Imminent Collapse of Fry’s?

[Sal Ammoniac]

Rumors are swirling here in the Bay Area (where there are five Fry’s stores and the company headquarters) that the whole chain is circling the drain and on the verge of a total collapse. Looks like covid will be the final nail in the coffin. Sad.

[ataradov]

Their stores were pretty sad even before COVID. They have huge stores and not enough merchandise, so it always felt empty.

[bob91343]

Poor management.  Or no management.  It's the same here in L.A.  A real shame, since I was a frequent customer.

But they are not alone.  Many stores of many types are in financial trouble.  Online sales have taken over and it doesn't appear that it's likely to change.  Some restaurants have survived because prepared food can't be gotten online.

I am remodeling a bathroom and have ordered goods online.  I am looking for a car and have also been looking online.

It's the new way.  There isn't much Fry's sells that can't be gotten online.  Fry's, I believe is a grocery chain in the eastern US.

[coppercone2]

ordering home improvement supplies online sounds horrible

only a mechanical engineer would like doing that. i get zero feel for how something like a light fixture will feel from a online picture.

[Renate]

I haven't been in a Fry's for a year or two.
You could have roller skated down the empty aisles.

In the US I've been a big fan of https://www.microcenter.com/
They have PC and also DIY electronic stuff.

In the Boston area https://www.youdoitelectronics.com/ has been around since tubes.
It's encouraging that an old company can stay up-to-date.

A Ham/SWL favorite https://www.universal-radio.com/ still exists but has relocated and downsized to an office.

[Gyro]

Is this your annual Fry's going out of business thread? You're a bit early this year.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/frys-electronics-going-out-of-business/

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/whats-going-on-with-frys/

[Gary350z]

Fry’s is closing its business permanently.
http://www.frys.com/

[engrguy42]

I think the problems with Fry's and Radio Shack and every other electronics supply store here in the US is that nobody is interested in tinkering with electronics anymore. Only a few of us old guys, and much fewer young guys. Now people want dancing robots and AI and smartphone apps where you click a button and it does your laundry while you sit on your butt.

The closest most tech people get to real electronics nowadays is watching a 5 minute video on how to connect a Raspberry PI so you can have a $50 computer. We're getting further and further away from the hardcore tech stuff and all we can do is be expert button pressers.

As usual, no, it's not about bad management at any of these large corporations. It's about customers no longer being interested. And they'd much rather pay a fraction of the price and have it delivered from China rather than keep US businesses afloat.

It's our fault, nobody else's.

By the way, have you noticed that the vast majority of "tech" video channels have ultimately changed over to being more entertainment-based? That's what people are interested in. Entertainment, not tech. They want "Oooo, shiny !!" new hardware (preferably with flashing lights), and stories about how their house got damaged in the cold wave, and rants about NVIDIA.

[Renate]

I think the problems with Fry's and Radio Shack and every other electronics supply store here in the US...

I mostly agree with you.
Still, this Covid stuff has dealt a real blow to brick and mortar.

There are new Radio Shack distributors. I saw a new one that opened a year ago.

I can compare You-Do-It Electronics (quoted above) to another company (which shall remain nameless) that just closed down.
Both of these started out as the kind of electronics store where you pulled all the tubes out of your TV set and took them in a brown paper bag down to the store with the tube tester.
YDI has TV's & CB's & PA's and all that sort of stuff, but also Adafruit, SparkFun, industrial cable and tools.
The nameless store (when I visited it a year ago) still had shelves of tubes and 25 year old electrolytics in yellow blister packs.
If you wanted transistors, they had HEP (does anyone remember Motorola "Hobbyist-Experimenter-Professional"?)

[Sal Ammoniac]

Is this your annual Fry's going out of business thread? You're a bit early this year.

This time it's for real. No more rumors and speculation--the company announced on their website this morning that they're permanently closing all of their stores effective today.

[SilverSolder]

I think "combination" stores like Costco have eaten the lunch of companies like Fry's, just as much as online sales have.   Costco shifts a lot of TVs, stereos, cameras, etc. - people see them when they come for the frozen chicken, and end up buying later on when they've been exposed to enough gorgeous screens.  Helpfully, the TVs are right next to the optical department!  It's a pretty clever model.

