The (Stupid) Death of Fry's Electronics | Failing to Serve or Adapt | History in the Dark

[@maxpowers156]

I used to work at Fry's in San Jose, and the reason why the customer service sucked is cause of the low pay. I started at $7.25 and then they LOWERED my pay to $6.50 with "tips". I was a freakin cashier!!!! WHAT TIPS!!! They forced us to take that lower pay as well. I quit that same month thank god and moved on, so the customer service suffered as a result.

[@41moose]

I don’t get it when people say they forced you to work there for low pay…

[@Fuckthis0341]

Screams of an unlawful hiring practice. Guess there's nobody to report for it now tho

[@QCJSiteB]

It’s not hard to understand. They forced them to take a pay cut. As the poster said, they quit.

[@Delbel_Giggles91]

Wow that’s messed up!

[@M5snowhite]

​@@41moose dude read it again... OP said they were forced to take a pay cut on top of allready a low rate so they quit.

[@christopherleveck6835]

They nearly put me out of business using something they called "stock balancing". They would buy something, advertise it for less than cost, then tell people they ran out of stock. Meanwhile they would wait 90 days or longer to pay me. Stock balancing meant they could return excess inventory. So after holding the inventory, and cornering the market on some component, they would send it back for credit. By that time whatever it was could be worthless. Omar would make a bunch of deals with you to sucker you in, then totally take advantage of you and then eventually stop taking your calls. He had a dozen different ways to keep you sending him products as your company spiralled out of control. He would buy an OEM bundle deal like a Creative CD-Rom drive, 5 software titles, sound card and speakers for 400 bucks. He would break the bundle and sell all the stuff separately. He would blow out the CD-Rom drives at some ridiculous price well below my cost of the drives. Like $49.99 when my hard cost on just that item was $200.00. Then they would tell people they didn't have any left and wait 90 days and then return them to me under the guise of "stock balancing" and offer to pay me 20 bucks a drive. I was forced to take it or leave it. Or they would play a game where they would tell me they were all defective and demand i take them all back after the first weekend where they would blow a bunch of them out way under my cost then return them without warning and short pay a 400 per bundle invoice claiming the drives were worth 300 bucks each. Which would force me to eat 150 bucks per bundle. Or they once asked me if i had anything i could sell them super cheap. I called around to my suppliers and found a guy swimming in iomega disk drives. They were really popular at the time and very hard to find. This guy had bet the farm and bought 10,000 of them. And then the price dropped and he couldnt sell them even at cost and was liquidating them and going out of business. I bought 4500 of them at 100 bucks each and sold them to Fry's for 120. They advertised them for 99 bucks a piece at a time when they were selling for 200 everywhere else IF you could find one. What i didnt know is they bought another couple thousand direct from the company. They blew those out anf returned the ones they got from me after they had three blow out sales on them. Flooded the market knowing the new bigger ones were coming out and totally screwed me. Of course they told everyone they were sold out. I got to a point where i had a bunch of inventory i couldnt sell. And here comes Fry's offering to "save" me by buying everything i had for CASH. So on my last legs i delivered everything i had left for pennies on the dollar and then they didnt have a check ready for me. Never paid me for that last order.

[@HectorQuien]

Geez. Sorry that happened man. That's freaking insane. They got their just due in the end. Sadly they took many down with them.

[@MMAFan20]

Sorry to hear that. This comment needs more likes to bring it up to the top

[@rrutter81]

this comment should be pinned

[@CarlosValeraLeon]

That sounds rough. "Nearly" put you out of business? How did you stay afloat after all those shenanigans?

[@rickeymh]

Yes, I heard many stories about their unsavory business practices, especially after 2004 when internet sales started biting into their bottom line.

[@heatherharrison264]

Every time I went into Fry's, I expected to encounter surly and disengaged employees. They were known for this for a long time. I'm more of the techie type, so when I went there, it was usually for a specific purpose, and I knew exactly what I wanted. Even so, I could tell that the people working at the checkout counter wanted to be anywhere else. The demise of Fry's and Radio Shack has left a big hole. I used to take it for granted that if I needed some small electronic part, cable, or tool, I could hop in the car, go to Radio Shack if it was something basic, or go to Fry's if it was something a bit less common. When I'm in the middle of a project and I don't have a part that I need, I don't want to have to order it online and wait for a day or two for the thing to arrive. Now, if I need something like that, there aren't many options to buy it in a store. There is a Micro Center about an hour for me. It is fantastic for computer parts (and the customer service is excellent), but there are only a few basic electronic components. Other than that, there are the industrial supply companies that have inconvenient hours and locations. Fry's was in terrible shape even before the virus hit. It seems that they were struggling for a long time and were having difficulty with suppliers. For the last few years, it was common to walk into a store and find that half the shelves were empty. The great selection of exotic parts and tools that they were famous for dwindled and disappeared. Eventually, the only reason to go in there was curiosity to see how bad it had become. I think the virus dealt the final death blow, but the company had rotted from within long before that.

[@calyodelphi124]

Yeah, I'm in exactly the same boat. Except that when I was growing up, I lived further east, so I didn't even have Fry's Electronics. All I had in the nearest town to me was Radio Shack. I didn't know Fry's existed until I moved to Austin, and boy howdy the electronics components section was my MECCA in there!! I live just outside of D.C. now, and yeah there's two Micro Centers in the area, but in both locations the electronics hobby section is basically an afterthought and it kind of sucks. I have to wait for shipping from DigiKey, Mouser, Newark, et al. for most stuff now. :(

[@waltciii3]

Exactly! Without Frys and Radio Shack, it's an ordeal just to get transistors, capacitors, resistors, and connectors. Sometimes you just have an idea of what you're building, and could walk the aisles for inspiration for the solution.

[@alex548554]

@@heatherharrison264 their death was apparent when a quarter of the store was cheap toy drones and fidget spinners... So many fidget spinners.

[@heatherharrison264]

@@alex548554 I remember this. As the useful stuff disappeared from the stores, they attempted to fill the empty space with whatever rubbish they could acquire. When this happens, it is clear that a store is in decline.

[@brucelytle1144]

I used to love going to Fry's in San Jose, back in the day! I was working robotics at a company, had my own business coming up with specific applications, Fry's was the go to place for everything! I left California in 91, would drive an hour driving from Vancouver WA to get to one, it disappeared somewhere some time. Didn't see another till I was working a job in Austin in 2018 or so.... RIP Fry's! 😢

[@Jedimastob1]

Man I used to LOVE going to Fry's. They used to have imported games from Japan and had a line that went around the HUGE warehouse building on Black Friday. My very last trip to Fry's that happened to be a only a few weeks before they closed, the door greeter was asleep at his seat in the front, the entire shop was barren, and the fan that I purchased ended up being repacked from the store itself and caked with dust from years of use. The fan ended up dying 4 months later. Returned and repacked computer mice on the selling racks were literally caked with dead skin and grime, it was insane, I genuinely gagged at seeing all the gunk. I felt cheated, but this was the last breath Fry's had. The people there were still nice, for what it was worth, but you could tell it was on the way out. I truly, truly, miss Fry's. I felt going there was the exact same feeling as going into a Toys R' Us (which was also covered on this channel funnily enough!). Thanks for bringing me back to better days!

[@uzlonewolf]

Yep, I started referring to them as "open box city" as open boxes were the only thing they had on the shelves.

[@ajplays-gamesandmusic4568]

I was told, by a Frys Employee, just before the Tempe AZ store closed... that the reason Frys went under, was because Frys decided to implement the Walmart Business model (aka consignment, where the store is a warehouse, and the vendors don't get paid for their goods until they sell in-store. The Vendors didn't want to participate in this business model because Amazon and Walmart were already taking advantage of them in this way... so, over time, the shelves at Frys became less and less crowded, and eventually, the stores were, basically devoid of anything a consumer would want to buy, because they alienated all the vendors).

[@davecomstock9544]

And with a huge inventory of obscure/esoteric items -- odd cables, electronic parts, etc. -- in individual stores that might not sell for years, they didn't have the advantage of Amazon's central warehouses, eBay's wide range of individual sellers, or Walmart's focus on high-volume, quick turnover inventory. So vendors who expected to be paid in 60 or 90 days and kept getting strung along stopped supplying Fry's with new products: a death sentence for a chain catering to high-tech folks. At the end, the shelves that weren't empty mostly had As Seen On TV products and dollar store items like flashlight keychains, pocket screwdriver sets, and RFID-blocking credit card cases. Which is why Fry's is never coming back (at least under that name or management group): except for those As Seen On TV and dollar store vendors, everyone else would likely demand cash up front from a resurrected Fry's.

[@ocstrangeness]

Except walmart is not a consignment shop. That was all made up. They were told to lie to you, they lied to all of us to buy some time before the inevitable downfall.

[@godkeebler]

@@ajplays-gamesandmusic4568 man 6 to 8 months before they shuttered there was soooo many empty shelves. The merchandiser for the Fremont, CA on automall had aisles of network cable bins were striped by size in and faced on the shelves. The funny thing the multiple aisles were different colors

[@pmbacker1]

Yes, I was told this as well when I went to Fry's during the start of the Covid Pandempic and the graphic card section was utterly empty. I honestly thought that EVERY store was going under as how bare Fry's became and how a person couldn't find toilet paper and the like in grocery stores, at the time.

