Avoid Circuit City closeout deals

I bet this link is what you're talking about, in my back yard.
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/n...ty_feb_21_2009
I would think if it were a warranty problem you'd be covered but in a case like the broken screen you'd probably be SOL.

One of the "Circuit City" commercials shown locally mentioned that "we're bringing in 'new mechandise' every day." "New merchandise," where did it come from? Who knows? That's one of the methods liquidators use to keep suckers purchasing merchandise of unknown origin. "Estate" sales are often stocked with unsold merchandise from earlier "estate" or "garage" sales. Recently one of the furniture stores that always stocked high-end merchandise went bankrupt. The liquidator took over the stores, bringing in their own cheap merchandise to take advantage of the store's high-end reputation. The uninformed customers had no idea that they were purchasing "junk" at premium prices.

Before the bankruptcy I was a regular CC shopper. I bought many items there, I haven't been back since the bankruptcy though. I've been to too many of these type of sales. Early on the prices are too high and later on there is nothing but junk left. Naa I'll pay a little more and support the companies that are still in business.

IMO once you've committed to buying the item it would be nice if they let you open it up. I can see the reason they wouldn't just let anybody open up boxes(without committing to buy if everything looked ok). I wouldn't want to purchase something that was open box, at least without a significant discount. Again I think if the problem was a warranty issue (like bad parts within the unit) you could get it fixed under the warranty (albeit you'd probably have to pay to ship it to the mfg.). A broken screen probably isn't covered under a mfgs. warranty.

I would think walmart would be in solid competition for that honor.

Kmart would beat them both.

I'd be waiting outside that store when the manager came out after locking up.

Let's not forget Target.

If you can't inspect it and turn it on and plug it in DON"T BUY IT.

I used to sell tv's but many times people who came from long way off wanted to test it...

royal pain in the ass but we did it.

I don't even believe the price at CC would be worth it. Their store closing prices were hardly impressive.

As a (for a bit longer) current Circuit City employee I can tell you that we have had constant re-iterations that the customer is allowed to open any product they buy after they buy it, check it out all they want and if they are not satisfied, they can still return it. Once they go out those doors though it is theirs no matter what. That's what 'All sales final' means. Thats why all the stores are instructed to have testing stations available.

That being said - no one is forcing them to buy stuff from us - and there are plenty of signs that say "All sales final". We are not trying to hide this fact.


You know, everyone bashes us for our 'bad discount prices' yet we have tons of people in every day to buy stuff that is more expensive now than it was while we were in business. Its these people that keep the prices high as there is a shockingly high percentage of shoppers who see a big gaudy sign that says 20% off and immediately thinks its an awesome deal and buys 10 of them.

Trust me, we dont understand how, but our over priced stuff sells - and sells well. Please dont bash us, bash the sheeple that buy the stuff at that price

We have not stocked any old merchandise from other liquidations. CC had massive warehouses full of merchandise that needed to sell. We got 4 shipments that were at least 4x the largest truck we'd gotten in the last 6 years (including holiday trucks). Also, store consolidate. There are 4 classes of stores, Class D closed first and shipped out remaining product to the other 3 classes. Class C is now closed and shipped out remaining merchandise to the remaining two. Soon class B will close. So the product was 'new' to our store

Besides, its not as if the model numbers of big ticket items are not stamped all over the boxes

After reading all the posts on the bad deals at CC, I decided to visit my CC the other day (Friday Feb 20).

I actually found something that was a deal!!! Even I was shocked.

Bought a Sony 9" digital picture frame for $60. The box was in perfect condition, never opened. It worked too!

Also picked up a Pinnacle PCTV HD PCI TV tuner card for $40. Supports ATSC, NTSC, clear QAM. There is no real model number, but UPC is 13570 22238. Not the deal of the centry, but a deal none-the-less.

Now here's the funny part. I was walking past the PCTV card section and watched a guy pick-up one of these cards. Not but 30 seconds after the guy walked away, some employee placed another PCTV card on the shelf. So I walk by and grab that one. Walked around the store for a bit, and sure enough, another PCTV card was put on the shelf.

They had the Sony 7" and 9" picture frame on shelf display. I seen the one new 9" in the box, so I grabbed it. There were NO 7" new in box. Walked around the store, and went back and, dam, there was one 7" Sony box right in front - you could not miss it.

Not sure what to make about these people stocking the shelves. Just seemed strange.

CC had the Harmony ONE remotes for 60% off of CC regular price of $199.99. 80 bucks isn't bad for a Harmony ONE. My store had probably 5-7 laying around.

