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I was in San Jose, and visited their store there (Which I believe is also their headquarters / central distribution point), and it was just sad. The CPU section

I was in San Jose, and visited their store there (Which I believe is also their headquarters / central distribution point), and it was just sad. The CPU section / MB was completely bare. I hadn’t heard of what was going on, so I assumed that they were revamping the area or something. That said, I am not sure we can put the blame only on Amazon. I was in Microcenter the day after, and it was stupid busy - took 30 minutes to check out and was packed to gills. They crammed all of the good stuff of Frys into a much smaller space - mostly focused around PC electronics.

doctorshady 7y ago
Either way, it's incredibly disconcerting. Buying things online should be a choice, not an obligation.
- erik_seaberg 7y ago
  Won't be the first time. People used to live in towns too small to support specialty shops, and either the general store has something, you make one yourself, or you mail order it from Sears and wait weeks. I think what changed is the speed of shipping. Retail only adds value if there's a more convenient local warehouse, or you trust the salesman.
- BubRoss 7y ago
  Buying things at all is a choice.
colechristensen 7y ago
I was going to make the same comment. After recently revisiting my old home in Minneapolis, I had a need for something and the local Microcenter was significantly improved in the few years I'd been gone. Hobby electronics had 4x the shelf space and everything seemed a little better packed and organized. Compare that with an experience searching for CA glue accelerant (a pretty standard item I had seen at Fry's before) had me driving to three separate stores, finding nothing, and locating a model shop nearby just before close, a several hour ordeal. It is not hard to compete with Amazon. Having reliable stock I can go out and grab today has huge value. I don't want to delay my project by a few days (or because weekends, a whole week) waiting for Amazon shipping and having to spend the additional effort trying to make sure I don't buy cheap knockoffs (or wondering if what I got was a cheap knockoff) I think Fry's in the bay area are suffering from high labor and real estate costs.
- tfha 7y ago
  Once online shopping with 2 hour delivery becomes more ubiquitous it's going the be harder to be a brick and mortar store
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    Two hour delivery is expensive, and online stores are much harder to search and navigate than well-stocked brick&mortar (it's not impossible to do, but nobody does it). In the end the cost for the person to pick up and deliver an item on demand like that goes somewhere and that in particular is something that doesn't scale away. The margin improvement from having a warehouse instead of a box store won't make up for that last mile delivery charge, especially when the box store can do the same kind of delivery and benefit from impulse or high margin items from in person shoppers. Amazon is like wading through sewage to find what you want, and rarely if ever do you find something you weren't already explicitly looking for.
    - akoster 7y ago
      I completely agree with your point about brick and mortar stores. Having a showroom with multiple sizes and brands of product on display, and able to purchase on the spot is a great convenience over waiting for an item to ship. Yes, its a slight inconvenience to commute to and from the store, but it often beats waiting multiple days for something, and having no idea of its quality (or worse if you accidentally purchased a counterfeit product). After doing that a few times on Amazon, and having an issue with a return once, I have stuck to supporting B&M retailers, especially those like Micro Center who provide online stock numbers, indicate where a product is located in their showroom, and match prices (though I have mostly found Micro Center's prices to be the cheapest).
  - fma 7y ago
    Frys offers same day delivery for free, with orders over $49... https://images.frys.com/art/deals/tralfaz/Free_Local_Delivery_Page/index.html https://images.frys.com/art/deals/tralfaz/Free_Local_Deliver... Once B&M stores offer same day delivery its going to be hard to be an online store.
Lammy 7y ago
You got me excited for a minute thinking there was a Micro Center in the Bay Area that I didn’t know about, but Maps still shows the nearest one as Denver. Darn :) When I moved here I was really surprised that I couldn’t find a store with the selection and prices of Micro Center in SV of all places.
- mbreese 7y ago
  That used to be Fry’s.
  - DrScump 7y ago
    No, that was MicroCenter, in the West end of Mercado. There has never been a Santa Clara Fry's Electronics. All 3 Sunnyvale locations were around Lawrence (Lakeside, Kern, now Arques).
- myrandomcomment 7y ago
  Back in the time period this story is about there was a Micro Center in Santa Clara, off of Great America Parkway & 101 on the left in the shop center that now has the movies and In-and-Out. I lived near there (almost in the middle between the Micro Center and the Sunnyvale Frys). At the time the Frys was much cooler, with more kit and better prices. You could get anything at Frys at the time. CPU, RAM, latest SciFi book, tee shirts, heck I remember getting cereal and milk at Frys once.
- genocidicbunny 7y ago
  There used to be one near the Mercado 20 off 101, but that got closed years ago when their rent got too high.
- rrauenza 7y ago
  Central Computer is also pretty good, but the one in Sunnyvale burned down. I hope they rebuild it.
  - Stratoscope 7y ago
eikenberry 7y ago
I wouldn't blame Amazon at all. Long before they had any impact on my tech buying habits I had already switched entirely to Newegg. Newegg was the best place to shop for computer components by far during the 2000s. They had the perfect mix of good selection, good community (ie. high quality reviews), great return policy, etc. It was only after they added 'partners' and were bought out that they started going down hill.