[@pmbacker1]

@@godkeebler Wilsonville, Oregon was the same. And with that being said, it was only then that I noticed the Makeup and other things that would normally NEVER fit in a Fry's being sold at Fry's.

[@NutellaCrepe]

Former Fry’s commissioned salesman here. They’ve always had some sort of trick to skirt minimum wage laws. Commissioned employees had to earn at least enough in commissions to cover the mandated minimum wage or we would be let go for poor performance. It was not worth that kind of stress. Merchandisers are also paid minimum wage for often hard physical labor, and they were also part cashiers. They don’t respect the employees and it shows. I left when they started selling random things like perfumes and mattresses instead of investing in their workers and modernizing their e-commerce. There was no future for them.

[@Christosan88]

thank you for your service

[@nateTrh]

Yeah, the 100% commission system sucked, especially if you weren't in A/V or computers. Towards the end, they even demoted the managers from salary to hourly + performance bonuses. My Manger just told us to screw the company and do whatever we could to make ourselves money after that. We'd do the classic "take money off the item to sell a warranty" since that was one of the only ways to get paid towards the end besides pushing refurbs or $2k+ laptops. Crazy time for sure and glad I left right before Covid hit.

[@M_Baker9ersFan]

@@nateTrh ah, that’s why they were doing that. Makes sense

[@nateTrh]

@M_Baker9ersFan Yeah, Microcenter from what I heard gives you commission based on the volume of your sales so they just encourage moving product and helping customers. Fry's made their salespeople focus on certain product even if it wasn't the best choice for the customer. Sad when a $2500 gaming PC pays less than a $400 refurbished laptop.

[@SecretAgentBartFargo]

@@nateTrh So that explains why I was able to negotiate prices with sales associates at FRYs, lol.

[@LatitudeSky]

Nobody would ever believe today how important the Frys newspaper ads once were. It was literally the reason to buy a paper and bringing one to work meant coworkers all trying to read it at once, just for the Frys ad pages. Politics? Sports? No. Frys. At some point, they stopped doing those newspaper ads and people stopped buying papers, so the papers shrank in page count and size. Basically the single thing keeping that paper alive were the Frys ads. The stores at opening time had hundreds of people lined up. On a Sunday! And dozens any other day. People would flock inside and head right for the newspaper ads posted on the wall. It was awesome and cheap.

[@WhatWouldRudyEat]

@@LatitudeSky can confirm

[@uss_04]

I miss their letters. Was hoping the email ones maintained themselves in my inbox but they disappeared as well

[@kuebby]

I didn't live close enough to actually go to the store, but our paper would sometimes have the ad and it was like a technology magazine.

[@brianwilliams9408]

@@LatitudeSky Yes! That's how I saw all the "Black Fry Day" sales. I would go specifically for those items. Sometimes, the lines were so long, they would be sold out by the time I got the section I wanted.

[@Whydoineedoneyo]

@@LatitudeSky boomer..

[@itsjuliescottyay]

I bought a “new” desktop from Fry’s and when I got it home I realized that it was a repacked, returned, defective computer that was still registered to the guy who returned it. When I went back, they tried to insist that since I had taken it home, the only thing they could do would be to put in a repair request because it was my computer now. I raised such a fuss at the store that they finally let me exchange it for a new computer that was actually new. That put me off of Fry’s the first time.

[@ExaltedDuck]

Until around 2005 or 6, they would put a special sticker on returned and re-shelved merchandise. It was usually defective an inoperable but it would also come with a discount and sometimes could be negotiated even lower if you wanted to take the risk. When they got rid of the stickers but kept the poilicy of re-shelving returned goods, I had already written them off for lousy in-store exreiences but on the odd occasion I did go to one, I would scrutinize the heck out of anything I considered buying. I was pretty shocked they stayed in business past about 2010. I think it was in 2013 I saw a monitor I wanted showing "2 in stock"in the Brea store (a 45 minute drive, with 3 stores closer) and when I got there, they said they had none, tried to sell me a more expensive and lower quality alternative, eventually found one, giving some bs story (I think they just didn't want to look) but by that point they had me so aggravated I took the lokng way home and bought the same model I wanted from Microcenter for 5% more than Fry's advertised price. I think I only ever set foot in their stores 2 or 3 times after that, usually while christmas shopping for nothing particular, and always shocked at how much further down the drain they had slipped.

[@nateTrh]

​@@ExaltedDuck I used to work in computers when I was there in 2019 and we still had the "bx" open box stickers that gave between 10-50% off depending on condition and how old the item was. I think the California stores mostly had the bad reputation because of how much more expensive it was to operate over there compared to Texas and my store mostly had good people.

[@La_bruin]

Former Fry's employee from 1986 here. We had a "shrink wrap machine' in the stockroom going back to when I was an employee. No one marked returned product as previously opened. I was instructed by Kathy herself to just reshrink wrap it & put it back in stock. I was 16yo so I didn't know any better. This practice was as old as time at Fry's but I worked there back when there was only 1 store. I assume their return stock practices were forced to start labelling things as 'open box' once they got larger.

[@zerodos_02]

Funny enough, I had a similar thing except the PC didn't even boot up. I ordered one online to pick up and they went from having it, to saying it didn't exist. It sucks because they did serve a market that was there, but since they never bothered to take care of their customers, it was never going to last

[@richardjcranium]

I worked at the Las Vegas Fry's and one time they let someone return a laptop I had sold them EIGHT MONTHS ago because they yelled and screamed and threw a fit at the returns counter. After that when someone asked me what I return policy is I said it depends how loud you yell and scream when you return it.

[@28_babyshark]

It takes years to gain a customer and a second to lose them. Stores wonder why people are not coming in their stores anymore and they go bankrupt.

[@gonelucid]

All these companies shutdown down cause of Amazon and now Amazon is worse than it used to be 😂

[@thomosburn8740]

You skipped over something very important, Fry’s was known in the end for mistreating their vendors. Suppliers were expected to allow product to sit in a Fry’s store on display and Fry’s wouldn’t pay their suppliers for the item until it had actually sold. So where are suppliers supposed to come up with the money for their own employees, operations and materials to manufacture those items to begin with?

[@Wzrd100]

@@thomosburn8740 yes, this was a HUGE part of it. They essentially tried to do a consignment model.

[@juancabrillo2u]

The “flooring’ model is not unique to Frys or The electronics biz… there are a lot of retailers who force their vendors to provide product for sale and not pay until it sells. It brings into question what the purpose is of a retailer since they are suppose to actually sell stuff… and your incentive to sell disappears when the stuff isn’t your and you don’t really care whether it sells or not!

[@rickeymh]

@@Wzrd100 Indeed, but they did so at the very end when they were completely out of money.

[@daewootech]

@@thomosburn8740 they would also require vendors to fully buy back all returns.

[@emp0rizzle]

Yeah it was crazy when I got an AV receiver from them and it was $100 less than the MSRP and it was just released a few months earlier. It was a great deal and I didn't think of it beyond me getting a $100 discount. But thinking about it now I wonder how they pulled that off and I bet it's the reason why their vendors abandoned them.

[@Jeremy-bc2sz]

I remember being able to go into Fry’s in high school and be able to pick out ANY computer part I ever wanted. Fry’s was huge in Texas, had everything ya ever wanted for electronics.

[@ypw510]

Even in Silicon Valley (their base) they had selection that no other stores could match. It was the kind of stuff that was typically ordered out of a catalog and that took time to be shipped. They had stuff to build circuit boards including discrete components like capacitors and resistors. I remember one time I was kind of roped into doing something in the lab (and I'm dangerous with a soldering iron) where we needed specific resistors. I just went out to Fry's and found them and expensed it to my company. But absolutely they had basic components, and often bulk packaged where they were cheap per part, but you have to buy dozens to hundreds. They had all sorts of switches and wiring too. Some of that stuff might have been sold at Radio Shack, but nowhere near that selection or per unit price. They also had this weird dichotomy of consumer-level stuff and more industrial/professional products. Once I needed a USB printer cable, back before micro-B or USB-C. I remember finding a consumer brand (might have been Belkin) there for about $15-20 in typical blister packaging. Seemed kind of pricey and I looked around and eventually found plain looking ones in the industrial wiring section of the store for about $1-2. They came in nondescript plastic bags and looked like they could have been packaged with a printer.

[@241sail6]

As a computer enthusiast, I loved shopping at Fry's. Watching the shelves slowly empty out until all that was left was repackaged returned items was sad.

[@mysheitzbrown]

Ah, Fry's. What a unique place in a unique time. They had literally 50 cashiers lined up to take your money, but they only had one middle aged sad sack to process returns. That guy would invariably be from some mysterious eastern country and english would be his fourth language by design. He would move with the speed of molasses rolling up hill and he would be one sour individual. The Fremont store I went to sold more snacks than 7-11, shampoo, hardcore porn DVD's and girly mags. All the essentials for a young man. If prostitution was legal, they would have had trailers in the parking lot.

[@life_of_riley88]

All the bay area employees were of some middle Eastern descent. Persian maybe? Idk but they were never happy.

[@illegalinstructiongames6939]

Sometimes, you just wanted a GTX 980Ti, _La Blue Girl_ on DVD, a new Lego set, some caffeinated soap and a few spare case screws, y'know?

[@robertdeland3390]

I also found in store employees to be unhappy. Signs of under pay and poor treatment. I felt sorry for them.

