Fry's Electronic Store Closures Confirmed

[SpikeSpiegel]

13 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

If that's actually the plan, it's a terrible one. Competing with the internet plus one specialty brick-and-mortar retailer doesn't work anymore, so let's compete with the internet and Best Buy, which also puts us into direct competition with Walmart's electronics department?

 

Because let's be honest, if you just need a functional laptop or desktop as cheap as you can get it, there's no reason not to buy it from Walmart.

Well I worked at Wal-Mart for years and let me tell you that any Desktop you buy at Wal-Mart is not as great quality.  I bought an iBuyPowerPC system from Wal-Mart.com  And it was pretty low spec for gaming back in 2010.  And that OVERPOWERED PC brand is a joke.  Even their brand "ONN" and "Blackwidow" brand isn't worth it.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

One thing not mentioned that was a significant reason I gave up on Fry's Electronics a while back is lousy customer service, both in-store and online. To get around their piddle poor inventory control issues, I would try ordering for in-store pickup. from store stock. Either I would get an email back way later than promised saying they couldn't find the stock they were supposed to have or, when I got to the store to pick it up, they would have the wrong quantity (always short) or they would have pulled the wrong item. They never got it right.

 

Their online "service" was slow and their online customer "help" was pathetic.

[Gix7Fifty]

Well over the years I have been buying less and less from them and even Microcenter. I would only buy something from them if I did not want to wait the 1-2 shipping from Amazon prime or maybe Newegg. Also Fry's website was really crummy.

[aisle9]

So after a little more digging, this is as much an indictment of the area as it is Fry's. For those familiar with the Atlanta area, this Fry's is in the same parking lot as the Gwinnett Place Mall, and kind of off to the side. You have to be looking for it to find it. That mall is essentially a dead mall walking at this point, but I didn't know how bad it had gotten there. The Mall of Georgia is only about 15 minutes up the road, and Gwinnett can't compete. Given that this Fry's was essentially buried off to the side of a mall that's bleeding tenants at this point with other tech chains, including Best Buy and Micro Center, just up the road, this was probably more of a location and traffic issue than an issue caused by the store itself. If Gwinnett Place was booming, maybe this would be better able to survive the supplier issues, but with that mall as a whole headed for the inevitable "mixed-use development" kiss of death, it ain't happening.

 

1 hour ago, Atmos said:

I would be tempted to say it could have worked if they made the transition fast and painless and just skated on their reputation as being the nerdy techy place to get things, I could have seen that at least working for a while and keeping them alive longer, but if they are actually doing that then the transition has destroyed any kind of standing they had. for months now its been damn near impossible to get anything there, and in the rare occasion they do actually have what you need the stores feel soulless and empty, like you shouldnt be in there, that their already closed.

 

Even if they magically get all of their "vendor issues" sorted out immediately and suddenly are all fully stocked again I dont see them recovering from this for a long, long time. They have damaged their public image far too much and their core repeat customers are too burned to come back.

 

Also i just gotta say, I had no freaking idea that like all the other frys stores are themed and actually interesting to go to, or where at least at some point. The one here in oxnard is apparently themed as "agricultural history" and they did that by making everything bland, stale, and boring. I never even knew it was themed, i just thought it was a boring office environment, because thats what it seemed like.

For the tech crowd, yeah, maybe there's a lack of trust that's going to hamper them going forward. But if they were to stock their stores even up to 30% and run ads for a 65" OLED 4K TV for $999, the general public would swarm them. The issue becomes how do you keep that momentum? You have to either sustain those prices or make shopping there an experience that blows Best Buy out of the water (not hard) and continually makes it worth the trip (harder). And even then, if Fry's can get vendors on board with the "return it if you can't sell it" policy, what do you think Best Buy's going to do the next time those vendor contracts come up?

 

"Hey, look, we appreciate all you've done, but we want the Fry's deal and if you don't give it to us, we'll find someone who will."

