All Electronics in LA is CLOSING

[themadhippy]

High taxes, rents and car parking charges have made this inevitable. It's being going on for over 25 years now.

Thats certainly aided the decline ,and it almost appears a catch 22 situation,income from town centre  goes down so council  increases parking charges and rates to try and maintain there previous income levels.Also it dosnt help when the supermarket eases  the path through planning by bundling a much needed school/relief road/community centre that the council cant afford ,into the plans.

[bdunham7]

we dont have a butchers , bakers,greengrocers  or fish monger any more

Pardon my ignorance as I don't get to the UK often enough--but I thought by now that all shops are Tesco?

[dobsonr741]

come to the uk and you can already see it,the town i live in has  6 supermarkets around the outskirts ,we dont have a butchers , bakers,greengrocers  or fish monger any more

Something is different in Stockholm. Plenty of small shops still doing great.

[Rick Law]

I bet we will see this in many more areas besides electronics. I think groceries are next ...

come to the uk and you can already see it,the town i live in has  6 supermarkets around the outskirts ,we dont have a butchers , bakers,greengrocers  or fish monger any more so supermarket is the only option,the once thriving town centre is a wasteland  of charity shops nail bars ,vape centres or boarded up  stores and the heaving market twice a week now consists of 3 or 4 stalls.

High taxes, rents and car parking charges have made this inevitable. It's being going on for over 25 years now.

I've heard California has effectively decriminalised low value shoplifting, which is partly responsible for the decline in retail.

The shoplifting is a definite issue in CA and other States that adopted this "forgiving" approach.  Anything under (around) $950 is a civil offense like a parking ticket.  Police would not even come when you call them for such crime occurring in your store.  Adding to the "leakage", it attracts the wrong kinds.  They just camp out by the store, go in to grab what they need, and go back out to their tents.  No too many real paying shoppers want to walk around homeless tents so as to get into a store to do proper shopping.

CNN was make a news story about that:
"CNN witnesses 3 alleged thefts in 30 minutes while reporting on shoplifting"


Not just small businesses, even high-end chains are closing:
"...The Westfield San Francisco Centre, previously a downtown San Francisco shopping mecca that once housed over 70 top-tier retail brands, is pulling the plug and turning the keys back over to its lenders after defaulting on its $558 million loan..."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2023/06/14/westfield-mall-joins-the-mass-retail-exodus-out-of-san-francisco/

I have relatives in CA.  I was told Oakland is worst!  Even Santa Barbara (where rich and famous live, folks like Harry and Megan in Montecito which is an area within Santa Barbara), Palm Springs (retirement place of choice for many Hollywood stars), and other cities are having problems and increasing in magnitude and frequency.

With or without on-line commerce, I can't imagine how an Electronics store stay open in such "forgiving" environment.  A tiny package can easily worth over $100 or even $900.  A shoplifter can walk out the store with his/her pockets hardly full or heavy, and the store is out almost a thousand dollars...

[Zero999]

we dont have a butchers , bakers,greengrocers  or fish monger any more

Pardon my ignorance as I don't get to the UK often enough--but I thought by now that all shops are Tesco?

Far from it. Tesco might be the most popular supermarket, but most shops are run by other companies. The nearest shop to me is Sainsbury's and my parents' nearest shop is a co-op.

I bet we will see this in many more areas besides electronics. I think groceries are next ...

come to the uk and you can already see it,the town i live in has  6 supermarkets around the outskirts ,we dont have a butchers , bakers,greengrocers  or fish monger any more so supermarket is the only option,the once thriving town centre is a wasteland  of charity shops nail bars ,vape centres or boarded up  stores and the heaving market twice a week now consists of 3 or 4 stalls.

High taxes, rents and car parking charges have made this inevitable. It's being going on for over 25 years now.

I've heard California has effectively decriminalised low value shoplifting, which is partly responsible for the decline in retail.

The shoplifting is a definite issue in CA and other States that adopted this "forgiving" approach.  Anything under (around) $950 is a civil offense like a parking ticket.  Police would not even come when you call them for such crime occurring in your store.  Adding to the "leakage", it attracts the wrong kinds.  They just camp out by the store, go in to grab what they need, and go back out to their tents.  No too many real paying shoppers want to walk around homeless tents so as to get into a store to do proper shopping.

What's the reasoning behind such an absurd idea? Is police funding an issue? I would have thought all the shops closing would result in less tax revenue for public services such as the police.

[bdunham7]

What's the reasoning behind such an absurd idea?

Dismantling the carceral state, of course!

[nctnico]

come to the uk and you can already see it,the town i live in has  6 supermarkets around the outskirts ,we dont have a butchers , bakers,greengrocers  or fish monger any more

Something is different in Stockholm. Plenty of small shops still doing great.

From what I've seen this varies from country to country. In France and Italy you can find lots of small stores. I think it mainly depends on what people are willing to pay, how much shop owners need to pay for rent and whether shops can keep people coming in.