[@armandocardona6975]

WTF this was the situation in DFW

[@MarkG-h2y]

I wonder if the VP being Pakastani had anything to do with the dominance of South Asian employees? My only need for customer service is to find something and there was usually someone available to tell you which aisle to go to unlike Home Depot .

[@SwingingChoke]

I worked at Fry’s for two days in 2016. The customer service is spot on. I was reprimanded the first day by a manager for spending more than 5 mins, while I was helping a customer find the right uninterruptible power supply “ups” for the customers desktops at his local business. I was literally pulled away from the customer during mid sentence while another sales representative confronted the customer and picked up a random ups and said “here.” Then the manager told me “that is what you do!” I left the next day. Also, the point of sale software was running on old dos emulators, the bar code scanners were way out of date and would stop functioning, causing the software to crash during a transaction. It was a complete mess. Behind the counter were also lines on the ground that only management could walk behind, like to the front management desk area. So if you had a customer that wanted a manager you would have to stand behind the line and yell towards the management area hoping someone would the come and help. If you stepped over the line more than three times you were fired.

[@Slowleek]

Fry's was awesome back in the day. I went near the end and the store was practically empty but the employees kept trying to play it off as a supply chain problem. Idk, maybe they didn't realize they were about to be unemployed.

[@kidd32888]

@@Slowleek they knew but just kept doing their job until the end

[@mr_cool5923]

the same thing happened to me as well in the past i went just because i could the store was always busy there was plenty of sales staff in all sections then i could not go for a few years went there the store was down to about a quarter of what it used to be had to wait for a staff member because it was a ghost town and there was hardly any customers there i ended up ask an employee when they were closing i got told were having supply issues i was like yeah this is not a supply issue to myself i think i heard they were closed like 6 months later

[@schristi69]

From what I heard Frys was slow to pay their suppliers. They used to get their stuff on credit and paid the bill from profits. Creditor/suppliers started demanding payment up front which caused their slow demise. Poor cash flow.

[@jimbrown5091]

​@@schristi69 Bingo!

[@FD2003Abc]

We had the VERY SAME experience.

[@T-Flame]

Once I was in the Phoenix store, waiting at one of their customer service counters, with about five more people behind me and the phone at the counter ringing off the hook. So finally, I just answered the phone and the person asked me a question about a computer component. I just told him that I was one of many customers waiting in line at this counter, and that nobody was helping us, and that they should probably take their business elsewhere . One of the store employees saw me answering the phone, all of a sudden they wanted to run over and see what was going on. They didn’t want to help all of the lined up customers before that.

[@joee7452]

Funny, I had an experience in a Phoenix store also. I was there visiting for a family thing and we don't have Fry's out our way. So while I was there just looking around with my fiance at the time, I saw a father and son looking a little lost and I over heard that they were going to build a computer for the first time. I watched as the 2 people in the area ignored them and just vanished. So I ended up talking to them and explaining things and helped them pick out what they needed. It took like 20 minutes. As soon as they were done and had their stuff and walked away, I had 2 more people waiting to talk to me thinking I worked there. I had to say that I was just browsing myself and one lady said, "Oh, but your the only person that seems willing to help". That statement and the sad look on her face always stuck with me. I did end up helping both of them before I left but I never even thought about going back to a Fry's again.

[@seanofpeace]

@@joee7452 tyfys

[@autobreza7131]

@@joee7452 Thanks for helping those folks out. I used to do same. As an IT PM we help others be successful and seeing people struggle in no fun. At least we have Microcenter in CA where service and returns are relatively painless and available.

[@User0000000000000004]

@@joee7452 You're why I avoided Fry's. The "friendly" customer.

[@MarkG-h2y]

@@joee7452 I used to go to the Palo Alto Fry's so often , I once helped a fellow customer there also. If I needed to find something, I could usually find an employee to help,

[@smttywrbn]

I used to work at the Burbank location and left about a year before Covid. There was nothing on the shelves for months before I left. People came in and would want to build a PC but when we had processors in stock we didn’t have motherboards and vice versa. I finally decided to leave because every single day was just “are you guys going out of business?” “Wow your shelves are super empty what’s going on?” And other things like that. Of course we were told to tell customers it’s an issue with our supplier. I’m really glad I left because 2 years later everyone that showed up to open was met with a locked door and no job. Not even a notice was given. I have a lot of fun memories working there but the last few months were horrible. They never took down my picture on the aisle I was in charge of after all that time either haha

[@toddjones1480]

@@smttywrbn That was a smart move. When I started to notice they were in trouble is when the overflow stock areas were steadily emptying. Then I knew they were REALLY in trouble when they started doing things like turn all of their movies so the front cover was facing out instead of the spines. Then things escalated to every other row of shelves being removed, and on and on...

[@1_Fish.2_Fish.Red_Fish.]

I started an OF building machines after that.

[@EthelredHardrede-nz8yv]

That is about the time Fry's started the consignment nonsense. I think that Fry's had taken to not paying the vendors at that point except a few. Samsung was in the stores til the near last half year.

[@MediaWest]

i used to shop there. it was a ghost town for 2 years at least. terrible what they did to staff.

[@EthelredHardrede-nz8yv]

@@MediaWest I got my last paycheck. As far as I know everyone did. We all knew it was dying. I think the reason they kept on was that they had leases for some of the stores and others they owned. They sold the Anaheim store but it stayed open for a while after that. It is now an Amazon warehouse. I think they are leasing the land from the company that bought it from Fry's. I kept working there because I was old enough to get Social Security but wanted to wait til I was 70. Got laid off 2 weeks before my 69th birthday from the Fountain Valley store where I was transferred after the Anaheim store closed.

[@MrEricSir]

Fry's was the only game in town if you wanted a copy of Microsoft Excel, a 100 pack of resistors, a bagel and a cup of coffee, and a new dishwasher all in one trip.

[@richardalaniz5464]

I worked for Frys Sunnyvale back in the late 90s. I was there when the Sunnyvale store moved to its bigger location. It was a cool place but management was a nightmare. Pay was low, so cashiers then were mostly teens. Customer service sucked because we were treated like crap so it was a trickle down effect. Management was garbage and anyone who was decent and nice was gone quickly. Returns would be repackaged and put on shelf full price in new shrink wrap. Refund were a nightmare and took 3 people to do. You start it, call a front end manager who has to call a store manager. By that point you didn't care anymore. I had a ton more but it was shifty there

[@Cleatus46]

I used to visit that little store before Windows came out. I bought my first color VGA card there, along with a bag of potato chips. One day a bunch of white with black lettering boxes appeared on the top shelves with the word "Windows" on them. I remember thinking, what in the hell was in those boxes that virtually no one was paying any attention to? ☺

[@EthelredHardrede-nz8yv]

@@Cleatus46 Those might have been Fry's attempt a store brand. That didn't work out. They were not good machines.

[@annehaight9963]

The one on Arques, right? Loved that store; it was bigger than the others and usually had a better selection of stuff.

[@sirflimflam]

I miss Fry's so much. My Fry's was one of the repurposed Incredible Universe stores in San Diego. I remember having a good relationship with one of the salesman in the computer/monitor department. Whenever I'd make a big purchase over in the store, I'd tell him to fill me out one of the papers that tells the store he was the one who made that sale happen. When they made that switch to consignment and the products started drying up, it was pretty heartbreaking to see aisles filled with 1-2 of the same product. My sales guy vanished along with all the other department guys, becoming an empty husk. It was doomed even without Covid driving in the final nail. But I still have a lot of good memories in that store. Was the place I bought all the components for my first custom PC, a Pentium 4 build. Not to mention the entire department they had for individual circuit board components, project boxes, breadboards, about every capacitor, resistor, transistor, etc you could ask for.

[@jbsimmons54]

Incredible Universe was my first store purchase in Billings, Montana. The they opened in my state in Tempe AZ, which then became Fry's Electronics. Nice while it lasted, but they sure didn't have a good business model after a while and treated employees like dirt. Then came the garbage stock towards the end. AZ stores closed well before Covid.

[@MR82ad]

Incredible Universe was my go-to store in San Diego. Later when it became Fry's, I eventually started going to the San Marcos location since it was a lot closer to me

[@sirflimflam]

@@MR82ad That location was really cool. Atlantis themed. I only got to see it fully stocked once when I was younger, and once again when the writing was on the wall for Fry's and I just wanted to see the interior again before everything shut down. I was a little bitter the down south in San Diego didn't have a theme, since it came from the acquisition of Incredible Universe buildings.

[@MR82ad]

@sirflimflam oh that's right, I remember thinking about why the SD location didn't have a theme. Too bad the chain didn't survive. I remember waiting for the full page newspaper ads in the Union Tribune showing things I didn't know I needed, lol.

[@sirflimflam]

@@MR82ad Yup, one of the few periodicals I was hyped about. There'd always be a good deal or two. Fry's really knew how to market tech. Now if only Microcenter would open a location in San Diego I could relive the feeling of going into a big box tech store again.

[@JaimeEnriquez007]

Fry’s online was supposedly a different company. Once I had purchased a TV at Fry’s online, I changed my mind and went into the store to return it and they wouldn’t even look at the receipt. They opened the sealed TV to make sure that it was working and they gave me a refund for the lowest price in the last 90 days (or something like that). They were terrible with customers.