I was so expecting to get a good laugh when going to the liquidation sale.

I don't really understand why people are lining up at CC to buy. I check their liquidation sale several times and their prices are pretty much retail price CC was selling at before the liquidation sale. In some cases the price was even higher than before liquidation.

Same here, but a lot of the items were beat up display models on top of it. Talk about nerve.

What a scam.

This is the eBay crowd. You know, the ones that bid up the price of merchandise until they are paying more for it at "auction" than they could get it at retail. Take down the CC sign and put one up like "eBay Live" -- you'll have people coming in wanting to buy the floor tiles.

I went to CC on Monday. The place was a zoo. I think the prices are now in the bargain territory but not quite what I would call a steal. I would indeed be nervous about buying a large ticket item like a television. But I would have no issue buying accessories, especially those in unopened boxes. I plan to go there in another week to see if prices drop further.


_Lazza

Yeah - we joked that if we had had a fake liquidation sale last year we'd still be in business. We were a $17 million a year store and we've done $2 mill since January 16th

And there are some good deals out there but most store employees are already all over them. The upside to all of this is that so far I've gotten two 23" samsung TVs, a Berkliner recliner with base shaker, bose noise canceling headphones and a garmin nuvi 850 for a total of $100.

I went on the first day, since I was out running errands and decided to stop by just for kicks.

You would have thought it was Black Friday! There was a police car parked out front, and I think TVs were 10%. The lines were 15 people deep, people buying ink cartridges(at about $2 off), monitors, you name it they wanted it. 10% off a big ticket item's MSRP is a joke. You can find it for cheaper when it goes on sale once every 3-4 weeks or whenever. I was just laughing when I was in there, at all the idiots thinking they were getting such a great deal.

Last weekend in contrast, now all the remaining TVs are 30% off, CDs/DVDS 50%, so now you actually have some kind of a measureble discount. Fixtures and stuff starting to move out now as well.

But I still sure wouldn't buy a TV, from an opened box that looks beat up, where I cannot return it.

That was the impression I got - that the people that were buying up the stuff were the kind of people that didn't even know what a sale was, or the true prices of things, and weren't even aware that they could get them cheaper elsewhere.

The only thing I thought was a real bargain were the CD's, but they were really picked through by the time I got there (which was still pretty early on in the "sale", so it was probably the employees).

I had not considered that employees would be given "dibs" on the good stuff, that explains the complete lack of anything any customer with brains would want to buy at any of the Circuit Citys I've passed through in the last few weeks. Even two weeks ago, the CDs were totally picked over, and the DVDs selling at "30 off" were actually priced cheaper at the Best Buy next door! Apparently no shortage of brainless customers, as Rammitinski noted: why anyone would want to risk a no-return big-ticket item for a piddly $50 savings is beyond me. Reminds me of my best friends idiot sister, who has relentlessly insisted he take her to CC to get a "great buy" on a large TV. No amount of explaining that the TV she wants is cheaper via Amazon, including free shipping to her door, will dissuade her from the notion that Circuit City has to be "giving things away" and that a "real" store is a better risk than Amazon.

And we wonder why there is "no market" in the USA for quality versatile items like DVD/HDD recorders, but $800 TiVO subscriptions sell like hotcakes.

Yea, and when TiVO goes under, I wonder what everyone will do with those worthless boxes!!

They will ebay them at $600, 3 months before Tivo goes under and the "idiot CC crowd" will bid them up to $799.

An example of the CC liquidation shopper- I overheard a women ask one of the sales rep. what is diff. in plasma and LCD TV; which is better? Obvious someone who doesn't do a little researching before going shopping.

Nice chart here on the "sinking TIVO"... unless they can get another $105M from Echostar.

You are never at a loss for exaggeration, are you.

Nope, never. I thought that was the highest "lifetime" price someone mentioned here, if its wrong excuse my laziness. The point was, economic meltdown or no, theres still plenty of people willing to blow more money on things than they have too. They don't look at alternatives, or even look in more than one store.

How can you assume people don't look for alternatives? Just because they don't buy the cheapest thing or what you would have bought? Yes, a TiVo HD is not cheap and costs 2X the price of a HDD-DVDR, that's obvious. But then a TiVo does so much, much more than a HDD-DVDR. I'm not going to expound here -- there's a TiVo HD thread for that -- other than to say, if one wants all the capability the TiVo supplies over an HDD-DVDR, than one should expect to pay for it.