I’m giving my younger sister an old laptop because I have one and she needs it. I suggested to her that she get a wireless router in conjunction with getting the laptop. We corresponded back and forth a bit about what she needed. She did her research and went out shopping with a clear idea of what price she expected to pay.
Having heard about Circuit City’s bankruptcy trouble and discovering that her local Circuit City was closing she headed there first. It turns out that Circuit City is playing fast and loose with their prices in order to give the appearance of offering great deals. I did a little research on the web and discovered that she is not the only person who has experienced their shady dealings.
Specifically she found that they had raised prices by approximately 30% before tagging them with a 20% price “reduction”.
At Blogging Stocks, Brian White did a little investigating and reports:
“After having visited a few local Circuit City locations yesterday, they were indeed ghost towns. There was nobody (nada, zilch) in one of the locations I visited, and only one other person in the other location. And get this: comparing several general products in several categories, I saw very few sale prices that could compete with the competition -- namely, Best Buy. In categories like computers and MP3 players, Circuit City's pricing was dead in the water. At least its employees were, for the time being, getting paid to stand around doing nothing.”
The HD Guru priced five HDTVs at its closeout store in Massapequa, NY. Comparing the original and 10% off closeout prices with prices listed at Circuitcity.com revealed the “current” pre-closeout price written on the price tags was actually $200 to $400 higher than the “real” current selling price of all five HDTVs at CircuitCity.com . After the 10% off closeout price is taken into account, 3 out of 5 HDTVs remained $60-$100 more than the same item at Circuit City’s website!
Finally, The Consummerist reports on a former Circuit City employee’s description of a liquidator’s strategy saying that “if the liquidator wants the price to be higher, they can’t print a tag. So basically what they do is just not put a tag on it, raise the price and then give you the 10-30% discount. So really the customer is just paying normal or higher prices.” It sounds like this is what my sister discovered at her Circuit City.
I have no experience with Circuit City so I’m wondering how their prices stacked up before they filed for bankruptcy. Did they offer good deals and good customer service before they got into trouble? It doesn’t sound like they are too interested in retaining any sort of good reputation on their way out.
Having heard about Circuit City’s bankruptcy trouble and discovering that her local Circuit City was closing she headed there first. It turns out that Circuit City is playing fast and loose with their prices in order to give the appearance of offering great deals. I did a little research on the web and discovered that she is not the only person who has experienced their shady dealings.
Specifically she found that they had raised prices by approximately 30% before tagging them with a 20% price “reduction”.
At Blogging Stocks, Brian White did a little investigating and reports:
“After having visited a few local Circuit City locations yesterday, they were indeed ghost towns. There was nobody (nada, zilch) in one of the locations I visited, and only one other person in the other location. And get this: comparing several general products in several categories, I saw very few sale prices that could compete with the competition -- namely, Best Buy. In categories like computers and MP3 players, Circuit City's pricing was dead in the water. At least its employees were, for the time being, getting paid to stand around doing nothing.”
The HD Guru priced five HDTVs at its closeout store in Massapequa, NY. Comparing the original and 10% off closeout prices with prices listed at Circuitcity.com revealed the “current” pre-closeout price written on the price tags was actually $200 to $400 higher than the “real” current selling price of all five HDTVs at CircuitCity.com . After the 10% off closeout price is taken into account, 3 out of 5 HDTVs remained $60-$100 more than the same item at Circuit City’s website!
Finally, The Consummerist reports on a former Circuit City employee’s description of a liquidator’s strategy saying that “if the liquidator wants the price to be higher, they can’t print a tag. So basically what they do is just not put a tag on it, raise the price and then give you the 10-30% discount. So really the customer is just paying normal or higher prices.” It sounds like this is what my sister discovered at her Circuit City.
I have no experience with Circuit City so I’m wondering how their prices stacked up before they filed for bankruptcy. Did they offer good deals and good customer service before they got into trouble? It doesn’t sound like they are too interested in retaining any sort of good reputation on their way out.
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2 comments:
Just got your Circuit City blog - bravo for doing that one. This is one of those few instances when I hope the internet does help spread the dirt about something. Circuit City doesn't deserve to have a great holiday sales season based on misleading advertising.
I understand they are not alone with these sorts of tactics. I recently read that Linens 'N Things is us to the same thing. I like LNT so I was sorry to hear about it.
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