[@seblo8462]

An old coworker many years ago that was a former Fry's sales manager told me that the "failure to serve" was a product of their "commission based" income. He said, if the customer looked lost or "poor" they wouldn't waste their time helping that customer which could potentially take time away from an actual sale. He further added, if the potential customer came in looking wealthy, wearing an expensive cologne, jewelry and clothes everyone fought for those customers lol

[@svenmorgenstern9506]

@seblo8462 Probably explained why I got ignored a lot. Trouble is, I also bought a couple of $2K prebuilt computers from them, and a LaserJet printer that I still use. At the time I was employed as a programmer/analyst, making an acceptable (though never stellar) income. Sorry I wasn't photogenic enough for 'em. 😉

[@seblo8462]

@svenmorgenstern9506 yep, sucks that many businesses that have sales people are that way, you are at the mercy of their judgement or prejudices 👎.

[@tid418]

But real rich people don't look wealthy. They know they are, and have nothing to prove. It's people who are not wealthy who want to put on airs and appear to be wealthy.

[@ScottLovenberg]

Homie has been on a tear for a couple of weeks with this series!

[@aaronwilcott4561]

And I'm loving every video of it!😁

[@justin162311]

He's going for that 100 days, 100k challenge lol

[@shaynelacy3442]

To be fair, company man/bright films have similar series, but I do like his spin on them, he makes them feel a bit more personal

[@jonathanwpressman]

Open your heart and let that hate out!

[@bladengutz2042]

What do you mean by the term tear child of Satan ?

[@TheCardsharp]

I worked in the computer department of Fry's Electronics in San Marcos, CA, in 2016. I only worked there for three months, after which I quit. I absolutely sucked as a salesman, but my manager liked my work ethic so much he didn't fire me despite my horrendous sales numbers. I actually missed working there; I still have my name tag. I have great memories of Fry's even before working there because I'd been a customer since the early 2000s.

[@EthelredHardrede-nz8yv]

You were in the wrong dept then. I would not have worked in the computer dept at Fry's. Lying was required but they pretended they didn't require it. Components would have been better and in 2016 there was still plenty stock.

[@PumaM90]

This was my local Fry's. I miss this store!

[@RustyX2010]

Was it the Aquarium themed store?

[@fishbike9103]

@@TheCardsharp I live in San Marcos, and remember Fry’s distinctly, on Bent Ave. between San Marcos Blvd. and Grand. I used to love going in there and checking all manner of things out. I still have a washer and a refrigerator from there, which are fortunately still OK. I noticed all the wonderful inventory dwindling slowly over a period of couple of years, becoming very suspicious that the joint might be getting ready to close, then at some point, it just did. It was really disappointing, and I had no inkling of the real story. I wanted to go back for my matching dryer!

[@TheCardsharp]

@@fishbike9103 - That’s the one I worked at, and I miss it. Those three months were some of the best during that year.

[@Hlk-tf6gp]

I shopped here quite a bit in the day. It was clear they were going under well before 2020. When I walked in their shelves were all empty. I couldn’t figure out how they stayed in business for so long with empty shelves. At the time I’d heard they wanted to save money by not buying from suppliers, instead doing a consignment type deal where suppliers had to stock shelves but wouldn’t get paid unless the product sold. And no one agreed. So they had no inventory. At least that’s why I stopped shopping there. After months and a few trips realizing they had nothing on the shelf to buy. This was well before the pandemic.

[@visceratrocar]

When I asked, for years, they kept saying they were restocking.

[@fifthnail]

Very similar experience. They likely had bad credit. I spoke to the purchasing manager, he said similar thing. They knew it was bad, and my guess is they couldn't really do anything about it.

[@agy234]

Same

[@EthelredHardrede-nz8yv]

That started about a year before the pandemic.

[@emuhill]

@@EthelredHardrede-nz8yv I started noticing problems in 2016. It only got worse in 2017 and 2018. Shelves were starting to go bare in 2016. It was't as noticable though. I noticed there werre hardly any customers in the store in 2016. I was wondering what the heck happened as it used to be quite popular. In 2017 whole sections of shelves were bare. In 2018 shelves were dismantled and so on. By 2017 it became obvious that Fry's Electronics was slowly going out of business.

[@j3rzey4life]

Shocked the blue and white "Sticker of death" wasn't mentioned. The sticker meant it was an opened returned product, and my last trip to fry's was when I returned a motherboard that was DOA out of the box, that they also tested as bad, told me they didn't have a exact replacement and I could pick out something else, and by the time I made my way to that section I watched the associate putting my returned DOA motherboard back on the shelf with the blue and white sticker of death on the front of it. Never went back to Fry's ever again

[@User0000000000000004]

I returned a bad motherboard without the IO shield and claimed it wasn't in the box just so they couldn't resell it as new. There's a person out there who didn't get a bad part because of me.

[@churblefurbles]

Best buy saved itself by getting rid of "devil customers", Fry's should have instituted high restocking fees for certain items.

[@rodjohnson2632]

You could never trust anything on the shelves that did not have original, unopened packaging and wrapping, regardless of what color sticker they had put on it. Otherwise you were sure to have missing or broken parts. I saw employees many times take such returned items and immediately put them back on the shelves.

[@schoch6]

I bought a cable modem that had been returned. When I plugged it in I found that it was already registered so I ended up getting free broadband for several years.

[@Christian-ew9ci]

RIP Fry's Electronics. Fry's was how I got introduced to computers when I was like five years old and my brother was buying his first computer, a Windows 98 desltop. Personally, I had a lot of fun shopping there and I was sad when they went under.

[@JayWilkins-zh7fx]

Yes the frys employees didnt help you BUT because so many nerds went to frys for special cards they would always hear your frustration with the staff and come over to educate and help you.

[@kisstune]

Like the time our IT teacher went to by some NICs for the school and they crashed the classroom network because 2 of them and the same MAC address.

[@lynch42o]

Yea, to be fair, I never had a problem with returns, I heard years prior they were bad, also in the PC sections, it seemed like all the people working that area were pretty knowledgeable. The Huntington Beach store was Egyptian themed, the one you mentioned was Aztec themed.

[@User0000000000000004]

The wandering Fry's nerd was who I avoided when I went there. No thanks, I don't want your stupid opinion. You do you, neckbeard.

[@CDeuce152]

The COVID pandemic did not take down Fry's Electronics. I last set foot back in Summer 2019 in the Sacramento location, which was originally an Incredible Universe hence one of its service streets is named Tandy Drive. It was deader than dead low stock, ghost town atmosphere, abandoned sections and even sales staff were feeling dead knowing the writing is on wall.

[@70two41five]

I forgot about incredible universe. Sacramento in the 90’s lol

[@byMidnyt]

I left California in 2018 and both the Sacramento store and the Roseville store were well over half empty by 2018.

[@JJFlores197]

I remember in 2017 I went to the store in Roseville with my cousin to buy parts for a PC that he wanted to gift to his brother for his birthday. Even around mid-2017, we noticed a lot of empty shelfs. They had a very small amount of graphics cards. I think it was mainly due to the mining craze of the time. I didn't see either stores get much better in the following years.

[@tid418]

@@70two41five The Tempe, AZ location was clearly one of those as well.

[@travisk5610]

@@JJFlores197 That is also what I remember, the stores used to be great but it was clearly a zombie company since about that time. I wasn't even slightly surprised to hear they closed one day.

[@ocstrangeness]

One thing you left out is their website (both outpost and then frys) was fubar'd: The search box didn't work worth a damn. Type in "printer" and it spits out 87,000 results about everything but printers. The employees were like vampires, headhunting to put a commission sticker on whatever you were buying (They also did this at microcenter until I quit shopping there). But the most vivid memory I have is their employees in the parking lots, suits and ties, hauling shopping carts in the rain, and not getting paid for it because they worked on commission. Also if an employee helped but you used a discount code, they didn't get commission. This is why they rarely helped anyone, there was little financial incentive.

[@User0000000000000004]

Oh, bro, I remember this now! I used to go to specific people and give them my sales just because I felt so sorry for them. I'd have a cart full of stuff and go "want to write this up?"

[@richardjcranium]

Pretty much. I remember a guy that would come in every Sunday morning with all of the ads he clipped out of the newspaper for the dollar pack of paper and the dollar mouse and I would have to help him find all this stuff because somehow I was "his guy" and he would say do you wanna write all the stuff up and I'm like no man you're all good.

[@miket2646]

Worked for this dump in Illinois when they were first opening. They lied about the commission rates to get workers in for base pay to help build out the store. No joke... they said the line would be so long for the first month that they would have over 5 trucks a day to refill stock. Our hours... for 3 months... to get the store open... were 7a-11p, 6 days per week. And yea, they would keep us late all the time. They also wouldnt allow us to leave early... like literally... wouldnt allow you to leave for "safety reasons" ... the front doors were locked. So finally we open and guess what?!?! Not all that busy... at all... maybe 20 people lined up... and the commission rates were definitely NOT the industry averages that we were promised. In fact, they used the commission rates to clear overstock. We had a Yamaha Receiver that came in silver and black. We sold through about half the black ones and barely any silver... so suddenly the next day the commission rate on the black one was cut to .25%. Yea... it paid fifty cents on a $200 receiver. This nonsense was just business as usual for them. Super aggressive management too. They were young d-bags from the west coast that thought they were getting fast tracked to the good life. But anyways... they would constantly adjust commission rates to mess with what the salesman pushed... and bait n' switch was a regular practice of theirs. Every weekend we would have customers furious on saturday morning when they were there at opening time and the sale items were nowhere to be found.

