Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by Alpha8472 »

Coffee and food is the only thing Fry's can make a profit off of right now. They can still get deliveries of food. Candy and food is still in stock at Fry's.

There is one thing that people cannot get online: hot coffee. There will always be coffee shops and grocery stores. Fry's should convert to a supermarket chain. People still need to grocery shop.
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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by submariner »

Alpha8472 wrote:Coffee and food is the only thing Fry's can make a profit off of right now. They can still get deliveries of food. Candy and food is still in stock at Fry's.

There is one thing that people cannot get online: hot coffee. There will always be coffee shops and grocery stores. Fry's should convert to a supermarket chain. People still need to grocery shop.

They can call them Fry’s Food & Drug! [emoji848][emoji16]


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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by J-Man »

Their stores are so large that if they switched to coffee, they could have indoor drive-throughs.
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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by Alpha8472 »

They also have auto bays for stereo installation. They can add car repair too!
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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by Alpha8472 »

Trying to sell products on a consignment model is probably not going to work out for Fry's. Why can't they just go back to selling merchandise the old fashioned way. Best Buy is still doing business that way.

Fry's stores are huge. They remind me of Fred Meyer stores in size. Perhaps a large store that sells groceries and general merchandise. People would love a Fred Meyer type of store. They have everything including a jewelry store, Starbucks, clothing, electronics, and a supermarket.
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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by Super S »

Alpha8472 wrote: January 27th, 2020, 1:55 am Trying to sell products on a consignment model is probably not going to work out for Fry's. Why can't they just go back to selling merchandise the old fashioned way. Best Buy is still doing business that way.

Fry's stores are huge. They remind me of Fred Meyer stores in size. Perhaps a large store that sells groceries and general merchandise. People would love a Fred Meyer type of store. They have everything including a jewelry store, Starbucks, clothing, electronics, and a supermarket.
I have to wonder what would take over that Wilsonville location if they do close. Fred Meyer has a fairly new store close by, Target and Costco are not far away. Best Buy is possible (but probably not the whole building) Walmart, Lowe's and Home Depot could be possibilities as they do not have stores in Wilsonville. Or it could sit empty like that Albertsons nearby that closed when Safeway took over the independent store in the nearby strip mall.
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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by babs »

Super S wrote: January 27th, 2020, 4:53 pm
Alpha8472 wrote: January 27th, 2020, 1:55 am Trying to sell products on a consignment model is probably not going to work out for Fry's. Why can't they just go back to selling merchandise the old fashioned way. Best Buy is still doing business that way.

Fry's stores are huge. They remind me of Fred Meyer stores in size. Perhaps a large store that sells groceries and general merchandise. People would love a Fred Meyer type of store. They have everything including a jewelry store, Starbucks, clothing, electronics, and a supermarket.
I have to wonder what would take over that Wilsonville location if they do close. Fred Meyer has a fairly new store close by, Target and Costco are not far away. Best Buy is possible (but probably not the whole building) Walmart, Lowe's and Home Depot could be possibilities as they do not have stores in Wilsonville. Or it could sit empty like that Albertsons nearby that closed when Safeway took over the independent store in the nearby strip mall.
Wilsonville has a plan to transform the area from big boxes to something more urban. If the Fry's building becomes available, that might be the best place to start implementing the plan.
https://www.ci.wilsonville.or.us/planni ... enter-plan
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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by kr.abs.swy »

I was in the Wilsonville, Oregon, store during the Super Bowl yesterday.

Conditions were every bit as dire as other contributors to this thread have reported. There were some entire shelves that were completely empty. Some large sections of the store had been cleared of inventory. Generally speaking, the shelves that did have product were sparsely stocked (one or two items deep, stretched out, product on the top row or top two rows of shelving, but nothing on the bottom, cheap products like keyboard spread wide, etc.). It looked like they had essentially no inventory of computers, just a small handful of tablets available to buy, sparse inventory of appliances (probably floor models only), and only a few televisions. Stock of small appliances was highly spotty (it felt like they had bought a few specific items off of a liquidator of some sort). The sound rooms had essentially been abandoned, there was absolutely no inventory in the backstock area (the floor to ceiling shelves were completely empty, at least the parts I could see), there were some off-brand type products, and they were trying every trick in the book to make the shelves look stocked (rows of Dasani water near check-out, a long shelf of nothing but Fry's gift bags, etc.). The vibe was "Going out of Business sale without the discounts."

There were ~5 employees in the store. I asked one if they were closing and was given what must be their standard answer of "waiting for new vendor contracts," which is what it looks like they have been saying for months. One of the employees said hello, but didn't even bother to ask if they could help me find anything. No one attempted to engage me in any way, and I was in there for quite a while.

I was in during the second half of the Super Bowl, wandering around for about 45 minutes. There can't have been more than 15 customers in the store the entire time I was there. I never actually saw anyone buying anything. Some of the niche departments still seemed to be somewhat stocked but generally speaking, if you went in for a specific item, the odds are that you weren't going to find it.

