[Ipg-smz] The Fry’s Era - Monday Note

[David Needle]

I was very surprised in this thread to find out Microcenter was still in
business. They left the Bay Area a long time ago, Santa Clara store closed
seven years ago. According to their website they have 25 stores nationwide,
but only one in California - Southern California (Tustin)

It seemed like a lot of complaints about Frys date back many years (and I
have a few anecdotes as well), so perhaps they could never shake their bad
reputation. I had been to the Palo Alto store, oh, probably a dozen times
over the past five years, but not at all in the past year. The salespeople
tried a bit too hard to upsell me a few times, but outside out that, I
thought it was a good to shop

On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 3:34 PM Gabe Goldberg via Ipg-smz <
ipg-smz at netpress.org> wrote:

> The two Micro Center stores in Washington, DC area suburbs are doing
> great. I'm more familiar with Virginia store, having met its wonderful
> store manager when he responded brilliantly to a complaint (!) I'd sent
> to company CEO. He's enthusiastic about partnering with local user
> groups -- www.wap.org and www.patacs.org -- hosting group meetings in
> the store, donating raffle prizes, giving group brochures to customers.
>
> I'm researching whether any of the other 14 stores are near user groups
> to see about similar partnerships elsewhere.
>
> On 9/5/2019 5:10 PM, Andy Patrizio via Ipg-smz wrote:
> > Belated response...
> >
> > I wrote to JLG about this and he kindly responded. We both agree Fry's
> brought this on itself. It had an abysmal reputation among my system
> builder friends for terrible quality control, putting broken gear back on
> the shelves for sale. I heard horror stories of buying the same parts two
> and three times to find one that worked. And their staff was notoriously
> incompetent and lackadaisical.
> >
> > I'm not surprised the Palo Alto store is closing, it was the smallest
> with poor parking. Sunnyvale was my favorite when I lived up there,
> followed by Fremont (which is just massive). I'm curious how the others are
> doing, and how its major competitor Micro Center is doing. I know the one
> in Sunnyale near Yahoo closed but the others appear to be doing fine,
> especially the one down here in the OC. MC has embraced the online market
> far better than Fry's and I'd love to do a contrast of the two companies'
> fortunes, if someone wants to hire me. <hint> <hint>
> >
> > One area where I disagreed with JLG is the online effect. He said Amazon
> was is undoing but I say NewEgg did more damage. It really catered to
> hobbyists and they reciprocated.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ipg-smz <ipg-smz-bounces at netpress.org> On Behalf Of Gabe Goldberg
> via Ipg-smz
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2019 8:21 AM
> > To: undisclosed-recipients:
> > Cc: Gabe Goldberg <gabe at gabegold.com>
> > Subject: [Ipg-smz] The Fry’s Era - Monday Note
> >
> > by Jean-Louis Gassée
> > Throughout the 90’s and aughts, Fry’s Electronics was a Silicon Valley
> institution, a truly aboriginal techie bazaar where geeks could find
> everything they needed to live in autarky, from logic boards to voltmeters,
> dried noodles to “nice” clothes for a job interview, magazines, energy
> bars, mini-fridges… A quarter-century later, Fry’s stores have become sad,
> pale shadows of their glorious past.
> >
> > https://mondaynote.com/the-frys-era-8709a7e602eb
> >
> --
> Gabriel Goldberg, Computers and Publishing, Inc.       gabe at gabegold.com
> 3401 Silver Maple Place, Falls Church, VA 22042           (703) 204-0433
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gabegold            Twitter: GabeG0
>
>
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