[@k.chriscaldwell4141]

I bought so much from that store. So many network jobs supplied off the shelf there-racks, cabling, etc. Surly staff in Computer and Printers, though. So I just bought PCs and printers elsewhere. The “greeters” weren’t too nice, either.

[@miket2646]

@@k.chriscaldwell4141 yea the staff got really spotty over the years once it became common knowledge in the area that you wouldnt make much there. Such a shame because they couldve done well if they had a solid staff and didnt try passing B stock on people.

[@superman60201]

So the salesman was forced to vary their sales instead of just pushing what they made the most money on? The horror.

[@laurachristianson1688]

We purchased quite a few odd computer bits from that store, and other things as well, we kind of went to it as a destination and always came out with something even if it was a couple of dvds. Customer service wasn’t really an issue as we prefer less as we know what we want and don’t need the upselling. We went there instead of Best Buy normally because of the product availability.

[@imwacc0834]

I spent a lot of money there. But always thought the moto was "Fry's, where the costumer is always wrong." Thank gods for Westmont Micro Center, it was about the same travel time for me.

[@brianwilliams9408]

I'll never forget when me and my best friend went to Fry's in Sacramento the day after Thanksgiving. The infamous Black "Fry Day" sales! They had CRAZY deals going on. I bought a scanner and a printer. That's all I needed. So, we went to get our stuff, got in line and to my complete surprise, the line snaked all the way throughout the entire store. It was literally a mile or more long. It was nuts. So, my friend decided to go look around while I kept my place in line. He comes back with stuff he wanted to buy, and a bottled water for me, since he knew I would need it for standing in line for so long! So I add it to my stuff. Then we switched, then I wandered around and get even more stuff. So by the time I finally got to the cashier (which they had 50 cashier lanes open) after almost two hours, I had a LOT more stuff to pay for than my original two items! Ha ha ha! One of my best memories there. So much fun back then! So I was sad when Fry's closed. I did shop there semi regularly.

[@brianlehmkuhl8162]

@brianwilliams9408 I was at the same Sac location for Fry Days! I miss it. Even though the Rosevill location was cooler.👍

[@brianwilliams9408]

@@brianlehmkuhl8162 How cool!

[@sailordude2094]

I remember having to do a price match on a Mitsubishi big screen because of a Fry's Miami ad. Being paid by commission only at Sound Advice, a $300 price adjustment wrecked my day. They are both out of business now and I'm no longer a retail salesperson, lol.

[@diydantex6150]

A friend of mine worked at Frys. I went to buy a motherboard from him. I found him working restocking shelves. The rest of the employees were standing around. Not long after they put him on a 2 week leave without pay because his sales were low. When he came back after 2 weeks they fired him. It seemed like a rotten thing to do to an employee.

[@richardjcranium]

Every salesman had a part of the story they were responsible for. So you would have to literally spend an entire day sometimes rearranging pegboards and printing out signs.

[@MatthewLee-fo3me]

As a PC gamer, whenever I walked into a Fry's, I felt like a kid in a toy store. I probably wouldn't be as big a PC gamer as I am without Fry's (or Steam) and losing Fry's was just depressing.

[@User0000000000000004]

Fry's Electronics went out of business for one very simple reason. They borrowed more than they could afford to pay which meant they were unable to stock their stores with the products people wanted to buy. They were always a private company so we'll never know for certain, but in the last 5 years of their existence, how many times would you go and not find what you wanted? They FORCED me to Amazon.

[@HideandZeke]

Came here all the time for PC parts then in 2017-18 the stores were so empty. They started selling random stuff like groceries and colognes.

[@thescott7539]

Exactly. COVID didn't kill Fry's,they just used it as an excuse to finally close it all down. Newegg and Amazon killed em. Ironically enough,the Anaheim Fry's is now an Amazon distribution center.

[@brucelytle1144]

They actually started as a grocery store...

[@JustAFan444]

​@@brucelytle1144 that's literally covered in this video...

[@brucelytle1144]

@@JustAFan444 I know that, I was trying to point (emphasize) out that they were trying to go back to their roots.

[@JustAFan444]

@@brucelytle1144 my comment was more to point out the fact that HideandZeke clearly never watched even the first five minutes of the video.

[@kzin602]

I worked at frys as a comissioned sales person in the PC department at the South Phoenix location. The environment was horrible, sexist bosses, corruption, hostile corporate policy. Blaming the failure on covid is a lie. The owners got greedy and ate the company from the inside like a parasite. The HH policy was absolutely a thing.

[@tommurphy9472]

OMG, your "history of Fry's" isn't even close. Where the did you get your info? Fry's Electronics did NOT spring into life with a chain of mega stores, it started as a single aisle in one of the Sunnyvale Fry's grocery stores. I used to buy my groceries there every week, then they added an aisle with things like Weller soldering irons, shrink tubing and other basic electronic supplies. The story I heard was that one of the Fry sons wanted to open an electronics store and his dad said "well, I'll give you an aisle in one store and we'll see how that goes". It went well enough that they added electronics aisles to a few more (maybe all?) of the grocery stores. Then they opened the first Fry's Electronics store. The first actual Fry's Electronics was quite small compared to the later mega stores, though it was one of the largest electronics stores around at the time. If I remember right, that store was at Lakeside and Oakmead Pkwy behind the Carl's Juniors (I might be forgetting a prior location, but the Oakmead pkwy building they were in is still there so you can see the size on google maps). That store moved a few times (and grew with every move) before they started opening more stores and growing rapidly. In those days they were moving into existing buildings, they didn't have the fancy custom themed buildings. Back in those days Fry's was a great place to shop for electronics and computer parts, not at all like the later days when you couldn't even get an employee to talk to you because they were too busy chatting with each other.

[@aprasad97]

I agree. The history was not correct, especially as starting out as a big box store. Sunnyvale and Fremont were small and crowded.

[@daveg1701]

This is correct video is wrong.

[@scmsean]

Almost everything in this video is wrong. Fry's poor customer service is why prices were low. It is also why people went there. Who wants a salesperson bugging you the whole time you are in the store. No one that wasn't technical was going to buy the computer parts anyway.

[@keithstudly6071]

When the Manhattan Beach Fry's opened I was surprised to see part of one isle devoted to 'drug store' items. This was a legacy of the origin of the company.

[@johnbaker-ze2ni]

Glad to see that someone remembers the little Fry's. A small electronic components store in Sunnyvale. Many local engineers found Fry's as the place to go for single/low quantity components.

[@jfab7171]

love this stuff! im new here but ive been subscribed to company man for a while now, and he has a series of fails, rise and falls, why theyre successful, or comparison vids with similar companies. super informative but his vids are always like 10-13 minutes. i like that yours are longer and cover more! and have a great sense of humor to them! its just fascinating to see how much corporate greed, bankrupcy, or the inability to adapt, was the downfall of decades long companies. or companies that have been around for 100+ years. so much has changed in the last 25 years and its affecting all businesses who cant keep up. there are TONS of companies you can cover with this kind of series. keep up the good work!

[@Vargseld]

The one thing I could always count on at my local Fry's was that there was always, without fail, an employee in the men's room spending an absurd amount of time taking a piss and using the sink and mirror. And not just one guy, I swear it was all of them.

[@seanofpeace]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bau3lpxrh7Kbh5o

[@craneteam87]

im not sure how you are pumping these out while keeping the quality so high, but im loving this!

[@murphsmodels8853]

Anybody remember E-Machine brand computers? I bought my first computer at Fry's back in the late 90s, and it was an E-Machine. I upgraded every component of that computer, until I finally just built a new computer with parts bought from Fry's. Then there were the electronic toys. all kinds of RC cars, Lego sets, even a few plastic models. It literally felt like a Toys R Us for adults. i was so happy when I moved to a new apartment, and found out there was a second Fry's in my city that was only two blocks away. I went in a few months before the pandemic started, and you could tell something was wrong. There were vast areas of bare shelfs, the toys were gone except for a few basic Lego sets, and trying to find an employee to find something was almost impossible.

[@CapUnlimited]

@@murphsmodels8853 i remember e machines I either had one or a gateway

[@EthelredHardrede-nz8yv]

Emachines were garbage. So were the Fry's brand but no quite as bad as Emachines.

[@Jjnoriega900]

I used to work there in San Diego. Quit after 6 months because they treat the cashiers like dirt and supervisor had it out for me. Little Filipina lady name Maryann. I'll never forget when she tried to write me up. "You late coming back from your lunch" Told her, "that's fine. What time did i take my lunch?" "I dunno when but your late" best supervisor ever 😂

[@erikkovacs3097]

Was this the one off the i15 on Murphy Canyon Rd? I have fond memories of that place.

[@Jjnoriega900]

@@erikkovacs3097 yes that was the one. The whole company was an interesting one. I remember when management would tell me not wear my leather jacket in that cold warehouse, and yet sales guy can wear a full on tench coat and nobody says anything

[@Mr.Quinlan888]

Was my go to place when I lived in La Mesa. Then I moved to Vegas and the Fry's here died quietly. Damn shame. There's a huge void in electronic components and computer parts.

[@Jjnoriega900]

@@Mr.Quinlan888 the spot in San Diego is still vacant. Nobody wants to move in on that spot

[@lhndz16]

Why not?

[@Larry]

Congrats on the success on this channel Josh, you pulled a Urinating Tree and got super popular on a totally unrelated topic to video games! :) kudos sir!