 

Bottom line here is that catering to the hardcore tech crowd has gotten them to where they currently are. Trying to rebound by catering directly to us wouldn't have worked at this point anyway. We've all got Amazon, Newegg and Micro Center for our components. But tapping into the general public? Hey, if they can make their pricing appealing enough to be worth the trip and have their superior commission-based sales crew offer a better experience than the poorly-trained monkeys at most Best Buy locations, they could conceivably pull it off. It just isn't going to happen until they get their vendor issues sorted out and figure out what they're going to do with their store footprint. Two stores closing (one of them because of a lease dispute and one because it's buried behind a dead mall) does not spell the end of the chain, but it's not a great look considering the existing vendor dispute.

 

1 hour ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

Well I worked at Wal-Mart for years and let me tell you that any Desktop you buy at Wal-Mart is not as great quality.  I bought an iBuyPowerPC system from Wal-Mart.com  And it was pretty low spec for gaming back in 2010.  And that OVERPOWERED PC brand is a joke.  Even their brand "ONN" and "Blackwidow" brand isn't worth it.

If you look at the SKU or model number of a lot of the laptops and desktops sold at Walmart, you'll see a "w" or "wm" at the end. That's a product built specifically for Walmart. Two reasons:

1. Walmart has a big hand in their production and can say (and always says), "Here's what our customers want and here's what we're going to pay you for it." The OEM will then create that wm SKU specifically for that product.
2. Price matching. Walmart stores only offers price matching on identical items sold on walmart.com, which, I mean, who cares? Walmart's still getting your money, it's just going through a different channel. Stores might not price match anyone else, but Walmart.com still does price match several retailers. If that's on a pair of Skullcandy headphones or a low-end Microsoft basic keyboard, who cares? But if Amazon sells an HP d52385-001 computer and Walmart.com has an absolutely identical in every way model aside from a "d52385-001wm" SKU, guess what? It's not an identical product, and you're not getting that price match. Best Buy also has custom SKUs created just for them. Target used to do this on a very limited scale, don't know if they still do.

ONN has always been junk slapped together from OEM leftovers that's designed to last just long enough for the warranty period to lapse. Their "4K" tvs that are always on sale for $200 are technically 4k panels, but the overwhelming majority of the pixels are white so it's more like a 1080p image on a borderline-defective panel. There are lots of other corners cut across the ONN line, but, I mean, what can you really expect out of Walmart's "you're too broke to afford this even at our prices" brand?

[Nano Adam]

Yea I was very surprised that the store closed. It literally closed without any advertisement or any close down deals or anything. They closed so silently where no one I knew, knew about it. 

[Bombastinator]

11 minutes ago, ammar_code said:

Yea I was very surprised that the store closed. It literally closed without any advertisement or any close down deals or anything. They closed so silently where no one I knew, knew about it. 

Probably not the employees either.  There’s usually either a big giant “close out!!!” Or nearly nothing at all but a note on the door one day and the lockes changed.

[SpikeSpiegel]

From a local newspaper

 

The Gwinnett Place area has lost one of its major retailers — and may be about to gain a pre-owned car sales business in its place — as the continues to feel the affects of changes within the retail industry.

Fry’s Electronics has quietly closed its store on Commerce Avenue near Gwinnett Place Mall in unincorporated Duluth. Any mention of the store has also been removed from the retailer’s website.

“This location is now closed,” a sign on the store’s front door states. “We appreciate your patronage over the past 35 years.”

The site may not be empty for long, however. Documents included in the agenda packet for the Gwinnett Planning Commission’s February meeting show a proposal from AM Realty GA LLC is already being put forth for a new use for the site.

County tax records show AM Realty GA LLC purchased the site form Button Declaration LP on Nov. 4 for $18,000.

“Applicant purchased the (site) last month and will make modifications to convert the use from the retail Fry’s Electronics to a pre-owned automobile sales facility,” AM Realty attorney Ellen Smith wrote in a Dec. 4 letter to county officials.

