Went to Fry's here in Southern California last week, and the state of things is pretty damn terrible-- worse than I remember it's ever been. Lots of empty shelves, including what use to be their Apple products area being entirely devoid of Apple products. The following video someone made of an Arizona store is a pretty good reflection of how things look: I am wondering if this is a store-by-store thing or is the entire company tanking. How is the store in Houston (or where you live)?
Cool video. Bought some bose speakers at the spaceship themed one in 2015. Havent been back since. Also got best buy to price match a frys price in 2017 on a dishwasher.
Funny you should mention that. I was at the Houston location just last week and it was eerie how cavernous and empty it was. I was wondering how the hell it was even open for business. It's gotta be close to bankruptcy.
It's pretty dark and gloomy with yellowish lighting and stained carpet. I was pretty shocked how not kept up is in both houston locations. It's prime time was in the 2005 and 2012ish.
Went to the one in Austin a couple of weeks ago for the first time in perhaps a year, maybe longer, and it was exactly like those described here. Cavernous, eerie, devastated. I was truly shocked. It looked like a business on the brink of closure, and I suspect that that is exactly what it is. 5 years ago, shopping for some Christmas gifts, I would have laughed at the idea. I even wondered, not for the first time, if they would put one in Southwest Austin, where we live, the original one here being quite a way across town from that growing area. How shopping has changed. I order online all the time, and have used Amazon Prime for many years, but I still like to look at certain things before I buy them.
Retail apocalypse is a real thing, but some retailer still thrive. Best Buy is even in the same general genre as Fry's and it is now doing OK in the age of Amazon. I also went to a Micro Center last week and it seems to be doing just fine. Not Fry's though.
I dont know if "thrive" is the right word to use for box stores. "Maintain", would be a better word imo.
you know what that means... huuuuuge sales coming up before the store closes! get your dicks ready ladies and gentleman
Man oh man. Don't wanna D&D the thread, but this country is going to lose massive #s of service jobs.
I went for the first time in many years to the one on Parmer in Austin for a mouse and price matched amazon for I think around 50%off. Went to Dicks in the domain for a new soccer ball. Got them to price match amazon from $50 to $20. I don’t see how how big stores are going to make it. With all of that staff cutting into profit and you can’t overcharge for a product like in years past for something you don’t really know what a good deal would be and you just buy it. I dunno. I’d say in five years big box stores are gone. In 10-15 years there will probably be many less grocery stores also.
Best Buy changed a few years ago and basically embraced the internet competition. They price match Amazon, New Egg, and MicroCenter. They new people were using their location for hands on. Might as well keep them from buying online. They have partnerships with various manufacturers that help too.
I think grocery stores will do much better than the big box stores, but agree that there will be fewer of them. I’ll never want someone else picking out the vegetables I want to cook, or a particular piece of meat. I’m one of those people who checks the dates on dairy products and reaches towards the back to see if anything fresher is there. But the huge department stores, places like Walmart or Target? I don’t think they’ll be entirely replaced, but there will be far fewer. There’s definitely a big shakeout going on in retail of all kinds. As B-Bob said, a huge number of service jobs will be disappearing. Retail will have to really be creative to compete. Think about this - as electric cars replace gas and diesel ones, which has only begun to happen now, but will accelerate, traditional gas stations, a fixture in our country, will become an endangered species. People will charge their transportation at home overnight. Vast changes are in the wind. Our children, the oldest in her late 20’s, will be “driving” electric automated cars in their 40’s. Stores will become automated. Robots can pick out groceries for you and you’ll be able to watch them as they select your broccoli in 3D/virtual reality. “No, I want that one!” They’ll get it for you and it’ll be delivered to your house. Businesses will calculate whether it’s cheaper in the long run to automate services like that, or to pay low wages to the uneducated. Scary! That’s just touching on how things are going to change over the next generation. Science fiction writ real.
Home Depot (Lowes somewhat) is doing well because Amazon’s deals on power tools is really not that great and people want faster turn arounds on returns/exchanges on projects. Home Depot has better bundle deals on tools. The nature of Home Improvement/pros/contractors works better out of brick and mortar stores.
No doubt, I don't know if I can ever comfortably order fresh produce online, nearly half the fresh veggies/fruits are too bruised/welted etc. Gotta check the damn apples meself! A phone charger though? Yeah, ship that to me.
Also, this thread isn't even about Fry's or the degradation of physical retail stores. This is really just Carl telling us he lives in SoCal and is living his best life. Nice try Carl.
The (presumably flagship) Sunnyvale location mentioned in the video has the same dilapidation as the store shown in the video. Stick a fork in Fry’s.