[@kobebarka8633]

I spent endless hours in both the Burbank Sci-fi location and the Roseville train location, the aesthetic was the reason for me to always come back. A shame to see them gone.

[@JJFlores197]

I think the building in Roseville is now a used car dealer.

[@Formaldehydex]

I used to go to the original store in Santa Clara all the time back in the 80s. It wasn’t very large, and it consisted solely of computers, computer accessories, electronic parts, magazines, and junk food. It was a huge hit with all the Silicon Valley techies.

[@JDFrank20Diaz]

Frys was an Alternative to A Dying Circuit City Empire especially with Appliances unfortunately they failed to adapt

[@thelocalcoma]

I can tell you part of what actually put them out of business when all was said and done. I was a regular customer at the ones around in Texas, and had a couple employees and a manager admit, once they started losing money, they swapped to a new system of "repaying" their suppliers... without telling the suppliers. Apparently when the company started having financial issues, they decided the best solution was to start only paying for their stock AFTER they sold it. This meant longtime business partners would send out stock before receiving payment, as a courtesy, and were suddenly told they were out both the stock and money once it was too late. Fry's never renegotiated or asked if it was ok before doing this, so their suppliers quickly stopped sending stock. Our local stores were almost completely empty months before the closure was announced, and the employees were terrified of the customers. They were constantly yelled at to keep quiet about the situation. The company line was literally, "everything is fine, our suppliers just missed a shipment, we're staying open."

[@TomBortels]

I never had any real issue doing returns, but I noticed they'd simply re-shrinkwrap them and they'd go right back on the shelf with a "refurbished" sticker, even if the return reason was a defective/non-functional product, and they just didn't care. Result being half the hard drives marked "refurb" on the shelf were both defective *and* had customer data on them. Complete anarchy, it was insane. I both loved and hated them. Loved because they had things you simply couldn't get elsewhere - and hated because they were 100% dysfunctional. The place was a mine field for the unwary, and a gold mine for the savvy.

[@MarkS61]

@@TomBortels Yep, never buy the Frys shrink wrapped items!

[@ienjoypaste]

My dad did the radio commercials for Fry's for years - he was the one that came up with the "Your best buys are ALLLWAYS at Fry's" thing. As a very slight dig at Best Buy, natch.

[@armandocardona6975]

The return process at Fry’s was literally an interrogation room… Made me super anxious and sad seeing my parents who are not native english speakers try to return or replace defective items with abusive employees.

[@StudebakerVlogs]

My dad and I went into the Roseville Fry's in 2020 and the shelves were bare, half the lights were off and only 2 employees were working. We asked if they were going out of business and the guy told us no they were not going under but that Fry's was essentially restructuring how they ordered and stocked their inventory. I saw a news article about them closing forever a couple months later.

[@28_babyshark]

I remember my dad buying the home entertainment system from them when I was little. The Houston Texas store was big.

[@owenlaprath4135]

They put returns with defective equipment straight back on the shelf. I do not know why, but I had alarm bells about the place (20 years later, I am now old and have learned to trust them!), so I went for a "try it, before I spend big bucks" and bought a wireless keyboard. It was wonky, so I returned it. NO REFUNDS, so I took the exchange, but it was wonky as well. I had also marked the first box! They tried to take the second one back, and give the back my marked box! I yelled for a manager, and the guy I was talking to said that was him! I made a very loud scene about fraud at the check-out line, and people were listening. He then gave me a refund, and I never returned! BTW: The same happened with Egghead, after they went online only, changed name to NewEgg and closed their stores!

[@RappinPicard]

I used to work at the Fountain Valley store and you forgot the change to a consignment model that killed their relationship with vendors, and meant they had almost no inventory.

[@ocstrangeness]

I remember that rat's nest, one of their employees was the only person in history to properly identify one of my tattoos. Anyway, he didn't mention it because there was no consignment deal, that was just an excuse to keep the lights on a little while longer.

[@davepirtle9790]

I grew up in Fountain valley and went to Mazuda when it was an elementary school. In fact there is a 7 11 right behind Mazuda and if memory serves a ",friend". stole his first candy bar there! Anyways was the Fry's where Costco is now?

[@RappinPicard]

@@davepirtle9790 it’s where the Sports Basement is now, by Euclid and the 405.

[@davepirtle9790]

@@RappinPicard gotcha. Believe it or not , if you keep going south on Euclid past the 405 where it becomes Ellis there was a water treatment facility there and we went there as a field trip. Also on Euclid and Talbert there was a place we went to that had the best burgers- Yellow Basket. Memories...

[@machupikachu1085]

@@davepirtle9790 I used to stop in at that Fry's on the way to Guitar Center. What was their theme again? Mayan Temple?

[@Mastadon-KD9GYI]

I used to go to the Sunnyvale, California Fry's in the early 90s, decorated like a huge circuit board--with tan tile 'traces' on a green tile floor, and large modeled discrete components (resistors, capacitors, etc) near the end of many aisles. For a geek like me it was heaven. After moving back to the Midwest and working in Indianapolis, I discovered the Fishers/Indianapolis Fry's, and it was also great. After a while, it was becoming more apparent that they were in trouble--there were many empty shelves throughout the store, and often it was hard to find a worker if you needed help finding something. I always wondered why the Fishers store closed abruptly, just like the others. I miss being able to walk in and select all of the parts I need to build up a PC or server from scratch, without having to go hunting on NewEgg or what was TigerDirect.

[@Biomancer81]

As someone who lost Frys, I wish Micro Center would come fill that void here in WA.

[@samtime2711]

@Biomancer81 I can understand that, but at the one time I went to Micro center they came off as new age radio shack and not like new egg in a big box store.

[@mysteryshrimp]

​@@samtime2711 there is a huge difference location to location for microcenter. Marietta, GA was Best Buy with helpful and knowledgeable employees. Houston is where good tech bros go when they die.

[@vagamer522]

@@samtime2711I would take a Micro Center over New Egg given their reputation and overpriced hardware compared to Microcenter + Microcenter has better pc bundles.

[@flashoverride2]

@@samtime2711 Yikes, which MicroCenter was that? The only thing I don't like about the local one here is they've started pushing the warranty crap, which is super annoying.

[@Vespyr_]

​@@flashoverride2 Ah the Circuit City route, that's a bold plan let's see how that works out for them.

[@ibreakthings4668]

I loved Fry's, one of my favorite things was looking over the back of the Sunday sports page of the LA Times to drool over their weekly ad. But there were always issues. Most stuff you wanted to buy required getting a Sales Associate to ring you up in their computer and give you an invoice to take to the cashier, who grabs the part from the "cage". From what I was told, Sales Associates were on commission, which lead to them being jerks or doing shady stuff unless you were a big/quick sale. I also recall them trying to swap out the sale part for a full priced one. They would also push refurbished parts without making it obvious that 's what you were getting. You really had to learn how to shop there without getting taken advantage of.

[@58bmanc]

I worked at the Tempe, AZ location from 2010-2011 and the store was big for absolutely no reason. Inventory days were hell and took all the staff save for 2 salespeople per dept. 2 days during store hours to count everything

[@bugaljackson494]

I had the most short-lived experience with Fry's in a way. Living in Sacramento, I first visited one somewhere in North Sacramento in 2019 and was in awe. It was HUGE, seemingly had everything. Then sometime later, I went to the Roseville location, the one with the railroad train decor, it was very lively. Then about a year later, revisted to Roseville location and it was absolutely shambolic-dead, no activity, nearly nothing on the shelves. Thought about going to that other one in North Sacramento but learned it had already shut down. Then not long after, got the news that the franchise entirely ended.

[@toddjones1480]

That's weird. Fry's was very visibly on death's door in 2019.

[@michaeltorrisi7289]

I lived nearish (like 2 hours) from a Fry's in the early 2000s. I loved that store. Didn't even realize they were out of business, I moved to a state that never had Fry's. Personally, as one of those techie types that knows what I want, I don't give a shit about the customer service, I just want the largest selection of components possible. Sometimes, I don't want to wait for things to ship from NewEgg.

[@churblefurbles]

In the bay area you'd be 30 minutes away from like 5 lol

[@ilovecake1310]

If you wanted to walk in a store and build a computer from scratch, this store was amazing! But you could build everything from scratch. RC cars? Your covered. But you could also buy appliances and TV’s. After Amazon I can understand why they failed. But if you never went there, it was like Best Buy on steroids!

[@pacificostudios]

Starting an electronics store in 1972 catering to hobbyists and technicians was genius. Back then, you bought individual components and soldered them together to build circuits. Radio Shack on steroids!

[@yami6259]

The 10:45 or so mark is a good point. I was a loyal best buy customer until they pulled some BS on my mom and grandma. My grandma bought a brand new smart TV for my mom. Well I was working nights at the time and I just could not get the energy to come over and put it together so a month or so passes after the TV's delivered and I set the TV up only to discover the screen was busted. Turns out they had put a forklift through the TV. Now this was during May 2020, and trying to get ahold of anyone on the phone was like pulling teeth because everyone was using the pandemic as an excuse. Then they pull some crap that because we didn't buy insurance they can't help us. I fought with them for over 2 weeks trying to get a repair service to come in that never showed up because of the pandemic again using that as an excuse. Finally my aunt had to take the TV to a physical Best buy location and they could tell right away a forklift was put through it so we had to get a different TV than what my grandma had bought. Even though we finally got a TV, that alone ruined me forever on Best buy and I have not shopped there since.

