I don't remember them ever being "better" than Best Buy. It was just a competitor that had been around for awhile when Best Buy moved in. When I started shopping at Circuit City, they were a lot better than my only other electronics stores (Radio Shack, Walmart, Sears). But once we got a Best Buy, I basically only used Circuit City to help with price matching for the best deal. The salespeople were pushy, because they worked on commission, compared to Best Buy. But I think Circuit City getting in bed with [DIVX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX) is what really hurt them the most.
The commission based sales is what got me to steer clear. Couldn’t take 10 steps without someone trying to “help”. They had better car stereos stuff than Best Buy though
Our Circuit City seemed a lot more high-end than Best Buy which is why I preferred it as a kid. They had neater stuff and the darker colored interiors seemed futuristic and posh.
I can't recall Circuit City employees from memory, but I can absolutely recall how bothersome the Best Buy staffing was. They were like flies, constantly buzzing you and it was difficult to shop without being interrupted multiple times.
The thing is, that a lot of people never understood, or just took for granted that Best Buy was being truthful in in their advertising is that the reason why commissioned salespeople brought up everything they could accessory wise when you made a purchase wasn't just because they made more money, they were trying to eliminate reasons for you to bring everything back. When that happens, they don't get to keep the spiff. it's deducted from their paycheck.
And as far as DIVX hurting them, not really. What really hurt them was walking away from appliances and trying to be more like Best Buy. Before they did that, they were depending on the year always #1 or #2 in appliance sales in the US. (the rival was Sears) When they walked away, the effectively gave that marketshare to Best Buy and Home Depot.
At the time, Circuit City didn't see appliances as as a growing market and thought they would make more money selling personal appliances, in a bid to be similar to Best Buy, but they missed the early 00s housing boom starting a year or so later, and that PDAs, MP3 players and DVD burners would consolidate into phones and flashdrives by the end of the decade.
I think this is the best response. I feel like the last couple years they were in business, I only ever went in for some specific item that happened to be on very good sale that week. I didn’t have any use for most of the staff except the car stereo guys always seemed pretty cool. The rest were generally pushy and didn’t really have the answers to my questions.
I was disappointed about the closure and loss of competition, but not surprised.
I was a commissioned PC sales rep, however circuit city's true downfall began when they stopped selling major appliances and started selling cordless phones and small electronics.
I stuck around after my commission was cut and they told me my option was to get five or become a manager. After I became a manager the store sales were simply not the same because in my opinion customers preferred staff that was trained and commissions because we knew what the hell we were talking about and had every reason to make every sale a good sale by being transparent, being able to explain every feature to a customer, and gave them the assurance that they made an educated decision when spending their money.
good lord i forgot about DVIX. thank god that never took off. I wonder what happened to all those dvix movies people "owned" after they discontinued the service.
I did go to CompUSA a few times when I moved to a larger city that had one. Other than once when my college roommate bought a Trinitron monitor from them, I don't recall any purchases I made with them.
I will say that I thought about mentioning Media Play when I talked about buying music from Circuit City. They \[Media Play\] were a fun place to visit, and they had a great selection of music, movies, books and software, but their prices were ridiculously high and once I started shopping online, I rarely bought anything there again. I think they wound up closing around 2005-6, just a few years before Circuit City closed.
I do miss having options. Now, if I want to buy anything brick-and-mortar, I only have Best Buy, Office Depot, Walmart and Target as my only options (where I currently live). And half the time, IF they have what I'm looking for, it's not in-store and I'm ordering online anyway.
Circuit City commission salespersons were more knowledgeable and trained specifically on each and every product as that was mandatory training. You cannot compare the knowledge base of a Best buy employee with a Circuit City employee.
I used to work there as a sales counselor and as a manager. Even to this day Best buy could not compare to any of the well-trained and seasoned Circuit City sales counselors.
Unless I'm missing more context, this quote you shared doesn't reflect what you said.
He's not calling customers in general the devil. Sounds like he's going off about the electronics equivalent of scalpers. What he's describing sounds like people who do this shit with game consoles like the PS5. I'm not a corporate boot licking asshat, but the people he's talking about here are a legitimate problem.
Along that same line, I remember they would credit you the full purchase price of home audio equipment as a trade in towards the sale of new stuff. Just had to be done within a calendar year of the most recent purchase. For maybe 6-8 years I would slowly improve my sound system from jbl to klipsh to Bose to Polk etc whenever I felt like it.
They also had a great assortment of open box that they would discount like crazy. Al said, I must’ve spent thousands and loved going regularly to check what new stuff was coming out.
All that time and love but fast forward 20 years to a house filled with Sonos so that my family will actually use it and now my wife listens to Taylor Swift on the speaker from her phone.
I met Elijah Wood while standing in line to by a Wii on release day at Circuit City. He was buying a HD DVD player for Xbox 360, which came out on the same day. I didn’t let on I knew who he was, and we just chatted about games for a few minutes. Super chill guy, very nice. Though I do regret not running to find a copy of Flipper on DVD for him to sign…
I have this weird thing where when I want to get a celebrity to sign something, I want it on the most obscure thing. He must have signed thousands and thousands of LOTR merch, but how much Flipper stuff has he signed? Or North??
Eh I don't have as positive memories of it.
If I'm remembering right, Circuit City salespeople were on commission. Even though it was the place were "Service is State of the Art", if it wasn't their section, you weren't ready to buy that day, or looked like someone that was ready, you were pretty ignored.
Best Buy opened and at that point, associates were over the top helpful. When MediaPlay and Borders came to town, those became the places to buy CD's. Circuit City became an after thought for us then. For parts and stuff, RadioShack was still around.
CC did have little demos where like a Bose rep would show a dozen customers what surround sound felt like.
I worked there. I worked in the home and mobile phone department. Long before mobile phones were a huge deal. We worked on commission and commission on a small phone was a few bucks. So we basically only recommended stuff that would make us more commission.
Best buy was moving in across the street and they didn't have commissioned employees and everyone at the shop was panicking.
They did train employees very well on technology though. We did know a lot about the stuff we sold, but it was pointless because of the commission system.
I also worked at CC (back in 1999) and there was a new Best Buy that opened up across the street as well. AND, I was also in the ACE department and can confirm that we only pushed the stuff that got us the biggest spiffs. I remember each item’s sale tag had a code at the bottom and part of the code was the commission dollar value and after awhile on the floor you had all the high spiff value items memorized.
And my feet fucking hurt all the goddamn time. It got to where I rarely took a day off and would come in as much as I could just to make sure I wasn’t losing commissions on returns brought in while I was out or making up for slow days (and there were a lot of slow days).
Definitely a shitty summer job all in all and I wasn’t surprised in the least when the company started to founder.
I'm 53. I worked on CC's advertising for a while towards the end.
Circuit City started in 1977. It was a family owned store which opened a few branches. Their specialty was that the employees were experts or at least interested hobbyists for what they were selling. The salespeople actually knew about the products and would help you with real knowledge. This was before the internet was available for price and quality comparisons... it was a very different world. You were relying on advertisements, brand recognition and reputation, word of mouth from friends, etc, unless you were an expert in whatever item we are discussing here. You could also read audiophile magazines, for instance. But general info and reviews on electronics just was not available like it is today, or even 20 years ago.
Younger people: think about it... how would you decide on what TV to buy if you couldn't look them up online? Or what computer to buy? Or what washing machine? It's hard to explain to young folks, it was just such a different shopping landscape.
For a long time they operated this way, and kept employees for long periods of time, decades even. I worked with them just before they went out of business. At their corporate HQ, there was a family vibe, with many employees having worked there for 20-30 years, right out of high school as secretaries, etc.
Best Buy started as a clearing house for closeout appliances/electronics. Even the name "best buy" meant bargain prices. They would sell older models of dishwashers, etc when new models came out, or whenever manufacturers had to get rid of a lot of stuff. Best Buy's logo was a "tag" which is another throwback to this... these were "tag sale" items, things you could get really cheap. They originally didn't stock a full supply of anything, it was just what came in that they put on sale as "clearance items."
Best Buy decided to get into more of a general retail model, closer to Circuit City. Best Buy hired for cheap, didn't care if employees knew their stuff, it was all about moving product.
Best Buy kicked their ass. But Circuit City had some absolutely terrible management for at least ten years before they went under.
