Goodbye, Fry's Electronics

Off-Topic Games, Gaming and Hardware
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Saw this morning that Fry’s Electronics has gone out of business. Their last day of business was yesterday (the 23rd), they closed with no notice to the public.

For those who aren’t familiar with them, Fry’s was founded in the 80’s and grew into a large electronics retailer with themed stores. The majority of their locations were in California, several in Texas, and a scattering of locations in other states. I am not aware of any locations outside the US although I could be wrong on that. In terms of square footage, the stores I shopped in were all significantly larger than a Best Buy.

I first discovered them when I moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 2001. At that time, they had pretty much everything electronic you could name, including pretty much everything needed to build a PC from scratch if you were so inclined. And they had plenty of staff around to help you with questions. Apparently they had a reputation for poor customer service although I personally never had any problems with help or returns.

I’d say between 2001 and 2015 or so, I bought many things there including CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, PlayStation 2/3/4 games, PC games, monitors, computer components including graphics cards, RAM, cabling, etc, mice and other peripherals, iPhone accessories, and many other “miscellaneous” electronics items. My hard copies of TBC and Cataclysm were purchased there and still have the price tags.

Starting about 2010-2012, though, you could tell that the changing shopping model for electronics was starting to hurt them. Inventory and selection started dwindling. I’m sure Amazon and such hurt them as it did many other retailers, but Fry’s never managed to adapt as others have (such as Best Buy which appears to still be doing OK as far as I can tell). There were corporate scandals and white-collar crime which hurt too. I continued to shop there during the 2010’s but you could tell their time was getting short. I think Covid was probably the final straw but it really probably only hastened the inevitable by a year or two.

The last time I was in a Fry’s was about a month ago in Plano, Texas. I went in to purchase a mouse pad and a USB hub. I found what I needed but their shelves were really, really, bare. Probably 25% of the store space was totally empty, not even shelving, just open space. Depressing.

RIP to a once-great store.

2 Likes
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Fry’s was a huge part of my youth. I remember skipping class and driving out to hang out at Fry’s since it was always open at 8. This had to have been the late 1990s.

I remember buying my first PC parts there, which was a Pentium III 450mhz CPU with a Diamond Micronics 440BX motherboard.

Many many years of buying stuff from them, even my current motherboard from 2017 and a PC case (NZXT S340). But that was the last relevant item I purchased from them.

They’ve been on the decline for the past 3 years, and I’m not surprised they’re gone. And I am not really sad, either, as they don’t seem to have been trying very hard to stay relevant. This is the fate they probably deserve.

Hopefully, Microcenter will see an opportunity here and swoop in.

I would LOVE that to happen.

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As far as the overall company, yes, I do think they brought it on themselves. But I do feel bad for the rank-and-file employees, though.

Microcenter does seem to be doing well. Their store in Richardson, TX, is always busy and their shelves are certainly full!

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While I sympathize, it isn’t like they didn’t see this coming. The writing on the wall has been there for ages.

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Agreed. Every time I’ve been in there in the past couple of years, I wondered how they were keeping the doors open.

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Sometime last year I went to fry’s to go look around, when I got there like it felt dead, no one at the aisles because majority of the aisles were empty.

I walked to the pc parts area of the store and majority of their stock either had “sold out” or “clearance” with majority of clearance parts was like some ddr3 ram sticks or some obsolete motherboard.

Their food court at the middle of the store was basically empty out, couldn’t even buy a bottle of soda, but they had someone there trying to sell packaged cookies.

In 2010 I bought my starcraft 2 wings of liberty collectors edition and even at that time the place was still thriving.

Sad indeed that something I grew up with is now gone

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I used to work at their “distribution center” which was in an Airborne Express warehouse. Everybody still called it Outpost which was funny. It was cool to see things come in that weren’t released yet. This was like 15 years ago when they were relevant. Never been in a store though since I don’t think there were any on the east coast. Anyway, I hope another company comes along because computer stores are awesome.

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They wouldn’t keep up with the times, that was their downfall

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Yep.

Their website looked like it was from 1995.

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Retail Archaeology did a pretty good series of it a while back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzNe1OO3n1s&t=8s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqDZMzcbzkg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8bEcgJRShw

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The website is now just a page telling people they shut down, can’t even look at their last sales stock

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They had gone to a consignment model some time back, so whatever merchandise is on the shelves (I think) just gets sent back to the manufacturer, so no going-out-of-business sale. Too bad. Would have been nice to go back one last time even though it would be depressing.

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Lol if you look at Microcenter’s twitter, it’s all the echoes of Fry’s customers begging them to move into their old spots

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That… would actually be pretty awesome.

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They haven’t sold anything relevant in years.

Mostly it is knockoff perfumes, expiring food, and As-Seen-On-TV stuff that hasn’t been seen on TV in a decade

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From what I read so far, some of the employees there that worked yesterday, management basically told them all after closing “were shutting down, you’re not working anymore”

Kinda scummy to do do

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So is putting a 10% off sticker on returned broken items and trying to sell them again, but who knew

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feels like it was just yesterday that I was working there as my in between job awhile finding my big boy job in 2016…

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glad you escaped

they should at least be eligible for unemployment, right? so there’s that at least

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Unfortunately not much of a surprise, the Fry’s that was near wear I used to live existed in a zombie state for at least a few years before closing some time last year.

Sucks though, because now there’s no big computer part stores nearby. Somehow feels wrong that I need to order in everything despite living in/right next to silicon valley.