[@User0000000000000004]

They don't care.

[@RoseChan01]

As a kid going to Fry's was whimsical because it felt like I was transported to another world , the one I went to was Aztec themed, but as I got older there deals were less and less good and almost never saw any employees

[@NOTLeavingLV]

We had good associates in Vegas but Amazon really did them in. The online didn’t help. The return policy was nuts. You would have folks buy, return, wait for the item to go back on the floor as an open box, and then rebuy it lower price.

[@clayton56tube]

crazy because the lower price was usually only about 5% off

[@Big_Tex]

So you’re going to break my heart today. Fry’s was pretty crap its last few years but I’d still go there for old times’ sake. The only good news in my town is that the old sad abandoned Fry’s property was just bought out by H-E-B supermarkets, planned to be the first Dallas County H-E-B. Texans know how awesome that is.

[@tgdm]

Jesus, if that's anything like the Plano location off 75 & Bush, that's going to be monstrous HEB.

[@toddjones1480]

@@Big_Tex Mine became Costco Business, so now we have both types of Costco store in the same town.

[@JTScott1988]

Pretty sure Austin’s frys is still vacant

[@Big_Tex]

@@JTScott1988 I know it was vacant last December, lived nearby years ago, that was my first Fry’s

[@brucelytle1144]

​@@JTScott1988Yeah, I live in Kansas, and was rewiring a locomotive down by the transit rail station, that Fry's made it real easy to get little things that would pop up on the job. I know H.E.B., I think that place is too small for an H.E.B. personally.

[@SabreAZ]

Great video.i used to be management for over a decade in the phoenix/tempe market. And all these points are spot on. But man, you only scratched the surface in their failings! No reason the company should not exist in 2024, especially when you got Micro Center blowing up in the Brick and Mortar space. Frys literally had no adjacent competition in Brick and Mortar. Lots of huge mistakes, and poor leadership and decission making in the end

[@User0000000000000004]

This is what's so sad about the place, they were the ONLY store like that. They could have killed if they weren't so dead set on going out of business.

[@nateTrh]

The issue is that they weren't big enough to truly compete with the likes of Walmart and Costco and BestBuy and Amazon were killing them online. They had too much floor space and triple to quadruple the employees of a competing Microcenter while pushing put maybe half the product. I could maybe see them surviving if they closed most of their stores early on and just focused on a few in Cali and Texas but even then, it wouldn't have been a guarantee.

[@SabreAZ]

@nateTrh In the 2010s, the employee count drastically dropped. And by 2014 and beyond. They stores were becoming empty. One of my stores would normally be at about$10-11 million in inventory. Shelves are full, ton of variety. Then 2013ish, inventory was dripping to $7-8mil. Now stores were looking anemic. This is when the huge floor space no longer made sense. But this wasn't the only issue. They made a lot of other costly mistakes. They would spend millions per month, paying for 53foot shipping trucks to transfer product between all of the stores in the company, to balance out the dwindling inventory. This ate up an insane amount of man hours, caused constant OT, on top of the insane costs of paying for these freight shipping companies. It was probably cheaper to just buy more inventory. Then you have the awful website. The video didn't touch up on it too well. But that website was barely functional and extremely out of date. They just never adjusted to e-commerce. Another big problem was the 2008 crash. At that time, fry's was doing AGGRESSIVE expansions by opening up a ton of stores east of Arizona. All the texas stores, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois. The company was doing good . This bad timing, on top of the embezzlement scam just caused the downturn and they never recovered. They also would be behind the times on tech. A lot of software was in house. Still MSdos based, running on windows XP, even after XP security updates were discontinued. Network going down a lot. Just really archaic and slow. The receiving guys were overworked. Handling all the insane amount of product being transferred between all the stores. On top of individually counting every piece of product that comes in. Imagine getting a small box of 1000 transistors. Resistors, etc, all various models. Not in any type of order, multiple invoices. It could take someone hours to count that one little box that's worth $50. Now imagine getting dozens of boxes like that! On top of all the other product. And for the longest time, every single item had to be snickered, which also took just as long as counting, if not longer. The labor was more expensive. Any counting mistakes, just led to massive consequences. Then you have the fry brothers working on some hotel project in the Caribbean, and they just stopped paying bills, and dumped their money into that. Causing Frys to be a Consignment based retailer, which caused even less inventory, and bad relationships with most companies. The last few years. They knew they were done. They gave up trying to turn it around. So many awful decisions. They just wasn't very good executive level people that knew what to do to course correct, that seemed so obvious to the rest of us. Theres no reason a store like Frys still can't exist in today's world. Pre pandemic Frys was still awesome tho

[@Soysaucy328]

Keep up the good work!! I just found your channel last week and I’ve watched so many of your videos ◡̈

[@sandwich_in_wonderland]

I miss Fry's. But it really pissed me off how they were in denial in their last years. The store was half empty with no merchandise and if you asked if they were going out of business, they would just be like "nope, shipments are late. Everything is good! 😊". It was the same response for the last 2 years until they finally announced that they were closing.

[@lelandunruh7896]

The last time I went to my local Fry's was genuinely sad. The shelves were at best 20% full (with brands of which I'd never heard), and the employees looked like they were at a wake. It was only a few weeks later that they announced their closing.

[@PlumeNoir]

I didn't have Fry's in my state, but for over ten years (2008 - 2019), I would go to Chicago for work several times a year and always looked forward to going to Fry's. (I'm an I.T. guy, so it was a toy store to me.) By 2018, it noticed how bad Fry's got; store shelves were 1/2 to 2/3d bare. I was not surprised when they went under.

[@berryblack1992]

I remember walking into the Fishers Fry's to see if I can get a motherboard, and it was just ghost town empty. This seemed like it was a bit after Covid Lockdown. I had a sense it was going to go bottoms up, and I think that next week they announced they were closing.

[@mr_cool5923]

i went to the same store to get memory for my laptop and your right i was a ghost town i remember when it was always busy and the parking lot was crowded could spend hours just looking around but that day i think i did a whole store run in like 30 min and for some reason i know it was closing

[@David9PM]

Micro center got a store nearby now.

[@berryblack1992]

@@David9PM That time gap not having that type of store kinda sucked even though there's a NewEgg logistics building in Indy this whole time. I like visually seeing things before I buy.

[@gabrielsandoval7331]

Blaming their death on Covid is complete BS. My local Fry’s was in Burbank. I remember the last time I shopped there was years before Covid, maybe 2018, looking for a reasonably priced HDMI cable. Bought one for like $40. Then I bought a comparable one from Amazon for a fraction of the price, and returned the other to Fry’s. I felt like such a sucker for my original purchase and vowed never to return. On both visits the store was absolutely dead. It was obvious that Frys was on its last leg and they were getting crushed by Amazon.

[@Brian4120]

As someone that used to go to the Fry's in Renton I had no idea about the lawsuits but I could definitely tell you the employees seem to very disillusioned. Another thing to note is that a lot of their product was actually loaned on credit so when things start to go south manufacturers stopped providing shipments of a lot of items. About a year before the pandemic many shelves were almost bare. The last few years I wondered how they were still in business. Now we know.

[@DesertHomesteader]

I remember the Fry's in Downers Grove, Illinois. I watched it decline from seemingly stupid decisions. At one point, there was a glut of merchandise - with seemingly nowhere to put things on the shelves. Over the years, you could see the inventory shrinking to almost nothing. If you found a product you wanted on display, good luck finding it to purchase. From my viewpoint, it seemed like they spent too much money on inventory and then they overcorrected by spending too little. Microcenter was kicking their butts simply by having reliable inventory, good service and a clean, organized store - with less unrelated junk.

[@wesleyskeen4065]

I hated to see it. Everyone at the Dallas locstion was super helpful. They walked me through building my first PC, helping me choose components and how to set it up. They refused to let me spend more than what I needed. MULTIPLE times I saw salesmen tell customers that what they were trying to buy was unnecessary and a waste of money. They would DOWN SALE.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

That’s an almost legendary level of honesty. I wouldn’t expect any business to do that.

[@wesleyskeen4065]

@DiamondKingStudios For my first build I already had an Intel Pentium 233. When I decided to build one for my girlfriend I tried to buy another pentium. The guy said no, get the AMD K6II. It's cheaper and better. Back then you could run either in the same motherboard. He said put this in your computer and if you don't love it I will pay the difference to get you the pentium. Bro offered to come out of pocket to sell me something cheaper!! She got my old pentium lol.

[@LibertySandwich]

I bought my first PC from the Dallas location and I was heavily mislead lol

[@TxJayYT]

Yeah, having shopped at that store several times I can assure you, your experience was VERY rare. Most of the people there had no idea what they were talking about IF you could find someone to help you. Horrible customer service! The whole, repackaging return defective items and putting them back on the shelf was the worst.

[@davidsecord6412]

I was simply devastated by the closing of Fry's. It had everything. As I built all of the computers and servers for my medical office, getting a case, the motherboard, processor, RAM and accessories I wanted was easy and very affordable. For electronics, books, gifts, and pretty much everything else.....it was at Fry's Electronics. I lived somewhat close to the store on Jupiter in Houston. I loved it. You could spend the entire, damn day there and never be bored. They had an amazing array of kits for helping kids get interested in tech and.....well......everything. Amazing place. Fry's........I miss you.