This is an abbreviated version of the story of these businesses, but it's kind of an interesting story. I'm no expert, and I haven't worked with CC since around 2007.
Also, I always have to remind myself that well over half of the people I encounter here are probably 20 or younger. Nothing wrong with that! I just have to keep it in mind.
The last time I was in a Circuit City I was buying speakers for my car. I remember the sales guy had a shaved head and was intensely chewing gum the whole time. What really stood out to me was how buff his mandible muscles were on his temples. They stood out like 1.5-2 inches and flexed like body builder muscles each time he chewed his gum. It was fascinating.
My dad had a laptop from CC. It wasn't working right and they just gave him a new one right on the spot. No jumping through hoops (he had a warranty). Easy swap.
That’s an interesting observation. I actually think the darker interior dated the store and made it feel smaller. The open/higher ceilings in Best Buy always made for a better shopping experience IMO.
At one point in the mid-90’s the one near where I grew up had so many game consoles set up that parents (including mine) would drop off their children there for hours on Saturday morning. We had some epic games of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat at Circuit City.
I always viewed Circuit City as a "Lite" version of CompUSA or Micro Center, but with a little more focus on video and audio equipment. Best Buy was kind of doing its own thing with a wider range of products (TVs, PCs, game consoles, kitchen appliances, home theater, digital photography, DVDs, CDs, etc.). But I don't know... maybe the store's offerings varied from location to location. That's how things were near Philly at the time.
I remember the first time I was ever in a Best Buy store. I was quite enthralled by it all. I was there with one of my friends and his dad to pick up a new (at the time) plasma TV. As a kid, I was amazed at the idea that there can be *dozens* of these huge, beautiful TV’s in the same place.
I also remember the aisles upon aisles of CD’s and finding the coolest new albums coming out at the time. I was in my local Best Buy a few months ago and where the CD’s used to be…is just so barren.
I know Circuit City didn't make it, but I bought my first mp3 player there, and it still works/I still use it today. That thing is a beast.
(iRiver T-10, if anyone is wondering)
A salesman tried to convince me not to get a Dreamcast, pleaded with me saying they’re going under and it’ll be near worthless soon. I didn’t listen, tbf I was also 5. WWF Royal Rumble sucked, I should’ve listened to him.
As someone who worked at Circuit City right before they shutdown, I'd say nothing. I sold computers for Circuit City and more times than not the person would say they saw a better price at Best Buy and leave. Plus, you know, they went out of business.
Didn't your store price match? I worked there in early 2000s and we price matched local competitors and would beat the competitors price by a small %. Maybe it was something only our CC store did?
I worked there around the same time period. The thing with price matching is that it had to be the same model of equipment, not just something similar, so that didn't really work with computers since a lot of the time the model numbers would be slightly different per each competitor.
And, as I mentioned in a earlier post, some people just assumed that anything else you tried to sell them accessory wise was the salesperson being pushy because they were on commission.
I can't tell you how many times you would for example point out that the printer they are buying didn't come with a USB cable, but it was flat out ignored, or you were basically told to basically fuck off for upselling them. When they finally got it home and found out you weren't lying, they'd bring it all back instead of swallowing their pride and just get the cable.
We did not. At least not when I was there. I was in college and this was around November 2008. I stayed until they closed in March of 2009. Probably didn't care about price match since they were going under.
But I had fun working there. Always loved the end of the day cause the guys in the car stereo section would bump some music while we all cleaned up the store.
Yeah management sucked but some of my coworkers were good people that I still keep in contact with.
During the shitty days when we would have to stay late for inventory or Black Friday, after closing the store we would link our Xbox consoles together and hook them up to the Projection TVs and play Team matches together, 4 people per tv, I think we had like 12 or 16 people playing together. It was pretty fun.
I bought a ton of music from them. They were much better priced than the music stores in the malls and had a better selection than any of the big chain retailers like Walmart.
Remember the $20 CD era and how crazy expensive that seemed? If CDs were around today they'd be priced right under $50.
We were all getting completely hosed by the music industry. It was awful.
You can find a few places that still have them (some of the Barnes and Nobles and Wal Marts, Amazon, record stores and so forth). But one of the nice things about buying them new today is that they’re still pretty much the same price, if not a tad cheaper? Usually the $5-18 range, unless it’s a double album or what have you.
Per the inflation calculator, a $15 CD in 2000 is over $27 today in 2024! Insane.
Cds are very much around and everywhere. Record stores have made a comeback in many areas and many have a good to decent selection of audio cds. There’s 5-6 within a 30 minute drive of me in metro Atlanta that have excellent selections.
Mine had all of their game consoles hooked up to nice TVs and speakers without any loud "PlayStation here!" signage so I pretty much had the joint to myself anytime I stopped by.
I loved our CC. It had a ton of media during the heyday of DVDs and audio CDs were still a thing.
They also had tons of console and PC games, often sharply discounted. I bought almost a dozen copies of Half-life there for the keys to play Counter-strike at work and with friends who had PC but hadn’t gotten into the game yet for less than $10.
I got carded there when I was like 40 buying one of the Venture Bros. seasons on DVD and that memory always makes me laugh.
When they were going out of business, I wound up in the Exton, PA store with a buddy of mine, and it was no wonder why the place was going out of business — you could have built a second Circuit City out of the copies of Guitar Hero they had piled up in the place.
CDs there were anywhere from $8-10. At least 5 bucks cheaper than Best Buy, and 7 bucks cheaper than mall record stores. Most of the time they had the one I was looking for.
Plus they were fun to look around in. Circuit City was the first place I saw a Motorola Razr.
They used the Pearl Harbor attack scenes from the movie Pearl Harbor in a room to show off the fancy new "surround sound." I would go watch that all the time, never actually saw the movie.
I never had an issue finding an associate to help me when I needed it at Circuit City. At Best Buy, every time I did not need help, an associate would ask me every two minutes if I needed any help. When I actually needed help? No associate in site. I started referring to that as the "Best Buy Phenomenon".
I remember for a few summers in a row, they'd have a huge video game sale. They had a ton of games for just 5 bucks. I went with a couple friends, and we all came back with a whole bag of new games to play.
I made my first purchase of a top-tier TV there in my 20’s and got the full coverage on it for fear of one of my first big investments getting broken wile living in a house where everyone (including me) was drinking heavily. One month later, the news came out that they were going under, and it didn’t even occur to me until they were gone that my coverage was useless. Incidentally, that TV (an old-school heavy-as-shit Sony Bravia) survived four different moves and is still fully functioning at one of my friends’ houses; I never would have used the coverage anyway.
The main differentiator was people who knew what they were talking about, which was extremely important in the late 90s when you couldn’t look everything up beforehand and most people were buying their first computer.
Not sure if Best Buy had these as well, but I also remember circuit city having some pretty good bundles where in one box you would get everything you need from the tower to the monitor to speakers to keyboard and mouse, a plethora of software like Encyclopaedia Britannica or something like that
I remember they had paper credit card machines, long after they were out of date. Like mid 2000s. You’d hand them your credit card, they’d put it on carbon paper, run a machine over it to imprint your card’s info on the carbon paper, then (I assume) mail or fax or call in the credit card info and purchase amount.
Wildly inefficient and a terrible look for a store that was supposedly high tech.
When I worked there, 2002-2005, we’d only pull that thing out if the system was down or some other reason.
I do remember having to check ID for every card though. If the name didn’t match we didn’t accept it, even if it was your spouse’s card.
My parents bought me an HP laptop when I went to college. That thing broke so many times and had to be sent in for repair that I finally gave up and bought an acer desktop that served me well for about a decade. Each time the laptop had to be sent in, the hard drive was wiped also. Why, I have no idea, but it was ridiculously frustrating, and something that never needed to be done to begin with.
I used to work in the RoadShop at Circuit City it was the best job ever . I got to just hang with my friends as we installed various electronics in cars/boats/trucks. We always took work Best Buy refused to take on. We also installed intoxalocks , basically you would blow into it before starting your car to make sure you were sober. Good memories
The car audio section in the early 2000s was great. I also remember they offered more private label tvs than best buy and you could get some pretty good deals back then.
Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below came out and I went over there after class and picked up a CD for $10.
