Abandoned - Circuit City

[Music] what's up guys my name is Jake welcome to abandoned episode 22 this of course is the show where we talk about some of the most interesting abandoned places in the world so we all know how interested I am in massive retail store collapses we've talked about Targa Canada and Blockbuster Video but there's always been one retail store known for its absolutely massive and public collapse and that Circuit City now if you don't know what Circuit City is I'll give you a quick rundown basically it was an American based company that sold electronics essentially if you know what best value is then you know at Circuit City so all the way back in 1949 a man named Samuel s Wurtzel opened the first Ward's company store which sold televisions the idea came to him while he was on vacation and witnessing the emerging market of the television this market proved to be pretty good to come into when sales were pretty steady and more stores were continuing to open around the country by 1959 the company had four stores in all different states and has sales volumes of around a million dollars as years passed the company continued to grow in both size and number of stores by 1977 words began testing stores under the conceptual idea of the modern superstore and with these test stores only selling electronics and bringing in good numbers for the company the brand began changing its store names from wards to Circuit City the company began shuttering the smaller lesser-known subsidiary stores and focusing entirely on the big-box store concept and by the end of 1979 the company was bringing over a hundred and twenty million dollars in sales as the wards company continued to move in the direction of Circuit City in 1984 the company officially changed its corporate name to Circuit City also during this time the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time now in retail terms these stores began to really change the game on what consumers experienced an electronic store under the new CEO the company began building and replacing regular Circuit City stores with new Circuit City super stores these new stores featured entire filled walls of televisions and unique media displays new themed pathways around the store equaled organization and smooth customer flow more desirable products were placed towards the back of the store to encourage people to walk through more of the store all these techniques for retail were very innovative and really did change the game on what we even see now in 1984 Circuit City had 113 operating stores by this time in our first world culture the stores were going faster as more emerging consumer technology came to the market such as cordless telephones microwave ovens and VCRs when moving into a single area Circuit City would intelligently open a large amount of very large stores with heavy marketing and efficient distribution this would allow the company to top the local shares in the market the expansion strategy proved to be effective when in 1987 Circuit City reached a billion dollars in sales for the first time for the most part this quick jump was driven in part by the increasing demand for VCRs which in return put more demand on other products they were known for such as televisions and audio equipment and by 1988 the company was at the top of the nation's electronic store market share and with this in 1989 Circuit City sales had doubled from the sales they had announced in 1987 in the early 90s Circuit City was growing at a rapid rate and by 1993 the company had over 300 stores with more than 200 on the way however competition began with Circuit City and Best Buy with price cuts being made on both ends which sparked an Everlasting pricing war between the two companies the like up Circuit City had on Best Buy it was her service as Circuit City was all about helping customers find what they were looking for as the employees were paid on Commission as Best Buy was based on a finding yourself basis Circuit City stood by this position when in 1994 the company proved that customers preferred Circuit City over Best Buy even though analysts claimed that the market was extremely competitive Circuit City brought in over 7 billion dollars in sales by 1995 and with rising projections of 20% annually in 1993 the company deviated from its original business model when it oddly decided to open a chain of used-car Lots which later became Carmack's and just two years into their new subsidiary the chain was bringing in pretty good numbers for the company honestly Carmack's was a great company to bring to the lucrative and rather sketchy market that was used car lots and car backs innovated a lot in the industry it was kind of odd to see a massive electronic retailer get into the used-car industry however it proved to be a great decision for the company for now it was good that the company had a strong secondary revenue stream as the electronic market became a little more saturated and in 1996 Best Buy surpassed Circuit City as the new number one electronic retailer it didn't help that Carmack's was beginning to lose money for the company and by 1998 the chain had lost over twenty three point five million dollars with this all future expansion for Carmack's was halted however by the following year circuit city itself was doing very well the company revenue was pushing ten billion dollars with the 2000s approaching and the company switching up its leadership roles the executive decision was made to remove the appliance section from its stores in favour of focusing more on consumer electronics the company had generated over fourteen percent of its revenue from the appliance side however with increasing competition from stores like Home Depot the decision was just made to cut the departments from stores with this six Circuit City distribution centers closed and a thousand staff members have lost their jobs while this was going on the company began its 1.42 billion dollar overhaul and refurbishment to their 570 stores this refurbishment would eliminate the appliance section from their stores and boost the section of the now popular DVDs video games and other consumer electronics these new stores mirrored what Best Buy had with their self service and customer friendly approach the layout would feature wider aisles open layouts and more floor space the introduction of shopping carts into the stores began as well as employees remaining on Commission pay something that Best Buy it dissolved back in 90 89 as the refurbishments rolled out to their stores worldwide they were almost immediately hurt by the increasing week retail market and the ever-growing Best Buy chain during this time Circuit City had decided to separate Carmack's from the main company and by 2002 Carmack's was separately traded in 2003 the company had finally decided to terminate the employees commission pay and adopt a standard hourly wage pay this move reduced 3900 commissioned paid employees to now 2,100 waged pay employees