[@hastypete2]

I grieve with you brother.

[@thevintageaudiolife]

I was an avid Fry's shopper early on and was always going to the one in Burbank Cali. Everything I purchased (unbeknown to me) was an open box item, meaning someone already returned that item and of course missing components. The line for returning items was always longer than purchasing lines. Frys towards the end, looked like an indoor swap meet.

[@solo1014]

If memory serves me correctly, there were several embezzelment scandals with higher ups that lead to strained relationships with their suppliers and not having cash on hand to make adaptations to market conditions.

[@CoopyKat]

20 years ago Fry's Electronics was well known for their rude, awful employees. I had a few run-ins with their employees, and then finally around 2017 I noticed suddenly they had friendly employees. Other than that, I loved the store, which was HUGE, and every store had a unique theme.....I miss the store a lot (with the friendly employees!)

[@pmbacker1]

I may be the only person in the comments but "I miss Fry's", I truly do miss going to the Fry's store in WIlsonville, Oregon. While I was a child, my parents weren't exactly 'good' but I used to dream of making my own PC and to see the lines of various parts and the gamesets and the like. To me, going to Fry's was better than a fantasy trip to "Disneyland"...which also never happened. I truly loved the special "Friday" ad that was in the newspaper and how the sales were but what I miss more than anything, is how the prices were lower and how if I needed a part, I could just drive an hour to pick up the expensive part instead of waiting a week for the mail. I think of all the things in my childhood that are now gone and there is a list; Payless Shoe Store for my wife but for me, Frys is the thing that I miss the most.

[@anthony7564]

I had the same experience in the Phoenix, Arizona area Fry's stores. I used to read the full page ad every week if I got a paper so I could daydream about all the electronic toys, components, games and movies on my wish list. Once I started building my own computers in adulthood I would spend literally hours in there just browsing product and buying Blu-Rays. No other in-store electronics retail experience has even come close to that 90s - 00s peak of Fry's for my money.

[@danieldoss1987]

For every time I bought something at Fry's there was an almost equal amount of purchased items I had to return because the item had been opened, parts were missing, and I had to return it to the store. You had to be really mindful of open box. They were really crafty at resealing previously opened merchandise.

[@hastypete2]

I went once or twice a week. EAch trip meant returning something and buying even more stuff.

[@DrJoJoBoxer]

I moved to Webster, Texas around 2010 and there was a Fry’s in that city. The theme was a space shuttle, but I didn’t realize that it was unique to the fries brand that they had other locations with various themes. Wish I knew that back then perhaps I would’ve visited some When I was traveling. Good times for a computer geek… luckily, I did not have to deal with Customer Service ever.

[@texasyojimbo]

@@DrJoJoBoxer I used to shop at the Webster store also when I lived in Galveston. The Austin store has a piano/music theme. I can't remember what the store theme was in Arlington (DFW), I seem to think it was just boring. I also seem to recall there being a Fry's on the north side of Houston that had an oil rig/derrick theme.

[@screwthisin]

We had a Frys Electronics here in the Phoenix, but when they left we have a major PC parts desert.

[@ffkarle]

I used to shop at the Arlington Texas Fry's. I returned a modem that simply would not work. Surprisingly they did not fuss too much about. After looking around the store I went to the shelf where the modems was at. Lo and behold they had stuck the nonfunctioning modem I had returned back on the shelf for sale. I grabbed the box and marched right back to the Customer Returns Desk. As I was chewing the guy out who had handled me earlier I was steadily defacing the box so they could not resale it. I was mad nine ways to Sunday about that shenanigan!!! I wrote Defective in large letters on each side of that box with my trusty pen.

[@rodjohnson2632]

Good for you! As a shopper at the original Fry's in Sunnyvale in 1985 all the way to a few years before the end, I saw the rise and fall in its entirety. It was a good place for many years, but I often saw defective returned items repackaged and immediately put back on the shelves. It didn't matter if parts were missing or broken, the box was made to appear new, for the next victim to purchase.

[@gordonriley5277]

First - great video on a topic that for me is important, because Fry's was my favorite store of all time. I've built a number of gaming rigs and they had everything. Used to buy the Mercury News just to peruse the ad. By 2018 I could smell it that it was gonna fold and I followed the embezzlement case. Gosh if they were so lax in allowing that employee to steal so much while checking receipts of good paying customers whenever they left the store, how could they ever remain viable. Fortunately, Microcenter is opening soon in Santa Clara so again there will be a tech store - aside from Central Computer to go to. Thanks for the video.

[@Kreln1221]

*_That's an Aztec pyramid from Mexico at _**_1:22_**_, NOT an Egyptian pyramid!_* 🤨

[@Jonesvideoplanet]

This is true. The picture at 1:22 is the myan theme of the San Jose location at Fry’s corporate offices. Good catch

[@life_of_riley88]

It may be an Aztec pyramid, but they sure had an Egyptian thing going on inside that store.

[@User0000000000000004]

Aztec was Phoenix, AZ

[@UFOCurrents]

I worked at Campbell in 1988. It was an Egyptian theme.

[@hastypete2]

@@Jonesvideoplanet Just this week there was news about that location. Apparently some one wants to put a tech center there. They plan to keep the facade!

[@Xceny]

Your background track slapped too hard 😂 I had to relisten to the first 2 minutes cause my mind wandered. Great vid!

[@The-Friendly-Grizzly]

They sold a lot of repacked merchandise, or dodgy refurbs. Returns were impossible. Two times they refused returns on obvious defects, but I just reversed the charge with the credit card.

[@emmanuelgoldstein4371]

I was a Fry's customer at their Plano, Texas location. I built several computers from parts purchased entirely from Fry's. Over the years I watched Fry's go downhill. Their inventory kept getting smaller and smaller until many shelves were empty. There were fewer and fewer employees working in the store. I kept asking them when were they going to close. This went on for over 6 months until one day I drove by and their parking lot was empty....

[@gilded_lady]

My local story was themed to Alice in Wonderland. I loved wandering that store. The decline was slow and obvious - even before they officially started going out of business the stores had felt like they were liquidation jobbers. They weren't the store for best prices, but they had selection that Best Buy didn't.

[@TheCarCrazyGuy]

Woodland Hills

[@platterjockey]

I was one of those techies who always knew what they wanted. I usually shopped at the Tempe, Arizona store, and I found the people in the computer parts department very knowledgeable and helpful when I needed them. Man, I miss Fry's Electronics. Micro Center doesn't seem to want to come to Phoenix.

[@martinadams7949]

On my weekly trips to work on Santa Maria #205 I would stop at the Willsonville Oregon location. Often just buying that weeks loss leaders. I liked the place. My cousins hubby called it the used computer parts store, because of all the returns with discount prices on the shelfs. The hardware for projects other than PCs that you could see in person was a great feature.

[@Pralix2000]

Near the end, Fry's was trying to sell on a consignment basis. Instead of them forking out money for inventory like they were doing, they wanted the brands to consign inventory with them. This can't possibly work at the level of inventory that each store had. There were just too many brands being sold there and to get all of them to consign would be impossible. I had lots of fun with their Facebook social media manager over their empty shelves. They kept saying everything was fine. They would show pictures of a store with merchandise as far as the eye could see. When you look closer, it is all the same item, all fronted on the shelf. No depth. At one of the CES events, they diverted stock destined for other stores to the Vegas store so that the Vegas store would look full and not look like they were on the verge of bankruptcy. The sales associates were also very cut throat between them. I remember making a big purchase and one ran up to put his sticker on the box. I kind of chewed him out and then I peeled off the sticker and went to complete the purchase at the front. I miss being able to shop there. I'm hoping that a city near me will get a Microcenter soon.

[@rodjohnson2632]

I worked in Sunnyvale near the original Fry's, and started going there in 1985 shortly after the first store opened. It was like a 7-Eleven with a couple of rooms in the back selling computers, video games, and stereo equipment. They soon outgrew that space and moved a few blocks away into a much larger building, and moved once again another few blocks away. It was a great place to shop for many years, but obviously went downhill badly and quickly for many reasons. Their end didn't surprise me at all, it was almost like they purposely tried to put themselves out of business.

[@Dzunku-oo8wb]

Fry's size and style electronics giant store in Japan are Yodobashi Camera and VIC Camera. These stores started around 1960, I think. They have been growing bigger and growing to nation wide. Their services are top notch. The biggest one is Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara. This is where I never have failed to visit whenever I go to Japan.

[@fookingsog]

Tokyu Hands is Awesome Too as a variety department store!!! 🤗

[@trumansparks2338]

What I remember most about the Phoenix location was that they sold all the latest tech but their own tech was at least a decade out of date. I want to say that they printed receipts on a dot matrix printer but that can't be right, I must be misremembering that. I do remember that long after screens were flat the checkout counters still had these massive CRT's attached to like a 386 desktop.

[@bloqk16]

You are correct about Fry's own tech being out-of-date. When doing price/inventory checking, the flat-screen display monitor would show a DOS screen instead of of GUI. Even the Point-of-Sale machines were DOS screen operated.

[@Electronzap]

I'm Minnesotan, I first heard of Frys when I came across a number of "why is there hardly anything being sold now" videos on KZbin. It's amazing how good companies can go downhill suddenly and management seems completely oblivious all the way til the end.

[@DanaTheInsane]

@@Electronzap thankfully in Minnesota we have Micro Center!