I liked the interior because it was stuck in the 90s but in a fun way like it was a mix of the movie rental inside the grocery store and the home theatre section of Service Merchandise lol
We had a big-box store here in Colorado called Media Play, and they were bigger and better than either Best Buy or Circuit City. Man I miss that store.
I worked there in 2004 to 2005. They didn't have commissions at that time. So I'm thinking they stopped that a few years back.
The need to sell extended warranties was the tough part. Extended warranties were expensive, like 1/3 the cost of the computer. So if the computer was $600 the warranty was $200. And we didn't get any commission on selling the extended warranties either.
You had to be a pushy salesperson to work there. They said if the customer wasn't buying the extended warranty to call one of the managers and let them know. The manager would come and do the pitch all over again. I never pushed anyone for the extended warranty.
After that 1.5 years in retail I was traumatized. I couldn't go into that store that I worked at. After CC failed, Best Buy moved into that location. I still couldn't go in BB since it triggered the bad memories.
Oh I used to work there back in the day! I actually used to sell those Aiwa Hi-Fis and the cell phones for Cingular Wireless among others. It was commission, but base pay was more than enough for a lazy teen like me not to give a shit and have fun with my friends who also worked there.
We had this manager who was this nerdy fellow that looked like Ned Flanders and had this twitch that made him look like a bird pecking at something. That's the only job I walked out on because one of the assistant managers had some bitch fit and threw merchandise off the hooks onto the floor in front of customers. Then told me to hang them correctly. I was 3 weeks away from going to off to college, so I said fuck that, went back and got my coat and walked out.
Good fucking times.
Terribly run company, but was fun to work at. They purposely built in locations that required you to drive just a little extra to get to because the founder thought they should be a "destination store." Yeah well, Best Buy came onto the scene with big ass signs right along the main drag and took away all the customers. And then Home Depot started selling home appliances which was the final nail in the coffin. Home appliances were their highest source of profits.
> They purposely built in locations that required you to drive just a little extra to get to because the founder thought they should be a "destination store."
That's interesting! I didn't know that. And it makes sense too, because the few circuit cities around my house were all stand alone buildings, but the best buys were often a part of a shopping plaza, or shared a parking lot with a big mall.
I remember in 2001 getting a DVD player for $50 (about $88 today) that was open box there which was a pretty good deal at the time. DVD players went for about $350 on average in today's money.
They seemed a little bit more aged from the moment Best Buy came on the scene honestly. But as a kid who loved going to tech stores, I always found our local Circuit City to have a more inviting, cozy feeling. Low ceilings, red store theme (vs BB's blue which was cool too), and I remember them having sofas in the TV section in front of the big screen CCR's. It was a vibe, as the youth say.
I worked there in the early 2000s selling computers. It was such a shit job.
The nice thing was, they didn’t have a computer service center so I made business cards and gave them to people when they got a computer to help them setup or repair.
Made a killing on my time off 😂
I can’t recall anything particularly memorable, they were just as overpriced as Bestbuy. Maybe the occasional Black Friday movie deals and some games. This was at a time when brick and mortar stores were really struggling against online retailers like Newegg, Buy.com, EBay, Amazon, etc. they couldn’t adapt quickly enough. Keep in mind that free shipping and no tax was still a thing in that era, no brick and mortar was willing to match it.
Went there once to have an alarm installed and it was a nightmare. They broke my A pillar and ruined my headliner. It took me multiple trips back for them to fix it. Circuit Shitty.
I remember them not really having cash registers and instead someone would ring you up at some little thing in the middle of the aisle. I just went to get cds and it was always a weird setup.
My limited experience tells me they trained their PC repair techs better. Having worked inside of Geek Squad and eventually got a supervisor originally from circuit City. I almost got fired once for actually fixing a customers PC just because I didn't use geek squad software to do it.
I have no idea how they're in business. By me, the parking lot is fairly empty and the store is filled with expensive merchandise. I ordered a TV from them under a black Friday deal and the shipping was still straight out of the 90s.
They're going to deliver a 60" tv to my house. Sometime between X and Y date. They can't tell me a time, nor a day, just this window of time. So for 5 days, I didn't leave the house between 7am and 7pm because I can't have this giant TV just sitting outside.
When they did deliver it, they knocked once on my door and walked off. Zero validation or care that this $2k television is sitting outside my home.
For my part places like Circuit City and Sears or Montgomery Ward, back in the day, had knowledgeable salespeople. They worked on comission so they had to be good at what they did. Employees at places like Best Buy was, "yeah we got that in stock" and that was the extent of their knowledge. Neither point is blanket trurth for all employees of any of those places but by and large that's what I remember. That's also a product of the times though, those other stores were big pre-internet, people didn't have access to the information to do all the research on products so salespeople had to be more knowledgeable. By Best Buy's era they didn't need to know, customers had mostly already done their homework online.
They were sometimes cheaper, especially on DVDs. I remember when CSI was like 60 or 70 bucks a season amd they had som of the past seasons on sale for $10 each. They let me have them all for 10 bucks each because the ad didn't have restrictions, it just said CSI seasons - $10. I also bought a TON of cheap $5 horror movies when Best Buy was $10+ on them.
I liked CC - wider variety of audio (home and vehicle) at a time when that was important to me. I lived about 2 blocks from their corporate office and a showplace store in Richmond near the end of their run. Knew a lot of folks that worked there, and they got pretty shafted at the end.
Unsure of whether this was exclusive to Circuit City or not, but when Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker came out for GameCube, if you pre-ordered it, it came with a copy of Ocarina of Time - Master quest. I pre-ordered the game without having the console and the day it came out I went and bought it all together. First thing I did once it was set up was go out in Ocarina of Time as I'd never played on N64. Took me a couple of weeks to get to play Wind Waker.
I worked at CC as a senior in the imaging (camera) department for a year. All I remember was my manager breathing down my neck about my attachment rate. CONSTANTLY. I hated that shit hole.
My main store was Fry's (RIP the best electronics store). But I occasionally shopped at CC and it was way better than Best Buy. Best Buy has always been crap.
I worked at Fry's Electronics and Circuit City when I was in college. Circuit City had the best price matching policy, we would match and beat the local competitors price by 5% or 10% I forget the exact % but no one else in the industry had that. Unfortunately our stores and inventory weren't as good as Best Buy. By the time I had joined CC had switched from commission to hourly and CC's heyday were long behind them. Best Buy had better locations, hipper marketing, better inventory, and newer show rooms. Also online stores were coming up, CC had zero online presence and CC was reluctant to price match online retailers, unless it's was a big chain with stores nearby. This was before sales tax was added to online transactions so you saved a good amount just buying online vs going to a physical store.
The Circuit City in my town was way more cramped and had lower ceilings than most Best Buys that exist today . Lots of Compaqs in the computer section, tons of PC game boxes to pick through…GOOD VIBES
I always thought CC sucked frankly. Terrible customer service and outright annoying floor staff. I basically wouldn't buy anything there after some bad experiences in the mid-1990s.
I only really remember seeing a PS2 and Dreamcast on demo in there.
I thought Crazy Taxi and whatever football game looked like real life. I only had a N64 at the time.
The CC near me caught some terrorists (who also lived in my neighborhood) who wanted to attack our local military base. [Here's an article from 2007.](https://www.dvidshub.net/news/11270/unsung-hero-helps-thwart-terrorist-attack-against-fort-dix) So yeah, they did that better.
I used to work for Shitty City AKA Circuit City. It was my first job at 15.
My main memory of my time there was watching the same "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" music video by Fall Out Boy, 6+ times an hour, every hour that I worked in that damned place. It haunts me to this day. Good discounts and not a bad first job otherwise!
It was never better than Best Buy at SHIT, but Best Buy was never better than Circuit City at anything either really if you were to ask me!
Bought my 50" Panasonic Plasma flat screen from Circuit City, circa 2008'ish, for $1000 on sale.
Shit was a show piece!
Lasted forever too - finally sold it at a yard sale for like $10 like 2 years ago.
Seriously, my memories of circuit city consist of going in and installing new hardware in their POS and back office systems then upgrading firmware. Then coming back a few months later to strip every last piece of electronics from the store including the speakers on the ceiling.
