Fry's Electronics Closing All Stores - Cancelled

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#Frys #Electronics #Amazon

After nearly 36 years in business, tech retailer Fry's Electronics is permanently shuttering all of its stores citing Jeff Bezos as the reason.

Amazon is Responsible for Thousands of Business Closures Around the World.

Amazon.com has hit just about every industry hard, especially retail. Fry’s Electronics is one of the most recent retailers to fall victim to Jeff Bezos. The company recently announced it would be closing its 31 stores across the United States. The electronics retailer, which was founded 1985 by the three Fry brothers, had served as a “one-stop-shop” and online resource for technology professionals for almost 36 years.

“Fry’s Electronics Inc. has made the difficult decision to shut down its operations and close its business permanently as a result of changes in the retail industry and the challenges posed by Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com”

“The company will implement the shut down through an orderly wind down process that it believes will be in the interests of the company, its creditors and other stakeholders.”

Like a lot of brick and mortar retailers, Fry’s troubles began before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. It initially struggled as more shoppers began to buy online instead visiting physical stores. Additionally, Fry’s Electronics wasn’t able to shift to an online model as quickly as larger rivals like Best Buy, which recently reported its best quarter in 25 as home-bound customers bought laptops, kitchen appliances and home theater systems, according to @ProjectCarTV

Then at the end of 2019 Fry’s transitioned to a consignment model, which limited its in-store inventory. Concerns about the retailer’s future began to grow at that point, especially when its Palo Alto location, one its biggest, closed around that same time. Meanwhile reports surfaced last April that an office campus might replace Fry’s San Jose store, according to @ProjectCarTV

Although it likely provides no consolation, Fry’s Electronics did fare better than its two biggest competitors in the computer and consumer electronics space, CompUSA and Circuit City. CompUSA stopped its operations in 2012 and Circuit City, which once boasted 560 stores, closed its final location in 2009.

“Fry’s was a physical manifestation of a Silicon Valley that no longer exists,” Harry McCracken wrote for Fast Company.

“In the age when it was founded and prospered, the iconic products of the Valley were, indeed, products—from Apple desktop computers to HP laser printers to Seagate hard drives. But this century, the area’s biggest new successes, such as Google and Facebook, got huge fast because their businesses were entirely cloud-based and free to use. You didn’t have to go to Fry’s to get them, which severed the tight relationship between the store and the region that gave it birth.” - @ProjectCarTV