in 2004 the company closed 19 underperforming stores and this was kind of showing the weakening of the company's finances in February of 2004 overall company sales fell 2% bringing the company's net sales to 9.75 billion this coupled with the chain 600 store is barely profitable and their previous tax charges the company reported a net loss of 85 million dollars even with the loss Circuit City was determined to turn things around with an ambitious plan to open 65 to 70 new stores even though about half of these would be relocations the company wanted to find a better and more profitable locations by eliminating ones that worked against that during 2004 the company made some big-ticket purchases by acquiring music now an online music store and a company called inner tan the 300 million dollar acquisition of inner tan was interesting because the company operated nearly a thousand outlets in Canada under some popular names such as Radio Shack Rogers Plus and battery Plus Circuit City believed that this Agreement would allow an easy entrance to Canada a market that Best Buy had been already taking over with however since RadioShack separated itself from the company way back in the 80s a legal suit was filed against them for using the name in Canada in 2005 RadioShack won their case against Circuit City and they were forced to rebrand the stores into the source as for the main company profits condemned the slowed the company stock was beginning to slump down but honestly things began to recover quite well in 2007 the company unveiled the next step in their evolution as a brand a concept they had called this city the idea was to utilize the space more effectively and cut down on their massive for space this idea would allow the company to explore other markets in this new format as Best Buy was booming in sales Circuit City began a struggle and in February the company closed seven domestic stores along with an entire distribution center to cut back operating costs and it was made much worse when the company began to show great weakness by its CFO resigning it was the third resignation of a senior executive in the company and within a six-month period also in 2007 Circuit City announced they would be decreasing their employees starting wage from $8.75 to 7.40 cents an hour if you remember our blockbuster video I mentioned that blockbuster of all companies offered to buy Circuit City for a billion dollars however this deal was retracted not too long after this and Circuit City was on a course that sides End Circuit City continued to lose millions of dollars each month and as 2008 came in each quarter the company would announce losses of hundreds of millions of dollars as stock continued to drop Circuit City CEO resigned on September 22nd 2008 a new acting CEO was issued however as the company continued to lose money and desperate to become profitable Circuit City announced they would close 155 stores and lay off 17% of their employees and soon after the inevitable happened on November 10 2008 Circuit City had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and much like blockbuster the company's stock fell under $1 a share and was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange Circuit City was approved to borrow 1 point 1 billion dollars to finance its operations in an effort to restructure the company the company was valued at 3.4 billion dollars in assets however with an outstanding debt of 2.2 3 billion the company CEO promised that the remaining stores would continue to remain open however despite a Mexican television company buying 20% of Circuit City on January 10 2009 the company announced they would need to find a buyer within six days or else the company would be forced to shut its doors so with no bidder found the company opted into chapter 7 bankruptcy and announced they would be liquidating all their assets so all of Circuit City stores began selling everything they could and once the stores were cleaned out the stores would permanently closed as for all Canadian operations initially they weren't really affected by this and the source was soon bought by Bell Canada during this liquidation it was reported that 30,000 employees would lose their jobs and on March 8 2009 Circuit City had closed all of their stores worldwide this left hundreds of stores completely abandoned a massive retail giant a 60 year old company just all of a sudden gone at its end it was still the second largest electronics retail store in the world just gone so why did this happen well the decisions made internally at Circuit City weren't the best as the former CEO stated in the early days it was what excited the customers and in the later years it was what would excite Wall Street in the early days the company took a huge emphasis on employee culture and how they were treated as years went on though management began to treat the employees as Expendables and easily replaced management figured they knew everything and the negligence ultimately was a huge problem in upper management had so what did end up happening with Circuit City after the initial cease of operations well actually right after in April of 2009 a company named Systemax signed a six point five million dollar agreement to purchase circuit city's bankrupt assets and almost immediately after they launched a Circuit City website which dealt with online consumer electronics and in November of 2012 Circuit City comm would now be rebranded to turn into tigerdirect calm this was the last time Circuit city's name would ever be used again until now yeah usually these stories don't really end this way so it's pretty interesting so two New York retail veterans bought the rights that a named Circuit City in early 2016 with plans of opening a new store in June of the same year the idea is to target Millennials in a new store concept in smaller size the new stores would be kind of a mix between RadioShack or the source mixed with a little bit of Best Buy it's not really that revolutionary and honestly I don't really think this is gonna work out too well the layout and the sense of what they're going for it just reminds me a lot of the source and good god do I dislike the source it's just so bland and boring and overpriced and demitted I just I really just don't like the source the projected store opening in June didn't really happen and in a very short press release they said they're taking their time to get it right and it is kind of exciting to see such an iconic and nostalgic brand be revised as of right now though there's still a lot of old Circuit City stores completely abandoned but honestly this story usually doesn't end this way and truly this brand has been given a second chance and with smart people behind it it might just succeed anyway guys my name is Jake follow us on Twitter Instagram and snapchat and thank you very much for one [Music] was changing the minds tonight [Music] ah to ring it in the key let's see as he does in the nine-member [Music]