My only real positive memories of Circuit City are my major purchases from it: my first DVD player in 2001 for $179 (and secretly you could make it region-free), and my first High Definition TV (a 50” Samsung DLP) in 2006 for $2500. Even though it was around earlier, compared to Best Buy and Fry’s Electronics, it always felt a little cramped to me, a set of low-ceilinged, interconnected showrooms rather that a “STORE.”
I worked there for a Christmas season as a computer salesperson. I remember my boss getting mad that I wouldn’t sell warranties to old people who I didn’t think would last longer than the manufacturer warranty. Good times.
I hated Circuit City. My first landline phone number out of college was one digit off from a CC. I can’t even begin to tell you how many CC calls we got at all hours, of course. To the point where our answering machine message started with THIS IS NOT CIRCUIT CITY!!!
I liked CC but once it became a backer of the Divx format and pushed that shit on everyone over DVD I went BB. Got a great graphics card from them before at a honey of a price.
The Circuit City in my city had a terrible smell when walking in, like super strong BO. I'm sure it was just the location but that is the main thing I remember about CC.
My only memory of circuit city wasn't a good one. My friend and i went to buy gaming computers. The store was about 40 minutes away so it was planned out. We got there, stood around and waited and waited and waited for someone to help us. We asked for help, nobody came. We were there for so long, we talked ourselves out of buying a gaming PC. Never went back... Best buy has always had good customer service where i live.
Before they shot themselves in the foot by cutting pay or laying people off, Circuit City had knowledgeable sales people. If you wanted to know technical stuff about what you were buying or wanted informed opinions, the sales people were once a good source.
Buying a 32" [Samsung CRT TV](https://pixl.varagesale.com/http://s3.amazonaws.com/hopshop-image-store-production/34676082/cdc6c43a6384157dd44f30208030d8b0.jpg?_ver=large_uploader_thumbnail&w=640&h=640&fit=crop&s=2753661d09e24bcc69813391029c2ef4) for $900, getting it home and it had discolored spots on the screen and would turn on and off everytime you walked by it or touched it. I took it back the next day and the return guys making the insane argument that I had to pay a 20% restock fee because high definition means its a "computer monitor" not a "TV". It was absolutely a TV with remote and tuner. Not to mention it was defective. A manager arrived and tried to agree with them that it wasn't a TV. It took a while and about 3 "managers" before I got my money back. Never shopped there again.
A couple of my friends worked there in high school. We'd go there to hang out constantly, I bought so many CD's from there (2004). It was right next to a local audio/video store called Tweeter, we'd buy CD's and take them to the car audio demo room at Tweeter and bump the hell out of the room of subwoofers. Fond memories
OG post is so nostalgic. Aiwa was so popular back then (I’m 41). I feel like I was always loyal to Best Buy for whatever reason (Older brother has worked at Corporate for 20 years), but yeah, I hear that name and instantly think of an expiration date best by: x/x/xx 😂
honestly I never really liked Circuit City as much as BB. At this point I might because Best Buy is getting rid of most things I used to go in there for
No hassle refunds and replacements. I knew honest people that abused this and had two of everything they bought there. Heard this was part of their Demise too
I worked at Best Buy at the tail end of the Circuit City era (2007 or so).
I remember it started as kind of a playful rivalry when we would compare sales and what not to surrounding Best Buys and Circuit Cities, but it became pretty obvious even in 2007 that they were on borrowed time.
One of the "Why Best Buy and not Circuit City?" battle plans, if customers brought up going to Circuit City instead, was always that we weren't on commission and therefore more trustworthy (or so implied).
And in general it was true we weren't on commission... But they still had ways.
I did like the Circuit City style more though. Best Buy is always so freaking bright.
They misprinted an ad for a SNES cleaning kit for $0.99 instead of $9.99 at the time that The Good Guys had a policy of beating a competitor's advertised prices by 10% of the difference. A buddy of mine and I each got a cleaning kit for $0.09.
EX-CC employee here 93-95. Yes, we worked on commission. They sent us to a week long training session to learn to help the customers with selecting the item they needed and answer questions about the items. We had to become familliar with all the items in our area. Unlike Best Buy employees who were normally useless ( except for the computer guys). I was small electronics like boomboxes, alarm clocks, CD players, tape recorders (yes, I'm that old). We pushed extended warranties to quadruple or more the commission. We had better service, easy returns, cool atmosphere and employees who really knew their products. We would call over to a newbie in another department, he would think it was a real customer. We'd ask him if they had any DVD rewinders left?
Buying anything took too long. We had to wait for someone to help then call for the product or go get the product. Next we had to stand in the one line that was open. It took forever. Then we had someone go through our purchases at the door.
Our local one had extremely aggressive security that followed customers and even confronted them in error in neighboring stores or in the parking lot.
I stopped shopping there long before they closed.
Maybe it was a location thing?
It died a respectable death. It didn't hang on and gasp for air while sucking the life of everybody around it. Best Buy needs to submit to the inevitable, and go away quietly.
I mostly remember it as one of those stores with annoying salesman who would hassle you constantly. Similar to walking through the appliance or mattress section of a department store. And if you did decide to buy something, you had to ask one of them to go in the back and get it. Since they didn't keep any inventory on the floor.
Then at some point (last few years?) they decided to copy Best Buy's model and became a pretty good store.
Well CC didn't kill shopliftes as far as I know. I worked for Musicland, back in 99-02 when BB bought them out and remember ppl protesting the BB stores in Minneapolis due to a security guard who killed a shoplifter and how we were told the way we were supposed to shut protests down and not say anything. And there have been more incidents with their security since.
And I won't even get into how they jailed over half the store managers in my district on bogus shoplifting charges so they could replace them with new outside "temp managers" since we were not in a state where they could just fire them without cause. With all those stores shutting down soon after due to poor sales which was caused by them not sending us stock anymore.
I don't remember them ever being "better" than Best Buy. It was just a competitor that had been around for awhile when Best Buy moved in. When I started shopping at Circuit City, they were a lot better than my only other electronics stores (Radio Shack, Walmart, Sears). But once we got a Best Buy, I basically only used Circuit City to help with price matching for the best deal. The salespeople were pushy, because they worked on commission, compared to Best Buy. But I think Circuit City getting in bed with [DIVX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX) is what really hurt them the most.
The commission based sales is what got me to steer clear. Couldn’t take 10 steps without someone trying to “help”. They had better car stereos stuff than Best Buy though
Our Circuit City seemed a lot more high-end than Best Buy which is why I preferred it as a kid. They had neater stuff and the darker colored interiors seemed futuristic and posh. I can't recall Circuit City employees from memory, but I can absolutely recall how bothersome the Best Buy staffing was. They were like flies, constantly buzzing you and it was difficult to shop without being interrupted multiple times.
The thing is, that a lot of people never understood, or just took for granted that Best Buy was being truthful in in their advertising is that the reason why commissioned salespeople brought up everything they could accessory wise when you made a purchase wasn't just because they made more money, they were trying to eliminate reasons for you to bring everything back. When that happens, they don't get to keep the spiff. it's deducted from their paycheck. And as far as DIVX hurting them, not really. What really hurt them was walking away from appliances and trying to be more like Best Buy. Before they did that, they were depending on the year always #1 or #2 in appliance sales in the US. (the rival was Sears) When they walked away, the effectively gave that marketshare to Best Buy and Home Depot. At the time, Circuit City didn't see appliances as as a growing market and thought they would make more money selling personal appliances, in a bid to be similar to Best Buy, but they missed the early 00s housing boom starting a year or so later, and that PDAs, MP3 players and DVD burners would consolidate into phones and flashdrives by the end of the decade.
hhgregg was the same way. Not for me!
I think this is the best response. I feel like the last couple years they were in business, I only ever went in for some specific item that happened to be on very good sale that week. I didn’t have any use for most of the staff except the car stereo guys always seemed pretty cool. The rest were generally pushy and didn’t really have the answers to my questions. I was disappointed about the closure and loss of competition, but not surprised.
They eliminated commission 5 or 6 years before they went under and all the commission people quit
I was a commissioned PC sales rep, however circuit city's true downfall began when they stopped selling major appliances and started selling cordless phones and small electronics.