A change in conditions is being sought to allow car sales to take place at the site. In 1991, county officials placed conditions on development in the Gwinnett Place Mall area. One of those conditions, referred to as “Condition 3” by the developer, limited auto sales in the area to specific spots identified on an existing map drawn up in 1988.

Smith said part of the Fry’s parking lot overlapped with an approved auto sales property, and the property owner is seeking a “clean up” action by county officials to allow the entire site to be used for car sales and service.

“This use is permitted in C-3 under The Unified Development Ordinance of Gwinnett County, Georgia (the “UDO”), but out of an abundance of caution, Applicant seeks in this Application to add the Property to the Auto Sales Rezoning Exhibit for purposes of ensuring compliance with Condition 3 above,” Smith said.

“There will be no physical change to the existing parking lot or curbing on the property; instead, the only visible change to the property will be pipe rail and gate for security.”

There are several car dealerships adjacent to or north of the Fry’s site, and some of those dealerships have been using portions of the mall’s parking lot to store surplus vehicles.

Meanwhile, with the Duluth store’s closure, Fry’s is now down to only one store left in Georgia, according to the company’s website. That store is located in Milton.

Customers had predicted the Duluth store’s likely closure as they left reviews on Google in recent months. Reviews dating back to October cited empty shelves, few employees and a “ghost town”-like atmosphere in the store.

Fry’s followers a string of other major retailers that have closed stores in the Gwinnett Place area in recent years, including Toys ‘R Us and H.H. Gregg.

Although the Gwinnett Place area’s namesake mall has struggled with a high vacancy rate, the area itself has largely done better at replacing departing retailers.

Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District officials, who have attributed the loss of major retailers in the past to a shift by consumers toward online shopping, have often cited a high occupancy rate for shopping centers surrounding the mall.

At the same time, however, CID officials have also conceded that the mall’s struggles have been a sore spot that has held back interest from many developers in redeveloping the area.

But the mall’s struggles haven’t totally shut down developers interest in the area.

After Sears announced plans to close its location at the mall closed in 2018, it was quickly sold to residential developer Northwood Raven. The developer has been working on its plans for redeveloping the site, which includes a portion of the parking area at the mall.

The mall itself has been put on the market for sale although its three main anchors — Macy’s, Mega Mart and Beauty Master — each own their respective storefronts at the mall, as well as portions of the mall parking lot that adjoin those storefronts.

Meanwhile, the Gwinnett Prado site near the mall is slated to undergo a major redevelopment that will see much of the shopping center torn down and replaced with new restaurants, retail and residential components.

 

[Atmos]

50 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

For the tech crowd, yeah, maybe there's a lack of trust that's going to hamper them going forward. But if they were to stock their stores even up to 30% and run ads for a 65" OLED 4K TV for $999, the general public would swarm them. The issue becomes how do you keep that momentum? You have to either sustain those prices or make shopping there an experience that blows Best Buy out of the water (not hard) and continually makes it worth the trip (harder). And even then, if Fry's can get vendors on board with the "return it if you can't sell it" policy, what do you think Best Buy's going to do the next time those vendor contracts come up?

 

"Hey, look, we appreciate all you've done, but we want the Fry's deal and if you don't give it to us, we'll find someone who will."

 

Bottom line here is that catering to the hardcore tech crowd has gotten them to where they currently are. Trying to rebound by catering directly to us wouldn't have worked at this point anyway. We've all got Amazon, Newegg and Micro Center for our components. But tapping into the general public? Hey, if they can make their pricing appealing enough to be worth the trip and have their superior commission-based sales crew offer a better experience than the poorly-trained monkeys at most Best Buy locations, they could conceivably pull it off. It just isn't going to happen until they get their vendor issues sorted out and figure out what they're going to do with their store footprint. Two stores closing (one of them because of a lease dispute and one because it's buried behind a dead mall) does not spell the end of the chain, but it's not a great look considering the existing vendor dispute.

