth the $9.00 and should have bought a better brand. Lesson learned...

filthy light thief — bio-walls? No, that's a wall covered in vine and it plays havoc on your exterior. The brick and the mortar fall apart too fast because of the moisture and the roots pulling everything away... an expensive proposition...

Loved the Saginaw For Sale. Man. That's desolate, like a neutron bomb dropped, only the buildings remained.
posted by alicesshoe at 1:19 PM on March 10