I buy most stuff online because local shops typically don't have what I want to buy. And if they have, it is way more expensive compared to buying something online. The only two shops I visit in the city center are the icecream shop and a shop that has all kinds of DIY stuff (but they close due to the owners retiring). The rest of the shops in the city center is just clothes and shoes which I buy online because the choice in the shops in minimal.

[Rick Law]

...
What's the reasoning behind such an absurd idea? Is police funding an issue? I would have thought all the shops closing would result in less tax revenue for public services such as the police.

Laws are made by politicians and politicians are typically not elected base on their ability to reason.  Deeper discussion on that would not be appropriate in this forum.

[MarginallyStable]

What's the reasoning behind such an absurd idea?

Wealth re-distribution, equity, bla bla bla.

[tom66]

High taxes, rents and car parking charges have made this inevitable. It's being going on for over 25 years now.

Thats certainly aided the decline ,and it almost appears a catch 22 situation,income from town centre  goes down so council  increases parking charges and rates to try and maintain there previous income levels.Also it dosnt help when the supermarket eases  the path through planning by bundling a much needed school/relief road/community centre that the council cant afford ,into the plans.

Car parking is contentious.  Free car parking is generally a bad thing to have because everyone who could commute by bike/walking/bus/etc has no incentive to do so.  What might work better is some 'parking validation' system where the first two hours of parking are discounted/free if you shop there, and thereafter you pay the normal rate.  Car parks aren't free to build or maintain either, a typical cost is around £10,000 per car parking space (including manoeuvring room, you typically need 15m^2 per car) and a typical surface level car park has about a 15-20 year lifespan.  So either it is subsidised by all council rate payers or you pay a fee to park.

A bigger issue is that rent for a lot of these city centre units is unreasonably high and cannot be lowered usually because mortgages on these properties define a rent that must be charged.  This leads to unlet units, which then leads to less people visiting the town centre, which leads to more decline... And I can tell you, I live in a town where it is free to park in the centre: the town centre is still pretty run down despite the car parks being bustling.  It might help a little bit, but without places people want to actually visit, it's limited.

[nctnico]

High taxes, rents and car parking charges have made this inevitable. It's being going on for over 25 years now.

Thats certainly aided the decline ,and it almost appears a catch 22 situation,income from town centre  goes down so council  increases parking charges and rates to try and maintain there previous income levels.Also it dosnt help when the supermarket eases  the path through planning by bundling a much needed school/relief road/community centre that the council cant afford ,into the plans.

Car parking is contentious.  Free car parking is generally a bad thing to have because everyone who could commute by bike/walking/bus/etc has no incentive to do so.  What might work better is some 'parking validation' system where the first two hours of parking are discounted/free if you shop there, and thereafter you pay the normal rate.  Car parks aren't free to build or maintain either, a typical cost is around £10,000 per car parking space (including manoeuvring room, you typically need 15m^2 per car) and a typical surface level car park has about a 15-20 year lifespan.  So either it is subsidised by all council rate payers or you pay a fee to park.

A bigger issue is that rent for a lot of these city centre units is unreasonably high and cannot be lowered usually because mortgages on these properties define a rent that must be charged.  This leads to unlet units, which then leads to less people visiting the town centre, which leads to more decline... And I can tell you, I live in a town where it is free to park in the centre: the town centre is still pretty run down despite the car parks being bustling.  It might help a little bit, but without places people want to actually visit, it's limited.

You are wrong about that for two reasons.

1) For some types of shops that sell big items, you'll need free parking. There is a shopping mall in the city I live in. Until about a decade ago, parking was free and shops where doing OK. When paid parking was introduced 90% of the shops closed due to people staying away. I used to go there regulary with my wife and we would have lunch there as well. But not since the city introduced paid parking. Nowadays some of the shoppingspace is filled with low budget shops but the mall never recovered.

2) People like their comforts so forget about trying to make people come by car. Today I read an interesting article in the paper about sharing cars. The authors compared sharing cars with not having a bathroom in your own home and wash yourself from the sink with cold water and going to a central bath house once a week. Would you want to go back to such a system? Just as sharing a car, going to a central bath house would save a lot of resources. Try to get people to give up their own bathrooms first before trying to get people to give up their cars...

If you want to make people go to shops by bike or on foot, get the shops closer to the people.

[thm_w]

People didn't stop going to the malls because of paid parking: https://www.retailcouncil.org/province/national/how-mall-foot-traffic-shifted-post-pandemic-and-what-it-means-for-long-term-success/

and no all electronics didn't close due to shoplifting lol


Assessed value of the property is $2.3 mil, current property tax is $30k, which seems high (~50% higher than a local electronics store here in Vancouver). But wouldn't expect it to be an  issue for a viable business? Don't know what the lease rate is.

https://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Property/15915807/14928-Oxnard-St-Van-Nuys-CA-91411/

[rsjsouza]

Online orders are still open. I just received a package from them. Quite interesting prices at the moment and I took the opportunity to restock some of the more obscure items.

It is their swan song.

[dobsonr741]

The final day to place an online or phone order is Tuesday, September 12th (5PM PDT), says the front page now.

