and no wonder. I decided to go by one of the few stores still open in Austin to see if any "liquidation sale" prices caught my eye. Ended up walking out with nothing, not because the shelves were picked clean, but because the prices weren't a sale. Nearly everything is 10% off, with movies and music going for 20% at this point. However, most things I checked were at least 10% above MSRP. For example, a Logitech MX Revolution mouse was $109.99. Logitech.com has it for $99. Most BluRay movies were $35. I didn't even bother looking at what they were trying to sell TVs and such for.

It's not a wonder this company is going away. They can't even liquidate their stuff honestly.

To be fair, Circuit City isn't running the show any more. A separate liquidation company is running the stores now. From the Circuit City website:



But I guess from that last bit there that you could haggle the price down.

Yeah, Engadget was reporting yesterday that prices would be MSRP at first and possibly decrease after that, but no guarantees.

I have no sympathy for the company. IMO it's the worst electronics store chain I've ever been in, and I think part of the problem was the cut-throat environment in which the employees had to operate. Commission drove them to some pretty shady practices, including misinforming customers and unhealthily competing with their coworkers.

I have two stories:

Back in 2000 or 2001 I was looking into buying a Tivo. There were a few models and the one I wanted wasn't sold in most stores, so I called my local CC and asked the salesman if they had that specific model. He said they did, and after I confirmed it was the exact model I wanted, he gave me his name and told me to ask for him when I got to the store (presumably so he could get the commission for the $300 sale). That's fine, but when I got to the store, I found that they did not carry the model I wanted. What the hell was this guy thinking, that I'd buy the other model anyway, and even though he clearly lied to me I'd still give him the commission on the product I didn't want? Ugh.

Second story. I had friends who worked at CC in high school (around '98), and they told me about how a guy came into the store to buy a flat screen TV. Of course, being the late 90's, it was insanely expensive, so the commission would probably be very juicy. Well apparently a salesman spent about 30 minutes with the guy, and finally sold him on one (had to have been in the tens of thousands). The salesperson told the man to meet him at the front. I'm not certain what transpired next, but somehow another employee was able to sneak in and claim the commission for themselves. That is not the kind of store I want to shop at.

Circuit City, I will not miss thee.

Actually, I read the opposite. They state pretty clearly that the prices are "non-negotiable." I'm guessing that the on-site approval means that if the manager at the location gets the call to lower the price on some merchandise, but believes the local market will buy at the current price, he won't lower it.

The market wouldn't buy at the current price when Circuit City was running the show. What makes them think that they'll buy it now?

I thought that the whole point of MSRP was that you could always find it cheaper in the stores. And they're trying to sell above MSRP? Crazy.

Yup, that's Circuit City. It was not a place to find bargains.

They already liquidated their stores in Arizona. If you wait a couple weeks, they'll mark prices down 70-80%. I got a S2 Dual-tuner Tivo for $60 and a Wireless Network Print Server for $30.

This liquidation looks a lot like what happened when CompUSA when down.

While I visited the CompUSA store frequently - The kinds of items I might have bought, disappeared at prices that can be found any day on the web.

Sigh. I miss CompUSA. Granted, their prices weren't great, and even finding the price on an item was always interesting, I always got a great deal. I got 5% over wholesale, whatever that happened to be. It was a courtesy the corporate account gave me, considering how much business I did with them yearly (not personally, but with the City). You'd be amazed at the disparity on markups in the store, and how they did, in fact, have loss-leaders all the time.

Because the store has a "liquidation sale" sign on it. There's a lot of people who'll see that, and won't bother checking prices.

Exactly, the parking lot in front of the local store hasn't been this full since the grand opening.

I was looking at a Linksys DMA2100 MCE box. Price $145 less 10%.
Current price shown on Linksys site $145. Currently $99 @ Amazon.

Yeah, I went by last night. Furniture, cables, and "car accessories" (AKA "things we put a huge markup on") were 30% off, music and movies were 20% off, and everything else was 10% off. Not worth going, considering the deals you can easily get online. Even so, the store was very picked over.

Circuit City shoppers disappointed by discounts

I don't understand why the liquidators think that a 10% (non) discount makes up for the fact that there is absolutely no return option or other means of after-sales support.
I mean, part of the value is in the service, no?

Here's a link to that story which works for me.

It's definitely a PT Barnum situation. Anyone who trusts list prices and percentage discounts deserves what they get.

The liquidators are just trying to make money. You can't really begrudge them trying to get the most that people will pay for inventory they've paid real money for. There will be deals at the end when they get to the crap that most people don't want. Of course, you then have to find something you want that hasn't sold yet.

When compusa went under I got a magsafe airplane adapter for half off, which was a nice deal as apple doesn't discount for the most part. I'll stop buy circuit city in a few weeks and see what's there.

So what do people think they have a right to low prices. If the price is too high don't buy anything. The liquidator wants to make as much money as possible so they aren't going to just start with the lowest price.

He's not blaming the liquidators; he's blaming the rubes they're taking advantage of.

I am visiting the US (Orlando) and forgot my card reader, stopped in to see if they had any but the only ones were $30 SanDisk units at 10% off. On the west coast now and will try a Fry's sometime I think.

The problem is that they're luring people in with talks of a sale (in my area they've even hired those people who hold signs), and when people enter the store they find many products going for higher than MSRP. That's dirty, IMO.

I must be too cynical I just assume they are trying to rip me off and don't bother looking. I just don't see why this is news now this isn't the first store liquidation.