Fry's Electronics Going Out of Business?

[Bill158]

My big question is what happened to the inventory form ACE ( on old oakland street) when the owner died a coupe of years ago. I know Excess got some of it , but the main block went to some store in Morgan Hill ( one of the ebay-floggers). I have not been able to find out where.

Sounds like Alltronics, they were the only surplus dealer in Morgan Hill.

http://www.alltronics.com/

I think you are referring to Prism Electronics rather than Alltronics.  Prism Electronics is located in Morgan Hill CA and is on Sutter Blvd.  I live in Morgan Hill and I drive by Prism all the time and there is a huge bldg there.  Alltronics (Dennis Trimble) has a store on Scott Blvd in Santa Clara.  I really don't know who got the ACE inventory.  Neither Prism or Alltronics allows "walk ins" except for "will call" pickups.  Prism's website is somewhat hard to use unless you know exactly what you are looking for in the way of components.  The search function is incomplete at best.  It will tell you that it found 53 entries for your search but will only display about 10 with no way to get to the next "page" to see more items.  I like stores like the old Halted or now Excess Solutions because you can physically see the component and if necessary measure it's value or whatever if you bring your own measuring meter or tool.
Bill

[cdev]

Are you talking about that big warehouse like store near the Oakland airport.

I think it was maybe on Hegenberger Road?

Because I do remember hearing something about them. The place I remember is probably Mike Quinn Electronics.

Alltronics is at https://www.alltronics.com/

[Sal Ammoniac]

The surplus place near the Oakland airport was definitely Mike Quinn Electronics. I remember going there years ago. They typically sold stuff by the pound and had a lot of bizarre stuff.

[jmelson]

Sounds like Alltronics, they were the only surplus dealer in Morgan Hill.

Yes, I visited Alltronics MANY MANY years ago, they had an amazing rack of tubes of DIP chips that was something like 50 feet long, down both sides!

Jon

[jmelson]

The surplus place near the Oakland airport was definitely Mike Quinn Electronics. I remember going there years ago. They typically sold stuff by the pound and had a lot of bizarre stuff.

Yes, the original Mike Quinn in a temporary WW-II building at the Oakland airport was quite awesome.  You were walking on a 6" thick "carpet" of crunched circuit boards.  They had lots of VERY interesting stuff.  The newer place was still interesting, but not quite so awesome.

Jon

[andy3055]

Close to the bay, the only place I can thin of now is Al Lasher's Electronics. Even that is not very convenient as it is only one location. At least you can get all sorts of parts from them and they will order for you if needed. I believe it is a family business.

http://allashers.com/about/

[boffin]

G.G.G.Gone. Looks like they closed everything up overnight.


https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/24/business/frys-electronics-closure/index.html

[andy3055]

Yup, we can blame the lack of today's youth not being interested in the hobby and most importantly the junk available for pennies on eBay and Amazon! Only our generation will be losing and complaining for the next few years.

[boffin]

Yup, we can blame the lack of today's youth not being interested in the hobby and most importantly the junk available for pennies on eBay and Amazon! Only our generation will be losing and complaining for the next few years.

The bigger difference I think is that so many things are essentially unrepairable these days, that stops people from being interested in the 1st place.

[raptor1956]

Between jobs in the semiconductor industry I worked a few months at a Fry's in Las Vegas -- selling cameras.  The management style was, by my observation, modeled on the Wal*Mart approach but with the obvious different in the range of products sold.

I'm less sold on the idea that it's demise was do to the younger generation being far less interested in electronics, that may be the case but I don't think it's necessary to explain them going out of business.  Even when I worked there back in early 2006 there were signs of economic problems and from my vantage point this day was inevitable.  Amazon, Ebay and the Chinese direct retailers are no doubt the biggest reason and when you put it all together this day was bound to happen sooner or later.

So, for me the biggest reason is competition from internet retailers but the other factors mentioned by others probably played a role as well.  Still, a sad day!


Brian

[rsjsouza]

It is too bad. I liked their stores before their "consignment" business model. One more for the bag of uncle Bezos and Co. 

[boffin]

Between jobs in the semiconductor industry I worked a few months at a Fry's in Las Vegas -- selling cameras.  The management style was, by my observation, modeled on the Wal*Mart approach but with the obvious different in the range of products sold.

I purchased my Rigol 1054Z at that store.  Hit a $1000 on a slot downtown, and was headed to Mandalay to meet up with friends for dinner (Charlie Palmer's) that night, so popped into Fry's 1st to spend my winnings.  First and only time I've checked an oscilloscope in a restaurant.

[metrologist]

Sad. I had friends that used to worked there.

[mansaxel]

Between jobs in the semiconductor industry I worked a few months at a Fry's in Las Vegas -- selling cameras. 

I went to that one last time I was in Vegas, for NAB Convention 2019. (Wonder when I'll go there for NAB again; the 2020 trip was ordered and booked and I just about managed to get out of the plane tickets and car rental when the cancel plug was pulled.)  I still have and daily use the USB-C to SD and standard USB dongle I bought there.

Yeah, kinda sad. But my observation from two visits, 2003 Palo Alto and 2019 LV, is that there was noticeable decline and this was inevitable.

[james_s]

It's sad to see them go, but it was inevitable, I haven't actually gone into the one nearest to me in years. Fact is they just don't have much that I can't order online, and by the time I take the time and fuel to make the trip I'm not saving anything over paying for shipping.

It's too bad they didn't try something a little different. They could have put more focus on selling online, while at the same time leveraging their physical stores to host hacker spaces, mini maker faire type events, and they could have stocked all the stuff like Raspberry Pi, Arduino, some of the various subsidized uC and FPGA dev boards, etc. Amazon has been successful in selling all those same widgets you can buy direct from China, people will pay the markup to not have to wait for a month. It's too late now but I think they could have saved it if they had thought outside the box. Give people a reason to go hang out there, you can't mail order social interaction. Obviously Covid still would have thrown a wrench in things though.

[rsjsouza]

It's sad to see them go, but it was inevitable,

Looking at other retailers such as BestBuy, which turned around and is growing, or Microcenter, which is smaller but is packed with people everytime I go there, I really suspect that online (and by extension Covid) has become an easy excuse for bad management. Sure, the margins and the offers are not the same as before, but decisions such as their so-called "consignment" model accellerated their process immensely by keeping their stores completely empty of product.

It's too bad they didn't try something a little different.

I agree. It is a sad day.

[CatalinaWOW]

It was sad when they stopped being a good place to shop.  N
The situation now is kind of like watching a friend who has had Alzheimer's for years finally passing away

[Sal Ammoniac]

Microcenter, which is smaller but is packed with people everytime I go there

Perhaps now that Fry's is gone we'll get a Microcenter in the Bay Area again. We used to have one, but it closed over a decade ago, probably due to too much competition from Fry's in its heyday. At the time, there were four big Fry's stores within a five mile radius of the Microcenter, plus it was tucked out of the way and not as easy to get to.

[schmitt trigger]

I really suspect that online (and by extension Covid) has become an easy excuse for bad management. Sure, the margins and the offers are not the same as before, but decisions such as their so-called "consignment" model accellerated their process immensely by keeping their stores completely empty of product.

Something similar is happening with the Covid pandemic. Many business have shut down, but other have thrived.

Nothing exemplifies this better than the restaurant industry. Many shops have closed down, perhaps permanently. But those which quickly adopted the online model and adapted their menu, staff and premises for curbside and/or home delivery are thriving.

[boffin]

Company man has now done an episode on it: