Circuit City files for bankruptcy | Hacker News Reader

Circuit City files for bankruptcy

news.cnet.com

14 pointsashishk14 comments

What exactly happened to circuit city anyway? Were they over leveraged? Holding auction rate securities as cash equivalents? Or have they just not been selling much for a long time?

Best Buy was eating their lunch, breakfast, and dinner. So in response, they laid off their highest paid sales staff and replaced them with cheaper alternatives. Even the reduction in payroll expenses couldn't save them (might have been too little too late). Not only were the competing with BestBuy, but also with more efficient competitors such as Amazon and NewEgg.

Ahhh yes now I remember. Stupid accounting tricks: look how much money we saved!

I think it's primarily that Best Buy came in and took all of their business. For all of its faults (and there are plenty), BB runs a pretty good ship.

Good. I've been frustrated by large consumer electronics stores for years. Customer choice has been steadily decreasing to the point that I simply refuse to buy new things.

Examples:

- A couple of years ago it was virtually impossible to get a black colored TV (in Europe), they were all silver.

- Now you cannot get CRT TVs or monitors any longer.

- Practically all notebook screens are wide screen, glossy and with an incredibly poor dpi.

I rather spend my money elsewhere.

Submitter: "finally" as in you were hoping they were going to file? Or finally as in they were teetering on the brink for a long time and just fell over the edge?

Best Buy is the evil around my locale, so I don't have any negative associations with CC, which is why I ask.

Probably a 20/80 mix, 80 being the latter =)

CompUSA is my evil after several really bad experiences with their customer service.

I just feel like it was inevitable.

They've been teetering on the brink for several reasons - primarily their inability to compete with Best Buy. Their locations, architecture, and advertising couldn't match the sophistication and forethought given to Best Buy's. The last two are especially obvious in the case of older Circuit City stores.

I don't much care for either of them, I've had bad experience all around. I generally only buy things here and there online. But it's still quite apparent that Circuit City has been playing catch up for quite some time.

Why no bailout? >:)

What, no bailout plan for the retail electronics industry?

Seriously, didn't they just announce closing 150+ stores a week ago? Why not file then? They had to know it was coming.

There were questions on whether or not they could get the credit to actually file for bankruptcy. This is chapter 11, not 7, so they are attempting to restructure their finances and stay in business, not liquidate.

yeah, all the CC's in my city were looking depressing anyway, guess they got put out of there misery.

No. It's Chapter 11.

Closings for 150 stores were announced last week; if your local stores weren't on that list, they're not going to go (yet).

yeah sorry, my comment worked in my mind, cause I drive past a man holding a "everything must go" sign in front of our local CC

Reply on news.ycombinator.com