[ejeffrey]

I think the problems with Fry's and Radio Shack and every other electronics supply store here in the US is that nobody is interested in tinkering with electronics anymore. Only a few of us old guys, and much fewer young guys. Now people want dancing robots and AI and smartphone apps where you click a button and it does your laundry while you sit on your butt.

Ok, boomer.

Seriously this is just nonsense "old man yells at cloud" gatekeeper bullshit.  Far more people are tinkering with electronics than ever before.  They are just doing it differently than before.

[engrguy42]

I think the problems with Fry's and Radio Shack and every other electronics supply store here in the US is that nobody is interested in tinkering with electronics anymore. Only a few of us old guys, and much fewer young guys. Now people want dancing robots and AI and smartphone apps where you click a button and it does your laundry while you sit on your butt.

Ok, boomer.

Seriously this is just nonsense "old man yells at cloud" gatekeeper bullshit.  Far more people are tinkering with electronics than ever before.  They are just doing it differently than before.

Differently how?

[Homer J Simpson]

Re post of a visit to them in 2019 by Shango066

[ataradov]

Differently how?

By ordering things online. There is really no need for a physical store anymore. Sure, it is less convenient if you can't just go to the nearest store and pick up something. But at the same time variety of parts has increased drastically, and chances that the store has what you need are low.

So people now learned to factor in the shipping time. I often just work on multiple projects at the same time, so waiting for the parts for one project is not a big deal.

I live near Fry's, and I tried to go there a couple of times to see if they had components I needed at a time. They did not, which is not surprising.

Plus they had way higher prices for everything, making them only viable as an emergency option. This is probably not good for survival of the business.

And lack of focus is probably a factor. It is very hard to survive selling components, but selling white goods and phones at the same time is also questionable.

[GreggD]

And Mendelsons Surplus, Dayton Ohio just closed after ~65 years.
It was giant. In the old days it had boat loads (big boat loads) of electronics.
I got my first computer keyboard there (~1977), and contacted the military contractor to find out it worked.
They sent me a schematic. Turned out to be standard ascii.
Made a adding machine using a 3 board NCR 8080 computer that was meant to be a cash register.
It had 1/4 K of battery backed ram.

[engrguy42]

Nobody would question the fact that the retail industry has been destroyed by peoples' desire to buy from Amazon and China.

The issue is whether there is greater interest in electronics as has been suggested. I recently saw a report that interest in STEM education by teenage boys has dropped from 36% to 24% in 2017-2018, and stayed flat with girls at around 11%. And if you look at Youtube statistics it's clear that people aren't interested in real technology training anywhere near their all-encompassing desire for entertainment. No contest.

I've been an electrical engineer for over 45 years, and I have no doubt that there's less and less interest in the basic, low level technology, and all that interest is moving into high level stuff. Even in the software world, a lot more coders expect low level libraries to help them do their work, as opposed to those decades ago who wrote that low level code themselves.

[MikeK]

I think the problems with Fry's and Radio Shack and every other electronics supply store here in the US is that nobody is interested in tinkering with electronics anymore. Only a few of us old guys, and much fewer young guys. Now people want dancing robots and AI and smartphone apps where you click a button and it does your laundry while you sit on your butt.

People are still building stuff.  As mentioned, it's different now.

Even when I was a kid Radio Shack was poorly run.  They were always trying to sell me something and get my phone number.  Possibly an old style of management, I dunno.  Just carrying chips, transistors, or LED's at 5x the cost isn't going to get people buying them.  They should have held demos, had classes, to show people what they can do and how.  Today, people are seeing Instructables or YT videos and then ordering the parts to build exactly that.  Tons of Arduinos (or clones) are sold today that didn't exist when I was a kid.  What did Radio Shack ever carry?...An official Arduino at more money than anyone was willing to spend on it.  But...a brick and mortar electronics store may not be sustainable today when we can buy everything online and have it delivered.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Even ten years ago, before the inventory issues of recent years, Fry's stores seemed old and tired--like the owners just didn't care anymore and just wanted to continue milking the cash cow indefinitely. Worn out carpets and scuffed up linoleum floors, discount junk in shopping carts in the middle of aisles, and more. Fry's hasn't been an innovator in electronics retail for over twenty years now.

I knew Fry's was a gonner when the local store replaced the soldering irons and supplies with perfume.