 

 

I didnt say they couldnt do it, but that it would take a while. In our entire county we have like 3 bestbuys, 1 frys, and about 6 real walmarts. I highly doubt that frys could get a vendor price to compete that much lower than either of those chains, and frys has already burned out not just the hardcore, but the non-enthusiast crowd as well by being in its current state for coming on half a year at this point. When i hear jokes from the completely non-tech savvy clients at work about how frys is just a joke now, its really telling. Trust in the chain where I live, is gone entirely. Even if they swap and suddenly become competitive again it will take a long time to get back up to where they were at last year where I live.

 

I live in a fairly high population county as far as most are concerned, but basically everyone in the county has tried going to frys at least once because they were the only store like it in the entire county, and as far as not wanting to compete against walmart or bestbuy, frys has been competing directly against walmart, bestbuy, and places like lowes and homedepot for a long long time now. Transitioning to just compete alone against basically bestbuy is probably in their best interest at this point.

6 minutes ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

AM Realty GA LLC purchased the site form Button Declaration LP on Nov. 4 for $18,000.

Wow... thats... really telling of how poor that lot is doing.

For a full size retail store lot to SELL for 18 grand is... crazy... Yeah that location is extremely dead at this point.

[SpikeSpiegel]

39 minutes ago, Atmos said:

I didnt say they couldnt do it, but that it would take a while. In our entire county we have like 3 bestbuys, 1 frys, and about 6 real walmarts. I highly doubt that frys could get a vendor price to compete that much lower than either of those chains, and frys has already burned out not just the hardcore, but the non-enthusiast crowd as well by being in its current state for coming on half a year at this point. When i hear jokes from the completely non-tech savvy clients at work about how frys is just a joke now, its really telling. Trust in the chain where I live, is gone entirely. Even if they swap and suddenly become competitive again it will take a long time to get back up to where they were at last year where I live.

 

I live in a fairly high population county as far as most are concerned, but basically everyone in the county has tried going to frys at least once because they were the only store like it in the entire county, and as far as not wanting to compete against walmart or bestbuy, frys has been competing directly against walmart, bestbuy, and places like lowes and homedepot for a long long time now. Transitioning to just compete alone against basically bestbuy is probably in their best interest at this point.

Wow... thats... really telling of how poor that lot is doing.

For a full size retail store lot to SELL for 18 grand is... crazy... Yeah that location is extremely dead at this point.

Yeah I know...seriously.

 

http://www.tonetoatl.com/2019/12/Frys-Electronics-Closed-Duluth-Gwinnett-Place.html

 

Sunday, December 29, 2019

[ICYMI] Fry's Electronics Quietly Pulled the Plug in Duluth

 

Fry's Electronics earlier this month abruptly closed its store in Duluth and the entire chain may soon meet a similar fate.  The Duluth store, located on the rear side of Gwinnett Place Mall and visible from I-85, reportedly closed shortly after Thanksgiving, surprisingly well before the peak holiday shopping season. The nearly 150,000 square foot store first opened in 2004.

 

Based in San Jose, California, Fry's Electronics shares a logo similar to that of Fry's Food & Drug due to the fact that three of the men who started the electronics chain - John, "Randy" & David Fry - did so with funds provided to them by their father, Charles Fry, founder of the supermarket chain.  The Fry's supermarket chain started in 1954 with the electronics retailer debuting in 1985.   The two chains were never corporately connected and today the supermarket chain is a wholly owned division of The Kroger Company.

 

Sources with knowledge of the Duluth closure tell ToNeTo Atlanta that the store had seemingly stopped receiving new merchandise some time ago and that no "closing sale" took place with the company opting instead to send on-hand merchandise to the other Atlanta area store in Milton.  The Milton store, located on Webb Road just off Windward Parkway, opened in 2006 and is just over 150,000 square feet, slightly larger than the Duluth outpost.  

