Circuit City's liquidation sale: long lines, few bargains | Hacker News Reader

Circuit City's liquidation sale: long lines, few bargains

technologizer.com

These kinds of sales are usually handled by liquidation companies. Their first act is to close the store, mark everything up 100% then mark everything down 50-70%. Each week after that, they take 10% off until the item reaches an actual total discount of about 10% of the original pre-liquidation price. All that doesn't sell at this price gets packed into 18 wheelers and sold at auction. You will then find the items in "ebay stores" set up by the next creatures in this food chain.

They don't bargain, you don't get a deal. Its retail theater. A play in one act designed to skim the cream before the real action starts on the auction block where the entire store is sold, lights, display cases, merchandise and all.

This information gleaned by talking to an employee of said liquidation firm during the closing of a hardware store chain in the area.

This isn't totally true. When CompUSA was going out of business, great deals could be found on the final days before the stores closed. I got a brand new MacBook, worth 1299 at the time, for 359 and a Velodyne subwoofer (299 normally) for 35 bucks.

I think generally it's hard to find deals though.

I kind of looks like circuit city isn't doing it this way either, but you can never be too sure. Usually the liquidators either hire on some of the old staff, or dress their people in the stores old uniforms. The best way to tell is to find an item you know was $100 last week, marked $199 and then discounted 50% off.

One things usually certain though. Its not an everything must go!!! sale like you are lead to believe. They're more than happy to truck all the good stuff off and sell it elsewhere if they think they're not going to get near retail for it during the "sale".

Think of it like one last "President's Day Blowout!" before the parking lot starts growing weeds.

I went to the store closing in Palo Alto in December on the second to last day. Almost "everything" was 70% off... but there was hardly anything left except a lot of bad movies and CDs.

They wouldn't even bargain with me for a display model of a clock radio that was missing all it's accessories and still cost more than it would have on Amazon.

Overall, it was lame.

I went to one that closed earlier in the year. The problem is that the prices don't even beat online prices. For example, there was an external 1TB hard drive for $150 (after 50% off) which you can easily get online for $100.

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