[nctnico]

Nobody would question the fact that the retail industry has been destroyed by peoples' desire to buy from Amazon and China.

Not at all. The retail industry has destroyed itself by only selling high margin items. Every time I go to a store they don't have what I need. There simply is much more choice and stock online so I stopped going to stores. You read it in every story about Fry's for the past couple of years: nothing in store. How can a store make money if they don't have what people need?

[Renate]

They should have held demos, had classes...

Funny, I tried to convince one store owner a while ago that only a radical turn in this direction would save things.
Maker spaces is another thing.
Given the choice between:

• Buying a milling machine
• Contracting out some work
• Paying to let me do the darn milling myself!

You know what my choice is!

[langwadt]

Nobody would question the fact that the retail industry has been destroyed by peoples' desire to buy from Amazon and China.

Not at all. The retail industry has destroyed itself by only selling high margin items. Every time I go to a store they don't have what I need. There simply is much more choice and stock online so I stopped going to stores. You read it in every story about Fry's for the past couple of years: nothing in store. How can a store make money if they don't have what people need?

and how would they afford a large stock they very rarely sell because everyone buys things online because it is cheaper?

[nctnico]

Nobody would question the fact that the retail industry has been destroyed by peoples' desire to buy from Amazon and China.

Not at all. The retail industry has destroyed itself by only selling high margin items. Every time I go to a store they don't have what I need. There simply is much more choice and stock online so I stopped going to stores. You read it in every story about Fry's for the past couple of years: nothing in store. How can a store make money if they don't have what people need?

and how would they afford a large stock they very rarely sell because everyone buys things online because it is cheaper?

Negotiate a better deal with the landlord to pay less rent. This seems to work in Germany where shops are much cheaper and you still find small stores which serve niches like model railways. In the Netherlands the situation is reversed. 95% of the non-food shops are selling fashionable clothes or shoes; nothing functional. The only one making a profit from those shops is the landlord. But that situation is going to change rapidly; many stores are quiting. Especially in relatively expensive city centers. Covid-19 just helped to speed up the process.

[langwadt]

Nobody would question the fact that the retail industry has been destroyed by peoples' desire to buy from Amazon and China.

Not at all. The retail industry has destroyed itself by only selling high margin items. Every time I go to a store they don't have what I need. There simply is much more choice and stock online so I stopped going to stores. You read it in every story about Fry's for the past couple of years: nothing in store. How can a store make money if they don't have what people need?

and how would they afford a large stock they very rarely sell because everyone buys things online because it is cheaper?

Negotiate a better deal with the landlord to pay less rent. This seems to work in Germany where shops are much cheaper and you still find small stores which serve niches like model railways. In the Netherlands the situation is reversed. 95% of the non-food shops are selling fashionable clothes or shoes; nothing functional. The only one making a profit from those shops is the landlord. But that situation is going to change rapidly; many stores are quiting. Especially in relatively expensive city centers. Covid-19 just helped to speed up the process.

seems to me those small niche stores are someone passionate about the subject working long hours barely making ends meet, that is not a viable business plan for a chain of stores.

it's a chicken and egg problem, no ones buying because it is expensive, it is expensive because the only thing people buy is the occational 5 resistors they forgot to order online and need right now.  And then people complain when they can't get digikey
assortment at ebay prices

 

[coppercone2]

store that sell useful things need a tax reduction to stay profitable. They serve a useful purpose but cannot exist without a subsidy because there will be short term business that is more profitable, so you get retail chaos because of profit mentality. You have salary, rent and taxes. Rent & taxes you can do about because usually the land lord is not in the same class as the employees. You start to mess with base salary and you get protests. If you mess with rent you get angry rich people (no one really cares) and the taxes totally depends on the mindset of the politicians.

But with fights over right to repair and stuff, there is no real drive for these people to try to figure out what is useful to stock (say SMD passives for fixing devices). Someone would need to do alot of thinking about what parts to stock to make useful repairs possible and work out the advertising. The professional repair people don't want you to do it because they get more profit, and the companies selling you stuff would rather sell you anther one.

Here is a freebee : you can probobly make money selling different USB, Microusb, ports for most devices. Those always break off and the repair is obvious.

I think what it depends on is like normal people generally thinking 'why the hell did you buy a new one dumbass you should repair it' instead of 'sick, you dropped some cash on new stuff, its outdated anyway'.