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End of an Era - Frys gone

Yea, we were pretty excited when Fry's opened up in Manhattan Beach. Definitely a different era.

As much as I liked that they just had raw parts (boards, drives, etc.) and good prices plus whatever other weird stuff they sold, I've never "liked" Fry's. I tolerated it. I've always found the stores disheveled and messy, and never cared much for the people that worked there. No enthusiasm.

They did have a really good magazine selection, though.
 
Frys was more interesting than Best Buy, in that while there was a lot of junk to sort through, they had a larger selection, and cheaper prices, you could come away with something decent enough that day without having to order online. Compare that to Best Buy, which is higher priced, less to choose from, and probably not that good anyway. Best Buy adapted because of Frys. Yes, look what happened to CompUSA. I'm sure Best Buy "online" is hardly an innovation they state it is, and there is something else about them.
 
Huh thats strange. The only Frys I ever saw was in San Diego. It was huge. Considering Radio shack stopped selling electronic components forever ago, it was nice to see a store still sell them; even if they were subpar and the price was bloated. I think too much of the store was dedicated to Gaming PC stuff (cases, lights, etc) and they sold appliances.. I guess the writing was on the wall.

Does anyone remember when Gateway 2000 changed the name to Gateway and then opened all those Gateway country stores and tried selling TV's? Yeah.. how did that work out for them.. Now they don't exist and Acer bought their IP.

Seems sudden, but when you think about it.. Its not shocking.
 
I remember when Fry's opened their first store in Sunnyvale. At the time I spoke with John Fry who said the inspiration was from purchasing a PC and realizing that the dealer markup was something like 60 percent. His family was in the grocery business and operated on 2-3 percent margins and still made a healthy profit. The idea was to capitalize on large volume rather than big margins.

Folks would come to the store to fill their car's trunk with Canfield's Diet Fudge Soda and Jolt Cola. But you could even buy VME cards there as well. They sold a lot of Everex stuff, particularly the returns. My first EGA was an Everex Micro Enhancer--still have it.

Well, Silicon Valley changed a lot since being populated mostly by engineers. They actually used to makep things there, you know...

I'll try to find a can of Canfield's to toast them farewell...
 
I think it is "sudden" in that there was no fire sale or lay offs so no indication that it was coming.

Fry's started out as grocery store (Chuck(G) can tell you the history way better then I ever could). They always tried to be a one stop shop for everything. Appliances at Fry's is nothing new. Those were there from the first day at the Woodland Hills store. The difference between them and BB was at the end of the day Fry's was computer store that sold appliances (i.e. you went to Fry's because you were looking for computer parts not a fridge) and BB was a home appliance store that started selling computers. BB (and even CompUSA) never sold components like Fry's did (i.e. bulk packaging vs. retail packaging).

I guess the only one left now is Micro Center although I have no idea how they are doing. None was ever close to me so my only experience with them was in early 2000s when Etrade was making a name for themselves and they ran promotion. If you signed up with Etrade and parked your money for a few months you got a $500 GC to Micro Center. I still have the Netgear switch and some of the other stuff I bought during that promotion... Good times...
 
The Gateway stores were weird. They seemed to based on the idea of car dealerships where one could see models and design a special order to be shipped later but the Gateway stores had basically no stock to sell. It was a great show room for high end computer desks which Gateway also didn't sell.

Fry's ran into a cash crunch a few years ago and tried to switch to a consignment model. Strangely, the suppliers were not willing to take on the risks associated with stocking Fry's in that way. I guess that if it hadn't been for Covid, Fry's would have closed last year to sell off those huge buildings. The depressed real estate market meant Fry's tried to hang on for a better price.
 
Chuck(G) said:
They sold a lot of Everex stuff, particularly the returns. My first EGA was an Everex Micro Enhancer--still have it.
Click to expand...

Are you sure Chuck? I think you sold me that card many moons ago... Of course I guess you could have had multiples... LOL!
 
I bought two of them and still have the second one. Still have bags of connectors with the red-and-white Fry's label. Most of my molex Y-connectors are from Fry's.

Fry's Food Stores are still very much in business, though they're now owned by Kroger.

Ah, time eats away at the corners of one's existence, doesn't it?
 
Well it was nice to have a place you could drive to if you needed something NOW! But that has become a thing of the past it seems. Damn shame.
Diet fudge soda huh? Sounds pretty interesting. Love me some cream soda anyway.
 
No Fry's in Michigan - closest would have been in Indiana. I used to get their ads but never saw any real deals. They kind of remind me of TigerDirect which will probably be the next to go.
 
Agent Orange said:
No Fry's in Michigan - closest would have been in Indiana. I used to get their ads but never saw any real deals. They kind of remind me of TigerDirect which will probably be the next to go.
Click to expand...

Was TigerDirect ever a retail presence or just online? I only knew them as an online store.
 
Shadow Lord said:
Was TigerDirect ever a retail presence or just online? I only knew them as an online store.
Click to expand...

TigerDirect and the other corporate entities under the same umbrella operated a number of stores before closing the bulk in 2015. I think some of those retail outlets were operational before the purchase of CircuitCity and CompUSA. Now, all of those corporate names are just web address aliases for Insight.

As long as Amazon is willing to incur heavy losses for market share, it will be difficult for any mail order shop to compete.
 
Shadow Lord said:
Was TigerDirect ever a retail presence or just online? I only knew them as an online store.
Click to expand...

I used to buy a few things online from TD back when but I quit looking as I never see a deal. Not long ago I was at a Condo in Fort Myers Beach and needed a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter for my laptop. They happened to have a store in Fort Myers, now closed, so I went there looking for the adapter. They had it and were asking $70 and I walked out. They still do some business in Florida.
 
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