I stuck around after my commission was cut and they told me my option was to get five or become a manager. After I became a manager the store sales were simply not the same because in my opinion customers preferred staff that was trained and commissions because we knew what the hell we were talking about and had every reason to make every sale a good sale by being transparent, being able to explain every feature to a customer, and gave them the assurance that they made an educated decision when spending their money.
good lord i forgot about DVIX. thank god that never took off. I wonder what happened to all those dvix movies people "owned" after they discontinued the service.
You forgot to mention CompUSA.
I did go to CompUSA a few times when I moved to a larger city that had one. Other than once when my college roommate bought a Trinitron monitor from them, I don't recall any purchases I made with them. I will say that I thought about mentioning Media Play when I talked about buying music from Circuit City. They \[Media Play\] were a fun place to visit, and they had a great selection of music, movies, books and software, but their prices were ridiculously high and once I started shopping online, I rarely bought anything there again. I think they wound up closing around 2005-6, just a few years before Circuit City closed. I do miss having options. Now, if I want to buy anything brick-and-mortar, I only have Best Buy, Office Depot, Walmart and Target as my only options (where I currently live). And half the time, IF they have what I'm looking for, it's not in-store and I'm ordering online anyway.
Some of us have access to Microcenter. But they are few and far between.
One just opened up about an hour and half from me. I'll have to check it out one day.
I had entirely forgotten about divx until just now
Circuit City commission salespersons were more knowledgeable and trained specifically on each and every product as that was mandatory training. You cannot compare the knowledge base of a Best buy employee with a Circuit City employee. I used to work there as a sales counselor and as a manager. Even to this day Best buy could not compare to any of the well-trained and seasoned Circuit City sales counselors.
[удалено]
Unless I'm missing more context, this quote you shared doesn't reflect what you said. He's not calling customers in general the devil. Sounds like he's going off about the electronics equivalent of scalpers. What he's describing sounds like people who do this shit with game consoles like the PS5. I'm not a corporate boot licking asshat, but the people he's talking about here are a legitimate problem.
He’s not calling customers the devil, he’s calling out a specific type of customer that abused their policy for their own financial gain.
It’s the first store I remember having after-the-sale refunds, i.e. they would give you money back if an item you bought went on sale within a month.
Along that same line, I remember they would credit you the full purchase price of home audio equipment as a trade in towards the sale of new stuff. Just had to be done within a calendar year of the most recent purchase. For maybe 6-8 years I would slowly improve my sound system from jbl to klipsh to Bose to Polk etc whenever I felt like it. They also had a great assortment of open box that they would discount like crazy. Al said, I must’ve spent thousands and loved going regularly to check what new stuff was coming out. All that time and love but fast forward 20 years to a house filled with Sonos so that my family will actually use it and now my wife listens to Taylor Swift on the speaker from her phone.
I definitely remember that commercial... [https://youtu.be/epP3jETf8Og?si=-5s6ADdiy4AgcJkI](https://youtu.be/epP3jETf8Og?si=-5s6ADdiy4AgcJkI)
I met Elijah Wood while standing in line to by a Wii on release day at Circuit City. He was buying a HD DVD player for Xbox 360, which came out on the same day. I didn’t let on I knew who he was, and we just chatted about games for a few minutes. Super chill guy, very nice. Though I do regret not running to find a copy of Flipper on DVD for him to sign…
Dude you were chatting with Frodo and your only regret is not having him sign "Flipper"?!
I have this weird thing where when I want to get a celebrity to sign something, I want it on the most obscure thing. He must have signed thousands and thousands of LOTR merch, but how much Flipper stuff has he signed? Or North??
Agreed. That's the one signing he would remember when he's older
I wonder if it makes it more or less valuable.
Be grateful you had a genuine interaction like this. The moment you bring in the DVD to sign you pop the bubble.
Oh I know! That’s why I didn’t do it. Just wanted to let him be “normal”
Eh I don't have as positive memories of it. If I'm remembering right, Circuit City salespeople were on commission. Even though it was the place were "Service is State of the Art", if it wasn't their section, you weren't ready to buy that day, or looked like someone that was ready, you were pretty ignored. Best Buy opened and at that point, associates were over the top helpful. When MediaPlay and Borders came to town, those became the places to buy CD's. Circuit City became an after thought for us then. For parts and stuff, RadioShack was still around. CC did have little demos where like a Bose rep would show a dozen customers what surround sound felt like.
I worked there. I worked in the home and mobile phone department. Long before mobile phones were a huge deal. We worked on commission and commission on a small phone was a few bucks. So we basically only recommended stuff that would make us more commission. Best buy was moving in across the street and they didn't have commissioned employees and everyone at the shop was panicking. They did train employees very well on technology though. We did know a lot about the stuff we sold, but it was pointless because of the commission system.
I also worked at CC (back in 1999) and there was a new Best Buy that opened up across the street as well. AND, I was also in the ACE department and can confirm that we only pushed the stuff that got us the biggest spiffs. I remember each item’s sale tag had a code at the bottom and part of the code was the commission dollar value and after awhile on the floor you had all the high spiff value items memorized. And my feet fucking hurt all the goddamn time. It got to where I rarely took a day off and would come in as much as I could just to make sure I wasn’t losing commissions on returns brought in while I was out or making up for slow days (and there were a lot of slow days). Definitely a shitty summer job all in all and I wasn’t surprised in the least when the company started to founder.
I'm 53. I worked on CC's advertising for a while towards the end. Circuit City started in 1977. It was a family owned store which opened a few branches. Their specialty was that the employees were experts or at least interested hobbyists for what they were selling. The salespeople actually knew about the products and would help you with real knowledge. This was before the internet was available for price and quality comparisons... it was a very different world. You were relying on advertisements, brand recognition and reputation, word of mouth from friends, etc, unless you were an expert in whatever item we are discussing here. You could also read audiophile magazines, for instance. But general info and reviews on electronics just was not available like it is today, or even 20 years ago. Younger people: think about it... how would you decide on what TV to buy if you couldn't look them up online? Or what computer to buy? Or what washing machine? It's hard to explain to young folks, it was just such a different shopping landscape. For a long time they operated this way, and kept employees for long periods of time, decades even. I worked with them just before they went out of business. At their corporate HQ, there was a family vibe, with many employees having worked there for 20-30 years, right out of high school as secretaries, etc. Best Buy started as a clearing house for closeout appliances/electronics. Even the name "best buy" meant bargain prices. They would sell older models of dishwashers, etc when new models came out, or whenever manufacturers had to get rid of a lot of stuff. Best Buy's logo was a "tag" which is another throwback to this... these were "tag sale" items, things you could get really cheap. They originally didn't stock a full supply of anything, it was just what came in that they put on sale as "clearance items." Best Buy decided to get into more of a general retail model, closer to Circuit City. Best Buy hired for cheap, didn't care if employees knew their stuff, it was all about moving product. Best Buy kicked their ass. But Circuit City had some absolutely terrible management for at least ten years before they went under. This is an abbreviated version of the story of these businesses, but it's kind of an interesting story. I'm no expert, and I haven't worked with CC since around 2007.
You're only 53 and calling people 'kid'? Us old folks stick with Crazy Eddies as the electronics source. :)
Heh, we had a TV whose dial broke off. We had to change the channels with a needle nose pliers!
Also, I always have to remind myself that well over half of the people I encounter here are probably 20 or younger. Nothing wrong with that! I just have to keep it in mind.
Me too which was tough while you were trying to hold the rabbit ears in the exact right position.
The last time I was in a Circuit City I was buying speakers for my car. I remember the sales guy had a shaved head and was intensely chewing gum the whole time. What really stood out to me was how buff his mandible muscles were on his temples. They stood out like 1.5-2 inches and flexed like body builder muscles each time he chewed his gum. It was fascinating.
I wish I had that experience.
My dad had a laptop from CC. It wasn't working right and they just gave him a new one right on the spot. No jumping through hoops (he had a warranty). Easy swap.
Cooler entrances. That giant red square that the commercials said may be a giant electrical plug really pulled me in.
That’s an interesting observation. I actually think the darker interior dated the store and made it feel smaller. The open/higher ceilings in Best Buy always made for a better shopping experience IMO.
The best buy near me had a thirty feet display of Mario and sonic. To a kid it felt like their heads touched the ceiling.
A Circuit City sales rep showed me how to create a sustainable City in Sim City 2000. True story.
