Posted on 03/07/2009 11:33:31 PM PST by L.A.Justice
Hoping to scoop up some last-minute deals from the soon-to-be-defunct retailer? Better hurry up, because Circuit City's final weekend is nigh. Just remember: buyer beware. The liquidators behind the massive Circuit City fire sale have announced that the remaining 567 stores will close for good on Sunday, March 8, at the end of the business day.
So far, liquidators have sold off more than $1 billion in Circuit City's remaining inventory, according to CrunchGear, with "deeper discounts" expected through the final days. Those who've gone to take a long, last look at the remaining, tattered Circuit City stores have reported some pretty depressing scenes.
Harry McCracken at Technologizer found his local store in a "gloomy disarray" earlier this week—"one part rummage sale, one part junk closet, and barely recognizable as the splashy consumer-electronics merchant that has been around for sixty years." CNET's Don Reisinger checked out a Circuit City and found plenty of remaining inventory, along with depressed, "rumpled" salespeople (hey, they're about to be laid off, so who can blame them) wearing hoodies, jeans, and baseball caps. As far as bargains go, McCracken found a decent deal on copies of Microsoft Office ($45 for the Home and Student versions), but was underwhelmed by the laptop and desktop prices (just 20 percent off); meanwhile, Reisinger found better HDTV deals over at Amazon.
(Excerpt) Read more at tech.yahoo.com ...
Its an interesting end. But I was in a Circuit City around six years ago with my dad...he wanted some major appliance. And the talk from the sales guy was totally slanted. My dad wanted “XYZ”, which he’d done the research and knew precisely what it would do. The guy wasted twenty minutes talking down about this product and trying to get him toward another which was $300 more. I kept quiet the whole time...letting my 75-year old dad do most of the talk. At the end of the twenty minutes...I turned to the sales guy and said “get the paperwork ready...we are buying and leaving”...and he showed a fair amount of hostility. After that...I made up my mind never to return to the place. Once someone does their research and knows what they want...you’re wasting time to talk up something else.
I visited the Burlington, MA, store in the middle of January. It was already sufficiently picked over that I left empty handed after a few minutes. (I was hoping for a deal on a flat screen monitor).
No thanks. I’m only buying food and fuel. Let them give the foreign junk to charity.
I was at one yesterday and this article is correct about there not being big markdowns on the electronics and computers.
I went most of the “deals” were crap. I found better everyday prices at Costco and Amazon than the liquidation prices at CC.
Unless they have guns and ammo, what’s the purpose?
Agreed. Only weak-minded shoppers fall for the "80% off" signs.
I’m sorry people are losing their jobs. But they ripped me off 2 out of 2 encounters, and swore I’d never consider being a customer for a 3rd time.
Based on an advertisement went to see them about a monitor.
The price advertised however was based on a $75 ‘rebate’ they failed to mention. A bit steamed, but having traveled a distance and needing the monitor, I bought the item. once home I discovered the rebate directions were the most arduous I could have imagined. It involved 2 copies of the receipt, cutting out 3 different parts of the box, paste this to that, stable this but not that, etc etc. But, hey, I wanted my $75 bucks back. So I sent it in exactly as requested to the letter of their law. Supposedly, you could then track the rebate process ‘on line’. We’ll for the first few weeks the web site would say it was processing the rebate. Then suddenly the web site was no longer accessible. I waited a while, but it never came back on line. So I went to the store and got up to the manager and he never apologizing, just said that ‘rebates’ were a different department and couldnt help me in the least. No new phone number, no next person I could talk to nothing. Well needless to say, the site never re-materialized and I neveer got the rebate.
Fast forward another 2 years or so, and being the careful add searcher I was, I found another computer item advertised well below other retailers. Getting there once again, I found the price included, you guess it, a ‘rebate’. So actually this time I was a little more curious than I was cautious. The rebate was $50. Again, the directions were insanely complicated, but again I was determined to do it exactly.
And, blow me over with a feather, the exact same thing happened on their website. Go figure. I went back to the store (this time a different manager) and got the same no-help response. Even after telling him it was the second time and now totalled $125. (plus the tax on the extra $$)
So that was that. NOt my department, cant help you.
Fool me twice.....uh.....see ya. Hope you melt.
I can only imagine this happened perhaps tens of thousands of times. I also wonder if it was some evil plot somewhere high up in the organization. It seems the perfect ruse.
Steal money $50 at a time in some invisible detached dark corner of the organization. Dont give the managers any info or ability to rectify so monies really cant be retreived. Certainly those behind this scheme had to know that such a policy over time would erode any chance of sustainability. They must have collected a huge amount of (taxes already paid) free money to perhaps a small amount of the people involved in the scheme.
I cant help but wonder if this ruse will be someday revealed or pursued with a class action suit.
Plus, the employees should be pretty pissed, cuz this could be very well a large part of the reason their company failed and their now unemployed.
Anyone else?
I have not been in a Circuit City in at least fifteen years. I just never need to shop there.
Based on my personal experience, here is my theory about these types of rebates/scams. Their purpose is to be able to advertise the lower price, thus bringing in customers who wouldn’t otherwise buy. As you said, they make the rebate process so arduous, most people either blow it off or fail to do it right and get rejected. The company makes a lot of extra money. BUT, suppose a lot of people do apply correctly, that is a lot of money the company thought they could keep. Voila!, web-site shutdown, lips sealed and customer irked, but not over enough to go after a law suit.
My policy is .... I look at the price I pay in the store, if I am happy to pay it fine. Then if there is a rebate, I will apply. But I don’t let the rebate influence my purchase decision.
Same here in Palmdale Ca. Laptops 10% off. Those were display models with keys missing. They had a whole rack of memory sticks but again nothing special on the price. They are managing to empty the store though. Until I saw the going out of business sign I had not stepped in one of their stores in 20 years.
They raised all the prices back to MSRP, then applied a 10% discount when I was there. Better deals almost anywhere...
I might check in this afternoon to see if there's anything useful left, but I doubt it.
Rebates are clearly marked in ads. Plus, was it a manufacturer’s rebate? Most likely it was since CC barely ever did their own rebates. Every mail-in rebate has ridiculous directions. They hope you screw up one of them, even minorly, so they can “disqualify” you. That’s how the game’s played, not just at CC but in every retail store in the country.
I went yesterday. I bought:
10 feet of RG6 cable, $3
12 AAA lithium batteries, $13.50
FM antenna, $.80
There was almost no audio/video equipment. They had a Klipse subwoofer for a little over a hundred.
Went yesterday. The little inventory they had was not good deals at all. Of course the “liquidation” monickers were suckering in plenty though.
Sure all the construction and green jobs Øbama is handing out will get them all re-employed again, tax cuts never work /s
Yeah, I saw thumb drives for $54.99 that I'd bought just 10 min before in Sam's Club for $19.99.
C.C. has an agreement to liquidate the higher-end products in their inventory to other retailers like Best Buy and H.H. Gregg at a pre-determined price (why risk selling it to consumers in a down market at 50% off when your competitor has already offered you a better deal?).
You WILL NOT get a deal on anything worthwhile at C.C. because of this. Only the low-end items and crap are what is left and what you could expect anything more than 10% off of
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