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.