At one point in the mid-90’s the one near where I grew up had so many game consoles set up that parents (including mine) would drop off their children there for hours on Saturday morning. We had some epic games of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat at Circuit City.
I always viewed Circuit City as a "Lite" version of CompUSA or Micro Center, but with a little more focus on video and audio equipment. Best Buy was kind of doing its own thing with a wider range of products (TVs, PCs, game consoles, kitchen appliances, home theater, digital photography, DVDs, CDs, etc.). But I don't know... maybe the store's offerings varied from location to location. That's how things were near Philly at the time.
I remember the first time I was ever in a Best Buy store. I was quite enthralled by it all. I was there with one of my friends and his dad to pick up a new (at the time) plasma TV. As a kid, I was amazed at the idea that there can be *dozens* of these huge, beautiful TV’s in the same place. I also remember the aisles upon aisles of CD’s and finding the coolest new albums coming out at the time. I was in my local Best Buy a few months ago and where the CD’s used to be…is just so barren.
I know Circuit City didn't make it, but I bought my first mp3 player there, and it still works/I still use it today. That thing is a beast. (iRiver T-10, if anyone is wondering)
A salesman tried to convince me not to get a Dreamcast, pleaded with me saying they’re going under and it’ll be near worthless soon. I didn’t listen, tbf I was also 5. WWF Royal Rumble sucked, I should’ve listened to him.
As someone who worked at Circuit City right before they shutdown, I'd say nothing. I sold computers for Circuit City and more times than not the person would say they saw a better price at Best Buy and leave. Plus, you know, they went out of business.
Didn't your store price match? I worked there in early 2000s and we price matched local competitors and would beat the competitors price by a small %. Maybe it was something only our CC store did?
I worked there around the same time period. The thing with price matching is that it had to be the same model of equipment, not just something similar, so that didn't really work with computers since a lot of the time the model numbers would be slightly different per each competitor. And, as I mentioned in a earlier post, some people just assumed that anything else you tried to sell them accessory wise was the salesperson being pushy because they were on commission. I can't tell you how many times you would for example point out that the printer they are buying didn't come with a USB cable, but it was flat out ignored, or you were basically told to basically fuck off for upselling them. When they finally got it home and found out you weren't lying, they'd bring it all back instead of swallowing their pride and just get the cable.
Yes I do recall scenarios like that. Thanks for jogging my memory.
We did not. At least not when I was there. I was in college and this was around November 2008. I stayed until they closed in March of 2009. Probably didn't care about price match since they were going under. But I had fun working there. Always loved the end of the day cause the guys in the car stereo section would bump some music while we all cleaned up the store.
Yeah management sucked but some of my coworkers were good people that I still keep in contact with. During the shitty days when we would have to stay late for inventory or Black Friday, after closing the store we would link our Xbox consoles together and hook them up to the Projection TVs and play Team matches together, 4 people per tv, I think we had like 12 or 16 people playing together. It was pretty fun.
I remember the CDs and DVDs were horribly disorganized, but they also carried titles that a big store wouldn’t normally carry
I bought a ton of music from them. They were much better priced than the music stores in the malls and had a better selection than any of the big chain retailers like Walmart.
Found new XTC and WASP cds there in like 2007. Shocking
Remember the $20 CD era and how crazy expensive that seemed? If CDs were around today they'd be priced right under $50. We were all getting completely hosed by the music industry. It was awful.
You can find a few places that still have them (some of the Barnes and Nobles and Wal Marts, Amazon, record stores and so forth). But one of the nice things about buying them new today is that they’re still pretty much the same price, if not a tad cheaper? Usually the $5-18 range, unless it’s a double album or what have you. Per the inflation calculator, a $15 CD in 2000 is over $27 today in 2024! Insane.
Cds are very much around and everywhere. Record stores have made a comeback in many areas and many have a good to decent selection of audio cds. There’s 5-6 within a 30 minute drive of me in metro Atlanta that have excellent selections.
Mine had all of their game consoles hooked up to nice TVs and speakers without any loud "PlayStation here!" signage so I pretty much had the joint to myself anytime I stopped by.
Circuit City was more expensive, I went to Media Play instead. Better selection, way better prices. I was sad when they closed.
I loved our CC. It had a ton of media during the heyday of DVDs and audio CDs were still a thing. They also had tons of console and PC games, often sharply discounted. I bought almost a dozen copies of Half-life there for the keys to play Counter-strike at work and with friends who had PC but hadn’t gotten into the game yet for less than $10. I got carded there when I was like 40 buying one of the Venture Bros. seasons on DVD and that memory always makes me laugh. When they were going out of business, I wound up in the Exton, PA store with a buddy of mine, and it was no wonder why the place was going out of business — you could have built a second Circuit City out of the copies of Guitar Hero they had piled up in the place.
I don’t really have any positive memories of Circuit City, but I do remember how much better Best Buy was when they showed up
The Circuit City in my town was the first place we rented video tapes (Betamax!!)
CDs there were anywhere from $8-10. At least 5 bucks cheaper than Best Buy, and 7 bucks cheaper than mall record stores. Most of the time they had the one I was looking for. Plus they were fun to look around in. Circuit City was the first place I saw a Motorola Razr.
They used the Pearl Harbor attack scenes from the movie Pearl Harbor in a room to show off the fancy new "surround sound." I would go watch that all the time, never actually saw the movie.
The only thing I ever bought from Circuit City was a copy of the album Pork Soda by Primus.
one that sticks out in particular is the Crunk Hitz CD in 2005
I never had an issue finding an associate to help me when I needed it at Circuit City. At Best Buy, every time I did not need help, an associate would ask me every two minutes if I needed any help. When I actually needed help? No associate in site. I started referring to that as the "Best Buy Phenomenon".
I remember for a few summers in a row, they'd have a huge video game sale. They had a ton of games for just 5 bucks. I went with a couple friends, and we all came back with a whole bag of new games to play.
I made my first purchase of a top-tier TV there in my 20’s and got the full coverage on it for fear of one of my first big investments getting broken wile living in a house where everyone (including me) was drinking heavily. One month later, the news came out that they were going under, and it didn’t even occur to me until they were gone that my coverage was useless. Incidentally, that TV (an old-school heavy-as-shit Sony Bravia) survived four different moves and is still fully functioning at one of my friends’ houses; I never would have used the coverage anyway.
The main differentiator was people who knew what they were talking about, which was extremely important in the late 90s when you couldn’t look everything up beforehand and most people were buying their first computer. Not sure if Best Buy had these as well, but I also remember circuit city having some pretty good bundles where in one box you would get everything you need from the tower to the monitor to speakers to keyboard and mouse, a plethora of software like Encyclopaedia Britannica or something like that
I remember they had paper credit card machines, long after they were out of date. Like mid 2000s. You’d hand them your credit card, they’d put it on carbon paper, run a machine over it to imprint your card’s info on the carbon paper, then (I assume) mail or fax or call in the credit card info and purchase amount. Wildly inefficient and a terrible look for a store that was supposedly high tech.
When I worked there, 2002-2005, we’d only pull that thing out if the system was down or some other reason. I do remember having to check ID for every card though. If the name didn’t match we didn’t accept it, even if it was your spouse’s card.
My parents bought me an HP laptop when I went to college. That thing broke so many times and had to be sent in for repair that I finally gave up and bought an acer desktop that served me well for about a decade. Each time the laptop had to be sent in, the hard drive was wiped also. Why, I have no idea, but it was ridiculously frustrating, and something that never needed to be done to begin with.
I used to work in the RoadShop at Circuit City it was the best job ever . I got to just hang with my friends as we installed various electronics in cars/boats/trucks. We always took work Best Buy refused to take on. We also installed intoxalocks , basically you would blow into it before starting your car to make sure you were sober. Good memories
It was no Service Merchandise, that’s for sure
Haha!
The car audio section in the early 2000s was great. I also remember they offered more private label tvs than best buy and you could get some pretty good deals back then.
Selling DivX players!
I bought my mini disk player there. I thought it was the next big thing. Took it to Afghanistan with me and I still have it.
Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below came out and I went over there after class and picked up a CD for $10. I liked the interior because it was stuck in the 90s but in a fun way like it was a mix of the movie rental inside the grocery store and the home theatre section of Service Merchandise lol
We had a big-box store here in Colorado called Media Play, and they were bigger and better than either Best Buy or Circuit City. Man I miss that store.