 

Fry's Electronics, like its onetime rival Incredible Universe [a division of then RadioShack owner Tandy], built ridiculously large stores in hopes of being "one stop shops" for all kinds of electronics.  The stores, though, were not nearly the success the companies had hoped.  Fry's purchased six profitable Incredible Universe stores in 1997 and converted them to the Fry's banner.  The purchase did not include the lone Incredible Universe in Atlanta.  The store, located along I-85 in Duluth not far from Fry's, has gone though several replacement retailers, most recently Dave & Buster's and a Havertys Outlet, both of which are now closed.  

 

Online reports indicate that several Fry's stores nationwide seem to be liquidating and perhaps even offering sales, without mention of a "going out of business sale." (Other reports indicate the entire chain will close by February 2020)  When contacted for comment on the suddenness of the Duluth closure and the status of the Milton store, an associate at the Milton store indicated they are not closing but confirmed the Duluth store closure was sudden and without warning.  

 

Fry's closure in Duluth is just the latest in a growing list of big box closures in the area.  

 

Target closed its large format SuperTarget on Venture Drive in 2014 with the aforementioned Dave & Buster's closing their Venture Drive store earlier this year.  Other closures in the Gwinnett Place corridor include Borders Books & Music, Barnes & Noble, Toys R Us, Circuit City, hhgregg, Golfsmith, Babies R Us, among others.  At Gwinnett Place Mall itself, JCPenney, Belk and Sears have all closed leaving only Macy's (originally Rich's), MegaMart (in the former Macy's {originally Davison's}) and Beauty Master (in the former JCPenney) to anchor the mall.  

 

For those seeking to purchase electronics in Duluth, Best Buy and Micro Center remain open along Pleasant Hill Road.  

 

There does not appear to be a current sales listing for the Fry's property in Duluth but Colliers International’s Atlanta-based Southeast Retail Investment Sales Team is currently marketing Gwinnett Place Mall and its 39 acres for an undisclosed amount.  

 

Are you surprised to learn of Fry's closure in Duluth?  When was the last time you purchased something at Fry's?  What would you like to see open in place of Fry's and/or Gwinnett Place Mall?

[Nano Adam]

2 hours ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

Yeah I know...seriously.

 

http://www.tonetoatl.com/2019/12/Frys-Electronics-Closed-Duluth-Gwinnett-Place.html

 

Sunday, December 29, 2019

[ICYMI] Fry's Electronics Quietly Pulled the Plug in Duluth

 

Fry's Electronics earlier this month abruptly closed its store in Duluth and the entire chain may soon meet a similar fate.  The Duluth store, located on the rear side of Gwinnett Place Mall and visible from I-85, reportedly closed shortly after Thanksgiving, surprisingly well before the peak holiday shopping season. The nearly 150,000 square foot store first opened in 2004.

 

Based in San Jose, California, Fry's Electronics shares a logo similar to that of Fry's Food & Drug due to the fact that three of the men who started the electronics chain - John, "Randy" & David Fry - did so with funds provided to them by their father, Charles Fry, founder of the supermarket chain.  The Fry's supermarket chain started in 1954 with the electronics retailer debuting in 1985.   The two chains were never corporately connected and today the supermarket chain is a wholly owned division of The Kroger Company.

 

Sources with knowledge of the Duluth closure tell ToNeTo Atlanta that the store had seemingly stopped receiving new merchandise some time ago and that no "closing sale" took place with the company opting instead to send on-hand merchandise to the other Atlanta area store in Milton.  The Milton store, located on Webb Road just off Windward Parkway, opened in 2006 and is just over 150,000 square feet, slightly larger than the Duluth outpost.  

 

Fry's Electronics, like its onetime rival Incredible Universe [a division of then RadioShack owner Tandy], built ridiculously large stores in hopes of being "one stop shops" for all kinds of electronics.  The stores, though, were not nearly the success the companies had hoped.  Fry's purchased six profitable Incredible Universe stores in 1997 and converted them to the Fry's banner.  The purchase did not include the lone Incredible Universe in Atlanta.  The store, located along I-85 in Duluth not far from Fry's, has gone though several replacement retailers, most recently Dave & Buster's and a Havertys Outlet, both of which are now closed.  

