Do ever go to Fry's Electronics?

I know of Fry's but I had never been in one until tonight. I'm in Indianapolis right now. By It was a beautiful sunny day so I decided to take a walk this evening. I came upon a Fry's so I went in.

The first thing I noticed was how large it was. It was easily three times the size of a Best Buy. Next, I started to notice maintenance issues. Two out of four urinals were out of commission. One out of four sinks did not work. As I started to look around, the store looked dated, however it looked like it had some good days in its past. For example, just inside the front doors was a replica of the first car to ever win the Indianapolis 500. As I walked around, I thought about the extreme overhead they have. The size of the store combined with inventory costs must really weigh them down. Yet, they know they must compete with the internet. There were signs all over stating they would match prices. I am sure a lot of their inventory has a painfully low turnover rate.

I also noticed what a dump it was. There were carts all over the place full of stock that was presumably marked down. It was poorly displayed and probably ignored by most customers. Plus, there was all the crap. The PC technicians had a work area out with the customers instead of fairly hidden like at Best Buy. As you can imagine, it was a mess. There were also mini work areas throughout the store for salespeople. Not only did they look like a mess, would you believe this tech store was still having there employees use 17" CRT monitors with matching cream colored equipment?

If this store is representative of others, this chain must be on life support.

That store sounds like it is worse than the ones here, but yeah, it is beyond its prime. Back in the day of building your own rig, there was no better store and there was nothing more exciting than getting a new one. You can still find some great deals there. We got our big TV there and felt like we ripped them off. Otherwise, forget customer service, forget being able to find it. Then again, I say that, went about 3 months ago to get another cable modem. Had a great experience and walked away with a great cable modem/wifi router combo that beat the crap out of what we had.

Fry's is not and from what i can tell was never a real store. They put up walls, and a roof. Most of what goes in a store is bought and paid for by the companies that sell stuff in the store. Don't think of Fry's as a retail store. Think of it as a flea market that looks like a retail store. Fry's operating overhead is actually fairly small since they don't pay for the infrastructure in the store other than your basic shelving and the building itself.

I have built fixtures that have gone into Fry's but I built them for the vendor and the vendor actually went in and installed it, and have their own sales people there. They just lease the space. Best Buy has started to do this as well. A lot of what you see in a Best Buy store for displays is not owned by Best Buy but by the vendors. With the exception of some tables and the racking, a lot of what you see is of no cost to Best Buy. The difference between these stores is that Best Buy actually has tight control over what the vendors bring to their stores. There are rules and approval processes to get displays in a Best Buy that Fry's does not have.

If I can't buy it from newegg.com or Amazon, I probably don't own it.

I went to Fry's in Renton, Wa. a few years ago with jitBob. It was truly an awesome place, and they had EVERYTHING a "technophile" could ask for.

I used to shop at Fry's from time to time. There's one in Concord and one in Sacramento - six of one half a dozen of the other as far as distance. But I have to cross a toll bridge to get to Concord so I would only go to that one if I was already in the area.

Pinnacle, your description reminds me of what I would see at Walmart. Not so much the maintenance, but there's always huge boxes in the aisle, like they have no place to keep them until they stock shelves. It's always dirty and it smells like they never clean, if you get my drift.

Fry's does not have a warehouse, thus the mess. It goes from the dock to the floor.

We never had one but I always wished we did, then newegg came along...

MicroCenter. If you have one near you, that place is NewEgg in a brick and mortar

Best store. I have made a ton of money selling their refurb computers to small businesses. Organized, and good prices.