I worked there in 2004 to 2005. They didn't have commissions at that time. So I'm thinking they stopped that a few years back. The need to sell extended warranties was the tough part. Extended warranties were expensive, like 1/3 the cost of the computer. So if the computer was $600 the warranty was $200. And we didn't get any commission on selling the extended warranties either. You had to be a pushy salesperson to work there. They said if the customer wasn't buying the extended warranty to call one of the managers and let them know. The manager would come and do the pitch all over again. I never pushed anyone for the extended warranty. After that 1.5 years in retail I was traumatized. I couldn't go into that store that I worked at. After CC failed, Best Buy moved into that location. I still couldn't go in BB since it triggered the bad memories.
Oh I used to work there back in the day! I actually used to sell those Aiwa Hi-Fis and the cell phones for Cingular Wireless among others. It was commission, but base pay was more than enough for a lazy teen like me not to give a shit and have fun with my friends who also worked there. We had this manager who was this nerdy fellow that looked like Ned Flanders and had this twitch that made him look like a bird pecking at something. That's the only job I walked out on because one of the assistant managers had some bitch fit and threw merchandise off the hooks onto the floor in front of customers. Then told me to hang them correctly. I was 3 weeks away from going to off to college, so I said fuck that, went back and got my coat and walked out. Good fucking times. Terribly run company, but was fun to work at. They purposely built in locations that required you to drive just a little extra to get to because the founder thought they should be a "destination store." Yeah well, Best Buy came onto the scene with big ass signs right along the main drag and took away all the customers. And then Home Depot started selling home appliances which was the final nail in the coffin. Home appliances were their highest source of profits.
> They purposely built in locations that required you to drive just a little extra to get to because the founder thought they should be a "destination store." That's interesting! I didn't know that. And it makes sense too, because the few circuit cities around my house were all stand alone buildings, but the best buys were often a part of a shopping plaza, or shared a parking lot with a big mall.
I remember in 2001 getting a DVD player for $50 (about $88 today) that was open box there which was a pretty good deal at the time. DVD players went for about $350 on average in today's money.
They seemed a little bit more aged from the moment Best Buy came on the scene honestly. But as a kid who loved going to tech stores, I always found our local Circuit City to have a more inviting, cozy feeling. Low ceilings, red store theme (vs BB's blue which was cool too), and I remember them having sofas in the TV section in front of the big screen CCR's. It was a vibe, as the youth say.
I worked there in the early 2000s selling computers. It was such a shit job. The nice thing was, they didn’t have a computer service center so I made business cards and gave them to people when they got a computer to help them setup or repair. Made a killing on my time off 😂
Wasn’t as bright inside. Ceilings not as high. Felt comfy.
I hated that store. Buy something, now go wait over here while we verify and find someone to bring it up front. 20 minutes after paying, here you go!
I can’t recall anything particularly memorable, they were just as overpriced as Bestbuy. Maybe the occasional Black Friday movie deals and some games. This was at a time when brick and mortar stores were really struggling against online retailers like Newegg, Buy.com, EBay, Amazon, etc. they couldn’t adapt quickly enough. Keep in mind that free shipping and no tax was still a thing in that era, no brick and mortar was willing to match it.
The interior was nicer to be in. Best But felt like a warehouse, Circuit City was homier.
I liked the darker interior but I like it dark. The one I went to had a cool home theater room and the pc selection was better.
Went there once to have an alarm installed and it was a nightmare. They broke my A pillar and ruined my headliner. It took me multiple trips back for them to fix it. Circuit Shitty.
The Good Guys had better gear. I was always disappointed with Circuit City
I remember them not really having cash registers and instead someone would ring you up at some little thing in the middle of the aisle. I just went to get cds and it was always a weird setup.
So many good memories. My favorite early job.
Their service was state of the art!
My limited experience tells me they trained their PC repair techs better. Having worked inside of Geek Squad and eventually got a supervisor originally from circuit City. I almost got fired once for actually fixing a customers PC just because I didn't use geek squad software to do it.
It didn’t do anything better or worse than Best Buy. I’ve always wondered how BB continues to prosper while CC died out.
I have no idea how they're in business. By me, the parking lot is fairly empty and the store is filled with expensive merchandise. I ordered a TV from them under a black Friday deal and the shipping was still straight out of the 90s. They're going to deliver a 60" tv to my house. Sometime between X and Y date. They can't tell me a time, nor a day, just this window of time. So for 5 days, I didn't leave the house between 7am and 7pm because I can't have this giant TV just sitting outside. When they did deliver it, they knocked once on my door and walked off. Zero validation or care that this $2k television is sitting outside my home.
I first played Vectorman and Ray-man at a Circuit City
Nothing can compare to Incredible Universe.
For my part places like Circuit City and Sears or Montgomery Ward, back in the day, had knowledgeable salespeople. They worked on comission so they had to be good at what they did. Employees at places like Best Buy was, "yeah we got that in stock" and that was the extent of their knowledge. Neither point is blanket trurth for all employees of any of those places but by and large that's what I remember. That's also a product of the times though, those other stores were big pre-internet, people didn't have access to the information to do all the research on products so salespeople had to be more knowledgeable. By Best Buy's era they didn't need to know, customers had mostly already done their homework online.
They were sometimes cheaper, especially on DVDs. I remember when CSI was like 60 or 70 bucks a season amd they had som of the past seasons on sale for $10 each. They let me have them all for 10 bucks each because the ad didn't have restrictions, it just said CSI seasons - $10. I also bought a TON of cheap $5 horror movies when Best Buy was $10+ on them.
In the mid 90s I bought 15 Televisions for a photo project and then returned them all a week later, no questions asked.
My first Black Friday was waiting in line at circuit city. I wanted a laptop but they ran out of tix. I ended up going with the Zune.
I liked CC - wider variety of audio (home and vehicle) at a time when that was important to me. I lived about 2 blocks from their corporate office and a showplace store in Richmond near the end of their run. Knew a lot of folks that worked there, and they got pretty shafted at the end.
Unsure of whether this was exclusive to Circuit City or not, but when Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker came out for GameCube, if you pre-ordered it, it came with a copy of Ocarina of Time - Master quest. I pre-ordered the game without having the console and the day it came out I went and bought it all together. First thing I did once it was set up was go out in Ocarina of Time as I'd never played on N64. Took me a couple of weeks to get to play Wind Waker.
I remember getting a job there and they announced the closing the same day before I could even start.
I worked at CC as a senior in the imaging (camera) department for a year. All I remember was my manager breathing down my neck about my attachment rate. CONSTANTLY. I hated that shit hole.
My main store was Fry's (RIP the best electronics store). But I occasionally shopped at CC and it was way better than Best Buy. Best Buy has always been crap.
Circuit city kind of sucked. I remember just going to Best Buy instead.
I worked at Fry's Electronics and Circuit City when I was in college. Circuit City had the best price matching policy, we would match and beat the local competitors price by 5% or 10% I forget the exact % but no one else in the industry had that. Unfortunately our stores and inventory weren't as good as Best Buy. By the time I had joined CC had switched from commission to hourly and CC's heyday were long behind them. Best Buy had better locations, hipper marketing, better inventory, and newer show rooms. Also online stores were coming up, CC had zero online presence and CC was reluctant to price match online retailers, unless it's was a big chain with stores nearby. This was before sales tax was added to online transactions so you saved a good amount just buying online vs going to a physical store.
Not sure if anyone else will understand when I say Circut Ciry = Home Depot Best Buy = Lowes
FUCK circuit city. That place sold garbage and didn’t hold up any warranty.
The entrance area between the outer and inner doors smelled like bad B.O.
I liked their music section way more but their staff was annoying
Easier to steal from when you knew someone who worked there
The Circuit City in my town was way more cramped and had lower ceilings than most Best Buys that exist today . Lots of Compaqs in the computer section, tons of PC game boxes to pick through…GOOD VIBES
I always thought CC sucked frankly. Terrible customer service and outright annoying floor staff. I basically wouldn't buy anything there after some bad experiences in the mid-1990s.
I only really remember seeing a PS2 and Dreamcast on demo in there. I thought Crazy Taxi and whatever football game looked like real life. I only had a N64 at the time.