 

Online reports indicate that several Fry's stores nationwide seem to be liquidating and perhaps even offering sales, without mention of a "going out of business sale." (Other reports indicate the entire chain will close by February 2020)  When contacted for comment on the suddenness of the Duluth closure and the status of the Milton store, an associate at the Milton store indicated they are not closing but confirmed the Duluth store closure was sudden and without warning.  

 

Fry's closure in Duluth is just the latest in a growing list of big box closures in the area.  

 

Target closed its large format SuperTarget on Venture Drive in 2014 with the aforementioned Dave & Buster's closing their Venture Drive store earlier this year.  Other closures in the Gwinnett Place corridor include Borders Books & Music, Barnes & Noble, Toys R Us, Circuit City, hhgregg, Golfsmith, Babies R Us, among others.  At Gwinnett Place Mall itself, JCPenney, Belk and Sears have all closed leaving only Macy's (originally Rich's), MegaMart (in the former Macy's {originally Davison's}) and Beauty Master (in the former JCPenney) to anchor the mall.  

 

For those seeking to purchase electronics in Duluth, Best Buy and Micro Center remain open along Pleasant Hill Road.  

 

There does not appear to be a current sales listing for the Fry's property in Duluth but Colliers International’s Atlanta-based Southeast Retail Investment Sales Team is currently marketing Gwinnett Place Mall and its 39 acres for an undisclosed amount.  

 

Are you surprised to learn of Fry's closure in Duluth?  When was the last time you purchased something at Fry's?  What would you like to see open in place of Fry's and/or Gwinnett Place Mall?

I am surprised for the closing. The last time I went to Fry's and bought something was a VGA to HDMI adapter which stopped working just two weeks ago. I bought it around 2 yrs ago maybe? I will definitely miss the daily coupons Frys sent in our emails. They were great or decent enough deals. 

[NumLock21]

20 hours ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

Spoiler

 

I wonder how long until the San Diego Blvd (near I-15 & Aero Dr / Murphy Canyon Rd) closes?

 

Idk if they still do this (they were pretty low on stock last time I was there a few months ago), but a few years ago - well, look at the GPU display from March 2016 ...

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did get a few good deals at Fry's though, like an i7-6700K for $259 in Nov 2016, and two 5TB HGST Deskstar NAS HDDs for $100 each when they were going for $200 (2015 or 2016, I forget which now, the drives are dated Jun 2015)

 

Hey maybe we could finally get a Micro Center location in San Diego?

 

 

Did you took those pic. Would they happened to have a ATi Radeon 9700 Pro AGP for $299?

 

At least there is Best Buy. I believe a few years ago micro center was very only on the eastern side of the us, there was none out in the west, it was in the recent years where have open up stores out there.

[Kawaii Koneko]

I was watching one of those abandoned places or dead mall channels and they went through a Fry's and it was shocking to see how little stock they had.

 

Next time I am in Illinois I am going to stop by one just to see what the store is like. Looks like I may not have much time if these closures are any indication as to where the company is heading.

I hope The Company Man does a video on them.

[SpikeSpiegel]

 

From Glassdoor.com

 

[Jumballi]

4 minutes ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

 

From Glassdoor.com

 

But how do you convince your vendors to send you product when you haven't given them the money from the current product because you sold it at a discount just to add a warranty on there without the customers permission. I'm not saying that's the only reason they're going out of business, or that me and some of my former coworkers ever did that, but I am saying that the managers somehow only gave hours to the one guy who exclusively did that.

[SpikeSpiegel]

5 minutes ago, Jumballi said:

But how do you convince your vendors to send you product when you haven't given them the money from the current product because you sold it at a discount just to add a warranty on there without the customers permission. I'm not saying that's the only reason they're going out of business, or that me and some of my former coworkers ever did that, but I am saying that the managers somehow only gave hours to the one guy who exclusively did that.

