High end appliance and electronics stores

[fan-of-fans]

I noticed that many of the high end/big box electronic/appliance stores have closed. Circuit City, Nobody Beats the Wiz, The Incredible Universe, more recently HH Gregg. I guess Best Buy is doing ok. But many are gone now.

And then Radio Shack - we have one left here and it is staying, it's privately owned in a small town.

Don't know much about the independent chains, guess they are holding on.

I think the 1990s was when these places got big, then after the internet boom in the late 90s they started having issues. We got a Circuit City in 2007 - barely remember it, before long the chain closed.

The bigger cities have the posh showrooms selling the high end and European brands. Not much market for that here - mostly GE, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, Kenmore, LG, Samsung.

 

[human]

Yeah, around here, the choices for major appliances are basically limited to Best Buy, Lowe's and Home Depot. We have a Sears and a Sears Outlet (separate company, apparently) but they're living on borrowed time. I've heard more than one person say recently they wouldn't consider buying appliances from Sears because the company likely isn't expected to be around long enough to honor the warranty. I've also read that JCPenney is getting back into the appliance game in select markets after more than 20 years of concentrating on soft lines, apparently trying to fill the void being left by Sears. There's also a new player in town called Conn's. They opened up a year or two ago and I know nothing about them. I just hope their name doesn't describe their business practices. And of course, we won't even talk about those exploitative bottom feeders like Rent-A-Center.

 

[fan-of-fans]

Yeah, we have Home Depot, Lowes and Sears, which basically have the same things. I like Sears best though, they seemed more knowledgeable about what they were selling, at least than Home Depot. (Just my observation here). We also have two independent dealers which seem pretty good and know their product. Then we have Badcock furniture, a smaller chain with stores just about everywhere here - haven't been in there in a long time. I remember the old commercial jingle ending "Buy With Confidence from the People Who Care!"

We also have another furniture store chain - they sell appliances too, but from the prices I see in the ads they send, I don't know how they can compete with anyone. They do seem to offer no credit check financing, so that must be what the deal is with the high prices. They sell BOL models for what a middle or upper-middle model would be at the other places.

Never been to Rent-A-Center, wouldn't use them. Would rather buy used if I had to.

 

[fan-of-fans]

Kenmore

Sometimes I wonder about that too. I look at a lot of real estate, and I still see Kenmore appliances being installed in houses that have been remodeled or flipped. Sometimes makes me wonder. Don't usually see a lot of people in Sears' appliance department as I used to, maybe just not when I'm in there. There salespeople seem more helpful though than the other big box places.

I've never been to a Best Buy.

 

[human]

Rent-A-Center = Ripoff Center

Rent-A-Center is a chain that preys on the economically vulnerable, offering rent-to-own plans with seemingly low weekly payments that go on and on and on to eventually add up to paying four or five times what the item would cost elsewhere, that is, if the customer can actually keep up with the payments to avoid having the item repossessed.

 

[vacuumlad1650]

I've been to Radio Shack maybe 3 times over the past 10 years. My grandpa used to pick up everything there for me between visits to him. Last one I went to was earlier this month, I drove about an Hour to find one. I needed an External Caller ID for my landline desk phone.