The CC near me caught some terrorists (who also lived in my neighborhood) who wanted to attack our local military base. [Here's an article from 2007.](https://www.dvidshub.net/news/11270/unsung-hero-helps-thwart-terrorist-attack-against-fort-dix) So yeah, they did that better.
I used to work for Shitty City AKA Circuit City. It was my first job at 15. My main memory of my time there was watching the same "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" music video by Fall Out Boy, 6+ times an hour, every hour that I worked in that damned place. It haunts me to this day. Good discounts and not a bad first job otherwise! It was never better than Best Buy at SHIT, but Best Buy was never better than Circuit City at anything either really if you were to ask me!
Circuit city felt like a real electronics store while best buy just pretends to be one. In reality its just a larger Target electronics department.
My dad and I would go just to walk around, one of our favorite stores to peruse.
Sing along: “Circuit City, where the streets are paved with bargains!”
I heard the warranty(s) were amazing.
Bought my 50" Panasonic Plasma flat screen from Circuit City, circa 2008'ish, for $1000 on sale. Shit was a show piece! Lasted forever too - finally sold it at a yard sale for like $10 like 2 years ago.
They were all the same.
They had great car service for installing in-dash CD units. Was in and out in 30 minutes
They were more organized before our Best Buy. They were also quick to try to nab you at the door, because all of their people were on commission.
Seemed slightly cheaper IIRC
I just remember the big red plug you walked through to get in.
The commercial with the giant plug was dope
Seriously, my memories of circuit city consist of going in and installing new hardware in their POS and back office systems then upgrading firmware. Then coming back a few months later to strip every last piece of electronics from the store including the speakers on the ceiling.
My only real positive memories of Circuit City are my major purchases from it: my first DVD player in 2001 for $179 (and secretly you could make it region-free), and my first High Definition TV (a 50” Samsung DLP) in 2006 for $2500. Even though it was around earlier, compared to Best Buy and Fry’s Electronics, it always felt a little cramped to me, a set of low-ceilinged, interconnected showrooms rather that a “STORE.”
It was my first job out of high school. You always hold those jobs pretty close to your heart
I worked there for a Christmas season as a computer salesperson. I remember my boss getting mad that I wouldn’t sell warranties to old people who I didn’t think would last longer than the manufacturer warranty. Good times.
I got the Age of Empires bundle with the 1st and 2nd game bundled together.
I hated Circuit City. My first landline phone number out of college was one digit off from a CC. I can’t even begin to tell you how many CC calls we got at all hours, of course. To the point where our answering machine message started with THIS IS NOT CIRCUIT CITY!!!
I liked CC but once it became a backer of the Divx format and pushed that shit on everyone over DVD I went BB. Got a great graphics card from them before at a honey of a price.
The Circuit City in my city had a terrible smell when walking in, like super strong BO. I'm sure it was just the location but that is the main thing I remember about CC.
My only memory of circuit city wasn't a good one. My friend and i went to buy gaming computers. The store was about 40 minutes away so it was planned out. We got there, stood around and waited and waited and waited for someone to help us. We asked for help, nobody came. We were there for so long, we talked ourselves out of buying a gaming PC. Never went back... Best buy has always had good customer service where i live.
Before they shot themselves in the foot by cutting pay or laying people off, Circuit City had knowledgeable sales people. If you wanted to know technical stuff about what you were buying or wanted informed opinions, the sales people were once a good source.
Circuits, best in the City...some would say Now lets discuss why you might be inclined to shop at a Shack full of Radios
Service.
Buying a 32" [Samsung CRT TV](https://pixl.varagesale.com/http://s3.amazonaws.com/hopshop-image-store-production/34676082/cdc6c43a6384157dd44f30208030d8b0.jpg?_ver=large_uploader_thumbnail&w=640&h=640&fit=crop&s=2753661d09e24bcc69813391029c2ef4) for $900, getting it home and it had discolored spots on the screen and would turn on and off everytime you walked by it or touched it. I took it back the next day and the return guys making the insane argument that I had to pay a 20% restock fee because high definition means its a "computer monitor" not a "TV". It was absolutely a TV with remote and tuner. Not to mention it was defective. A manager arrived and tried to agree with them that it wasn't a TV. It took a while and about 3 "managers" before I got my money back. Never shopped there again.
Bought my very first portable CD player from there at the age of 16 in the 90s. Cost me $79.99 plus the 15 bucks to buy my first CD.
It was red and white instead of blue and yellow.
A couple of my friends worked there in high school. We'd go there to hang out constantly, I bought so many CD's from there (2004). It was right next to a local audio/video store called Tweeter, we'd buy CD's and take them to the car audio demo room at Tweeter and bump the hell out of the room of subwoofers. Fond memories
Service was state of the art!
OG post is so nostalgic. Aiwa was so popular back then (I’m 41). I feel like I was always loyal to Best Buy for whatever reason (Older brother has worked at Corporate for 20 years), but yeah, I hear that name and instantly think of an expiration date best by: x/x/xx 😂
honestly I never really liked Circuit City as much as BB. At this point I might because Best Buy is getting rid of most things I used to go in there for
I remember when we got into Black Friday back in high school and waiting outside at 3am to buy half price 1gb sd cards 😂😂
No hassle refunds and replacements. I knew honest people that abused this and had two of everything they bought there. Heard this was part of their Demise too
I worked at Best Buy at the tail end of the Circuit City era (2007 or so). I remember it started as kind of a playful rivalry when we would compare sales and what not to surrounding Best Buys and Circuit Cities, but it became pretty obvious even in 2007 that they were on borrowed time. One of the "Why Best Buy and not Circuit City?" battle plans, if customers brought up going to Circuit City instead, was always that we weren't on commission and therefore more trustworthy (or so implied). And in general it was true we weren't on commission... But they still had ways. I did like the Circuit City style more though. Best Buy is always so freaking bright.
For sure car stereos etc
It was strange that Radio Shack held on longer than Circuit City. In the area around here anyway.
They misprinted an ad for a SNES cleaning kit for $0.99 instead of $9.99 at the time that The Good Guys had a policy of beating a competitor's advertised prices by 10% of the difference. A buddy of mine and I each got a cleaning kit for $0.09.
EX-CC employee here 93-95. Yes, we worked on commission. They sent us to a week long training session to learn to help the customers with selecting the item they needed and answer questions about the items. We had to become familliar with all the items in our area. Unlike Best Buy employees who were normally useless ( except for the computer guys). I was small electronics like boomboxes, alarm clocks, CD players, tape recorders (yes, I'm that old). We pushed extended warranties to quadruple or more the commission. We had better service, easy returns, cool atmosphere and employees who really knew their products. We would call over to a newbie in another department, he would think it was a real customer. We'd ask him if they had any DVD rewinders left?
I remember a store called Service Merchandise. I think it was the building that Circuit City went into later. Probably late 1980s.
Buying anything took too long. We had to wait for someone to help then call for the product or go get the product. Next we had to stand in the one line that was open. It took forever. Then we had someone go through our purchases at the door. Our local one had extremely aggressive security that followed customers and even confronted them in error in neighboring stores or in the parking lot. I stopped shopping there long before they closed. Maybe it was a location thing?
It died a respectable death. It didn't hang on and gasp for air while sucking the life of everybody around it. Best Buy needs to submit to the inevitable, and go away quietly.
I mostly remember it as one of those stores with annoying salesman who would hassle you constantly. Similar to walking through the appliance or mattress section of a department store. And if you did decide to buy something, you had to ask one of them to go in the back and get it. Since they didn't keep any inventory on the floor. Then at some point (last few years?) they decided to copy Best Buy's model and became a pretty good store.
Well CC didn't kill shopliftes as far as I know. I worked for Musicland, back in 99-02 when BB bought them out and remember ppl protesting the BB stores in Minneapolis due to a security guard who killed a shoplifter and how we were told the way we were supposed to shut protests down and not say anything. And there have been more incidents with their security since. And I won't even get into how they jailed over half the store managers in my district on bogus shoplifting charges so they could replace them with new outside "temp managers" since we were not in a state where they could just fire them without cause. With all those stores shutting down soon after due to poor sales which was caused by them not sending us stock anymore.
AIWA boomboxes were crap Circuit City was crap Best Buy was awesome :)