[RJSV]

 Reminds me of older store;  Quinntronics, 1978, parts store run by Mike Quinn, in Berkeley, California.
Building was a little more old, there in the west side industrial area, and Mr. Quinn would, personally, tease and 'insult' the customer, (playfully).   He would often use a saying like:
   'Latvians and Lesbians Welcome, step up to counter, please.'

   It was one of the better places to obtain unusual 7400 series IC's and other items then.

[chmedly]

Didn't All Electronics have two locations at one point?

I used to order several times a year from them. I even had an intercom project I wanted to do and started an order (apparently) just before they announced the closing but never completed it. I really wish I would have gotten an email about the shutdown! They had several unique unobtanium kind of items I would have stocked up on.

[T3sl4co1l]

The phoenix rises: https://aretronics.com/

I suppose that means they'll be a fraction of their former selves, both in terms of catalog size and number of employees; effectively a downsizing occurred, I suppose.  Maybe "downsizing" is putting it lightly; "storefront" looks to be just some guy's house!

Tim

[Smokey]

Their business contact info address is a house in a residential cul-de-sac. 

[bdunham7]

Their business contact info address is a house in a residential cul-de-sac.

I would have left that address off if I was setting up their website.  People start showing up, neighbors complain and call the zoning department, no bueno.

But I'm not shocked that they would go for the lowest cost footprint and just use one their houses as the office.  The rest of that business could be run out of a couple of large self-storage lockers or a more remote, non-retail commercial building.

Here's the original building listed--I don't think you'd want to try to restart that business with a $5M property.

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/14928-Oxnard-St-Van-Nuys-CA/29489606/

[ogdento]

oh man I've been under a rock... I just tried to log in to check my order history, didn't realize they'd shut!  bummer, I loved looking through their catalogs and probably placed my first order 35-40 years ago.

[DiodeDipShit]

oh man I've been under a rock... I just tried to log in to check my order history, didn't realize they'd shut!  bummer, I loved looking through their catalogs and probably placed my first order 35-40 years ago.

No Surprise. The middle man with the better idea, sold us out. Most everything seems to be all off shore now.
In the North East, Back in the day, I could get anything from Cramer Electronics or most common components from Radio Shack.
Cramers history:       http://books.google.com/books?id=GU-_LnIOwWUC&pg=PA31
And the Beat goes on............

[catcat]

Sorry to hear that. Everything hopes for the best!

[charliex]

anyone ordered from aretronics yet? curious to see if they still do surplus?

as a local to all electronics it is interesting reading what people say about it. northridge fix is a stones throw away from me too and they're doing gangbusters, alex upgraded his small repair front location to a larger office warehouse style place and bought a new house behind us. he's mostly just reselling chinese stuff for a markup but all electronics kinda tried it too.

the all electronics van nuys location was kinda stagnant and prices were pretty high, it became more and more the place to get stuff in an emergency, or wierd surplus. there are still other places like AE around here,  (not electronics surplus as such but others) the old DTLA location closed years ago too. they didn't really change a lot.

i co ran a big hackerspace in los angeles for years,  as well as still running a yearly hacker conference here, so we would often pick up stuff there but it'd be mostly whatever was wierd  or came in on surplus that was interesting for hebocons, we've bought a lot of electronics gear over the years but all never really had stuff we'd really use, occasionally i'd pop into pick up flux cleaner and iso and see if they had much new.

its a shame its gone, but the store just seemed to be stuck in time

[Sal Ammoniac]

When I heard LA, I suspected something like that.
Hard to know what's worse, LA or San Fran?

These days Silicon Valley is a wasteland as far as retail electronics and surplus stores go.

At one time the Bay Area had six Fry's Electronics stores, Microcenter, Halted Specialties, R&D Electronics, several Computer Literacy bookshops, Digital Guru, Ham Radio outlet, Weird Stuff Warehouse, Anchor Electronics, and a few others. All of these, with the exception of Anchor Electronics, are gone. 

[Rick Law]

When I heard LA, I suspected something like that.
Hard to know what's worse, LA or San Fran?

These days Silicon Valley is a wasteland as far as retail electronics and surplus stores go. ... ...

Not just Silicon Valley or LA or San Fran, in NJ also.

There was a "Green Brook Electronics" in Green Brook, NJ.  That is about 30-40 miles south-west of NYC, or less than 10 miles north-west of Edison or New Brunswick NJ.

They used to have a small but adequate selection of electronics.  When I have random small items with time sensitive needs, I would take a drive to get it from them.  From small electronic items (comparable to Radio Shack but with larger selection) and electrical items like HVAC motor capacitor...  Even odd items like "washer set" for de-soldering pump that revived my (circa 1973) de-soldering pump (surprise to see it on display while I was there for something else).

I stopped by a little over a month ago.  The retail part of the store front is closed.  Looking from outside the locked front entrance, the retail space looks like it is being use for storage (of stuff needing/being repaired).  Even if they were unlocked, the storage shelves would have blocked access.

I think electronics stores went the way of Radio Shack -- where the dinosaurs were.  They are missed.