Guillotine

Okay… I took the last couple weeks off of posting as it’s been really slow on the news front lately, but here is something I came across on gizmodo and found too funny not to post.

I’m thinking about running right over there to get a job. Who needs job security these days anyway.

Actually… This picture reminds me of a local furniture store that has had a “going out of business” banner up for the last 10 years, but has yet to close it’s doors. I think it would be rather amusing if right before these Circuit City locations are ready to close they suddenly find enough capital to keep them open, and we find out this was all a ploy to help them dump off a lot of old stock.

The sad thing about Circuit City is that they really did not need to close so many stores. A simple restructure of the stores would have done wonders for them. During my stint in retail management I spent 7 years running a department store’s electronics department, and got to see the effects of Best Buy on our sales when they opened. What Circuit City did to respond to Best Buy was the wrong move. They remodeled their stores, but tried to keep a showroom style which just does not work these days. Not to mention whoever was in charge of their layouts was probably on some drugs at the time… My local Circuit City decided to put computer displays at the front of the store while the PC accessories were in a back corner… Honestly until last year I didn’t even know that stuff was back there. They also stuck video games at the very back of the store… Bad idea there.

I know when my store came under threat of Best Buy we responded by forgoing the showroom style and going full big box. Pack the shelves with merchandise, and focus on self service. Honestly It worked. During the whole time I was there we had 20-30% sales increases every year, and never really even noticed Best Buy’s impact on our sales. People don’t want to ask for assistance these days… They just want to walk in, grab what they want, and get out. I suspect after I left my store it did even better as the guy who took over for me really believed in the “stack it out” philosophy, and regularly stacked piles of merchandise right in the aisles. In my opinion Circuit City would have done well to employ this strategy, and probably would not be in the jam they are in now if they had simply changed with the times. Get the merchandise out on the sales floor, and come up with a sensible floor plan… Those two things work wonders in any modern retail environment.