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 3,042,544

Rating: 4.6597452 out of 5

Keywords: abandoned, abandoned retail, abandoned mall, Circuit City, abandoned circuit city, bankruptcy, circuit city abandoned, abandoned store, urbex, retial urbex, american store, abandoned department store, Best Buy, Amazon, The Source, electronic store, store, dead store, dead mall, dead retail, 1980's, 1990's, bright sun films, abandoned buildings, abandoned blockbuster, blockbuster, radioshack, wards, abandoned retail store, creepy, failed brand, failed store, Circuit City store, urban

Id: BWPLKXPM9Fg

Length: 14min 55sec (895 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 30 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/greyhatx]

I think BBY can still pivot... If you look at CC’s financial situation, it’s not even comparable...

[u/Adexavus]

Only thing Circuit City and Best Buy have in common currently is the lack of empathy shown to employees. Circuit City pivoted away from how they treated employees and Best Buy did the same. More Best Buy employees are gonna get mistreated and labor abused before the problem actually gets better, though I am optimistic about that because Best Buy has been able to adapt to a changing market. All that is left it to pivot focus on employees again.

[u/harjon456]

Like best buy.. But red

[u/WhatAgentlulz]

At least their people were both treated like and got commission. As opposed to corp's demands treating us like we are commission but not getting it. I hate buying from places with commissions, but seeing the weird levels blue shirts get to to just hit metrics is just as bad. We had someone hold his tongue about the customer really needing his (the customer's) IT staff get his data off a freaking work unit. And went in pretty deep about GS being able to do it. We couldn't as it was very well locked down. Could sign-in, but wouldn't let a non-encrypted device be used. Which we couldn't get the key for of course. The customer had said he doubted we could beforehand. All that just because the blue shirt desperately needed the TTS sale. If he didn't have to worry about that, then he would've advised the real solution that he knew the guy needed. All the stress but without the real world perks of commission.

[u/Salt_Restaurant_7820]

Yet reality shows a thriving vibrant company on the stock exchange, that’s sadly all that has mattered for decades.

[u/AgentLivingston]

Dude I love his videos.

[u/logan2hip]

I can’t recommend this channel enough, his videos on abandoned places are the best

[u/InevitableUnable7013]

If you you were around CARE + was when Best Buy was at it’s Best. The plus was the employees

[u/Boz6]

That's a sad story. I sure hope Best Buy can figure out how to avoid a similar end...