[Ipg-smz] The Fry’s Era - Monday Note

Sat Sep 7 02:29:32 UTC 2019

Not only that but Fry’s could teach Apple a lesson in publicity avoidance. I mean they do not cooperate with the press AT ALL. Contrast that with Gabe’s anecdote of community outreach.

There’s a good story here. 😉

From: Ipg-smz <ipg-smz-bounces at netpress.org> On Behalf Of David Needle via Ipg-smz
Sent: Friday, September 6, 2019 5:11 PM
To: ipg-smz at netpress.org
Cc: David Needle <davidneedle at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Ipg-smz] The Fry’s Era - Monday Note

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 <mailto: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 <http://www.wap.org>  and www.patacs.org <http://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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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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