They had a framed photo of the front of the store when it was Incredible Universe (1992-1997) next to another photo of the store as Fry's near the check-outs.

It was really sad to see. You could see all of the evidence that, in its heyday, this would have been a really cool store to shop at. This is the type of store that I could have wandered around for two hours if it had been properly merchandised. I don't understand how it makes sense to pay the staff and the power bill to keep these stores open in their current state. A typical Best Buy would have several times the amount of merchandise in a fraction of the space.

Side note --> I can see how a third party model of some sort could work with some of the bigger brands (lease space to Apple, lease space to Samsung, etc., and have a store-within-a-store concept somewhat like Best Buy had experimented with). But I don't see how that will work with niche commoditized parts like hobbyist parts, computing accessories, etc. The entire store is being sold down, not just departments where you might expect store-within-a-store to work.
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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by SamSpade »

Here's a youTube video of prominent "how to" computer builder BitWit and his wife during C.E.S.
Their local Burbank, CA location claimed Las Vegas was fully stocked so they traveled there to ... surprise! Same issue, just hidden a lot better.
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Re: Fry’s Electronics on Life Support

Post by Super S »

kr.abs.swy wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 9:08 am I was in the Wilsonville, Oregon, store during the Super Bowl yesterday.

Conditions were every bit as dire as other contributors to this thread have reported. There were some entire shelves that were completely empty. Some large sections of the store had been cleared of inventory. Generally speaking, the shelves that did have product were sparsely stocked (one or two items deep, stretched out, product on the top row or top two rows of shelving, but nothing on the bottom, cheap products like keyboard spread wide, etc.). It looked like they had essentially no inventory of computers, just a small handful of tablets available to buy, sparse inventory of appliances (probably floor models only), and only a few televisions. Stock of small appliances was highly spotty (it felt like they had bought a few specific items off of a liquidator of some sort). The sound rooms had essentially been abandoned, there was absolutely no inventory in the backstock area (the floor to ceiling shelves were completely empty, at least the parts I could see), there were some off-brand type products, and they were trying every trick in the book to make the shelves look stocked (rows of Dasani water near check-out, a long shelf of nothing but Fry's gift bags, etc.). The vibe was "Going out of Business sale without the discounts."

There were ~5 employees in the store. I asked one if they were closing and was given what must be their standard answer of "waiting for new vendor contracts," which is what it looks like they have been saying for months. One of the employees said hello, but didn't even bother to ask if they could help me find anything. No one attempted to engage me in any way, and I was in there for quite a while.

I was in during the second half of the Super Bowl, wandering around for about 45 minutes. There can't have been more than 15 customers in the store the entire time I was there. I never actually saw anyone buying anything. Some of the niche departments still seemed to be somewhat stocked but generally speaking, if you went in for a specific item, the odds are that you weren't going to find it.

They had a framed photo of the front of the store when it was Incredible Universe (1992-1997) next to another photo of the store as Fry's near the check-outs.

It was really sad to see. You could see all of the evidence that, in its heyday, this would have been a really cool store to shop at. This is the type of store that I could have wandered around for two hours if it had been properly merchandised. I don't understand how it makes sense to pay the staff and the power bill to keep these stores open in their current state. A typical Best Buy would have several times the amount of merchandise in a fraction of the space.

Side note --> I can see how a third party model of some sort could work with some of the bigger brands (lease space to Apple, lease space to Samsung, etc., and have a store-within-a-store concept somewhat like Best Buy had experimented with). But I don't see how that will work with niche commoditized parts like hobbyist parts, computing accessories, etc. The entire store is being sold down, not just departments where you might expect store-within-a-store to work.
I only got to visit Incredible Universe in Wilsonville a couple times when they were open. I have made quite a few visits there as Fry's though. This used to be a really busy place. During the time when the area had more competition such as Circuit City, Silo, Good Guys, and others, it was often worth the extra drive to go to Fry's because they had a huge selection in nearly every category and was well-staffed. They usually had great prices. They also were often the first to display the latest technology, an example I remember seeing there fist was a 3D printer. They also didn't completely abandon old technology such as cassette players, and as I already mentioned, still carried a full line of outdoor TV antennas and accessories such as rotators and amplifiers, as well as miscellaneous electronic parts. In Oregon, it also had the bonus of no sales tax. In its heyday, which includes quite a few years as Fry's, it truly was a destination store as it had something for everyone. On my last visit, I felt like stopping there was mostly a waste of time. While some of the store still was interesting, you could tell something wasn't quite right.
babs wrote: January 27th, 2020, 8:44 pm
Wilsonville has a plan to transform the area from big boxes to something more urban. If the Fry's building becomes available, that might be the best place to start implementing the plan.
https://www.ci.wilsonville.or.us/planni ... enter-plan
Wow. looking at some parts of that, it almost seems like they want to redevelop everything there, not just Fry's, but also the strip mall where Safeway and Rite Aid are located. The illustrations look like they want it to look like some of Portland's newer developments, which I am not sure is the best path to take as they seem to not be very automobile-friendly. Not exactly a good idea right next to a freeway.
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