They screw up big time....What else is new.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

Soo... Which video card should I buy next?

 

 

 

Or maybe another laptop or desktop is in my future?

 

That last pic is the ONLY laptops on display.

 

They do still have some printer accessories, laptop coolers, chairs, office supplies.  I haven't gotten over to the hard drives, cases, cameras, etc. yet.

 

I wonder how different this place would look if it was a Micro Center...

 

 

 

[Retro_R]

Rip but also i guess not. Frys is where I bought my first pc. But I mean some of their stuff is trash. Although, frys is the only pc parts store which has a big selection of individual pc parts in my area (i guess besides best buy but their section is small).

 

But I went to the local frys and they were empty. It was so wierd. Also, Micro Center please please please come to Austin.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

Well... I'm by the section where hard drives, SSDs, cases, motherboards, CPUs, RAM were ... and it's closed off and completely out of stock.

 

 

 

Also when I pulled into the parking lot at 5:45pm today (Friday, 1-31-2020) I saw:

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

Well... I'm by the section where hard drives, SSDs, cases, motherboards, CPUs, RAM were ... and it's closed off and completely out of stock.

 

What is left?

[SpikeSpiegel]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

What is left?

Looks like shelving.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

What is left?

There's a few scattered things here and there in other departments, but a lot is empty shelves and racks.

 

I haven't been getting a lot of pics, don't want to be seen holding my phone like it's a camera.  (Same reason I haven't done any video.)

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

Looks like shelving.

I’m seeing a few monitors in the pic.  Might be plastic mockups though.  I bought a bunch of hard to get shelving when 7corners closed.  

[PianoPlayer88Key]

Cases apparently got moved to a different section nearby.  (They had been on the back wall in the previous set of pics.)

 

 

 

I haven't seen the other parts though.

 

BTW I'm at the San Diego, CA location on Stonecrest Blvd.  I'm not going to the San Marcos one tonight, but I might go another day.  I also want to visit a piano store or two in the area, and I may consider extending the drive then to squeeze in Micro Center in Tustin.  (If I went straight from my house to Micro Center, it would be about an hour and 20 minute drive at 75-80 mph (typical non-rush hour traffic flow, usually San Diego is faster than L.A. & Orange county) on the freeway.

 

I kinda want to figure out a few things to buy from MC before I go there.  I was joking earlier about getting a GPU and system, I wanted to post the empty shelves, and it's still a few years too early for me to be buying those things.  But it's probably almost time to start more earnestly researching my future purchases.  It sometimes takes me a while to buy - either lack of funds, or lack of progress / innovation.  A few years ago when I bought a camera, I had waited through a few generations of releases after starting my research before pulling the trigger.

 

I'm tentatively planning to upgrade my desktop from i7-4790K to DDR5 / PCIe 5.0 on socket AM5.  (I hope I don't have to wait for DDR6 & AM6 for the performance & features I want.)  As for the GPU, I'd like that generation's GT x10 or Radeon x10 or UHD x10 to be faster at 4K ultra in AAA games than my current generation's (Pascal) Titan / etc is in casual games at 720p low.  (Also a similar jump in CPU performance - new generation's Celeron-Y or Athlon faster than old generation's multi-blade Xeon or Epyc.)

 

 

I'm thinking about tweeting a few of these pics to Micro Center with probably just one word.

HEELLLP!

and maybe a crying face emoji like

 

Another view of the empty mobos & other parts section:

 

 

Well that's appropriate - as I was getting ready to post this, AC/DC's song "Highway To Hell" started playing over the store's P.A.   Maybe when (hopefully not if) Micro Center takes over, they could start playing Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven"?

 

[PianoPlayer88Key]

A few more shots on my way out...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Reytime]

What a shame. The times I actually went there to buy something were always good experiences.

Oh well, another one bites the dust.

 

If only there was a world where Amazon and physical stores could co-exist.