teuobk 7y ago
Microcenter is a great counterexample. The one here in Denver is always full of customers, and it's stuffed with all manner of computer parts, hobby electronics, and so on. It's how I too remember Fry's being back in the day. I don't really understand how Microcenter does it, but they often have equal or better prices than Amazon, and in any case, they'll price-match. Also, there's no worry about whatever I buy turning out to be counterfeit. The one slightly odd thing about the Microcenter experience is how all of the salespeople have little stickers to take credit for when they help a customer find something. Are they on commission? Is this Microcenter's way of identifying the most useful floor staff? They're never pushy about it, but it does stand out in stark contrast to pretty much every other retail shop I can think of.
- InTheArena 7y ago
  It definitely provides a incentive for sales people to be well informed. I’ve never found that to be the case at Frys.
  - hcs 7y ago
    It's been a long time since I was in a Fry's, but at least at the Austin location, whenever I talked with a salesperson and decided to buy something (hard drivers, processors) they'd print up something for me to take to the cashier along with the product. I always assumed this was for commission purposes.
    - DrScump 7y ago
      Yes. It's called a "quote".
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  I've never heard of microcenter or their sticker system but I'm curious. Does the customer get given stickers that they award to staff or does this happen at checkout or what is it?
  - 7y ago
birdyrooster 7y ago
This is just my anecdotal experience but the Fry's Electronics stores in Texas are way better than the ones in California. They are better stocked, better cooled, and have nicer cafeterias.
an-allen 7y ago
Thats because all this thought that Frys was a victim to Amazon is complete bollocks. Every Frys Ive been in since 2010 has been poorly stocked and full of employees who know absolutely nothing about what they are selling... You go into MicroCenter - Every Single Time - Stocked to the teeth with everything you wanted and a bunch of things you didnt even know you wanted - and the folks who work in the store are super nerds, who impress you with the depth of their nerdiness. Worst part is the 30 minute+ line to check out around Christmas.
52-6F-62 7y ago
There’s also Monoprice.
jboy55 7y ago
My last Fry's trip, coincidentally at the Palo Alto store, I was searching for an 2-3ft HDMI extender, female to male. I figured since this was for connecting to a Raspi, I should start there. Plenty of small HDMI cables, but no dice. I happened upon another isle with 100m cables, by the ethernet cables, but a bit of searching saw they were not there. Lets check out the computer area, I see tonnes of options, search through them all, can't find it. break down and ask a guy, after much confusion he hauls be back to the raspi section. i told him I've already looked there. I walk back and see the tv/video section, of course, lots of high-end cables but no extender cable. Ask a guy, do you even have these? He shrugs, asked me if I looked through the computer section, I said yes, and I already looked in components. He started arguing with me that they didn't have ANY HDMI-anything there. "Why would you think they were there?!?!" Finally as I'm walking away, I spot some random sub-section of the tv isle. And around 8 cables there, I look over, there's one that's 5m long, weighs what seems to be 10lbs and cost $30. And I got my 10k steps in.
- Stratoscope 7y ago
  OMG you are describing my most recent visit to the Palo Alto Fry's. I needed some kind of USB cable, I don't remember exactly what it was. Nothing unusual, maybe an A to C, or an A to B Minor, or whatever. I asked when I walked in and they said "yes, look in aisle Foo". No luck, so I asked there. "Oh, you should check aisle Bar". Nothing there either, but the person in that aisle helpfully directed me to aisle Fizz. No luck there, but the person said "you might try aisle Buzz." And there was yet one more aisle after that. Yes, they had five different aisles with various selections of USB cables, many of them overlapping but a few different ones in each location. In the end, I had no luck finding what I needed - and I'd really hoped to get it on the spot to use for a project that evening. So I walked out a bit disappointed and spent two minutes on Amazon, ordered the exact cable I needed, and had it the next day. But the exercise of walking around the store was worth it!
- DataJunkie 7y ago
  The Palo Alto location has a very strange organization. I can't even describe what is wrong with it, but nothing is ever where I think it will be.

doctorshady 7y ago

Either way, it's incredibly disconcerting. Buying things online should be a choice, not an obligation.

erik_seaberg 7y ago
Won't be the first time. People used to live in towns too small to support specialty shops, and either the general store has something, you make one yourself, or you mail order it from Sears and wait weeks. I think what changed is the speed of shipping. Retail only adds value if there's a more convenient local warehouse, or you trust the salesman.
BubRoss 7y ago
Buying things at all is a choice.

colechristensen 7y ago

I was going to make the same comment. After recently revisiting my old home in Minneapolis, I had a need for something and the local Microcenter was significantly improved in the few years I'd been gone. Hobby electronics had 4x the shelf space and everything seemed a little better packed and organized. Compare that with an experience searching for CA glue accelerant (a pretty standard item I had seen at Fry's before) had me driving to three separate stores, finding nothing, and locating a model shop nearby just before close, a several hour ordeal. It is not hard to compete with Amazon. Having reliable stock I can go out and grab today has huge value. I don't want to delay my project by a few days (or because weekends, a whole week) waiting for Amazon shipping and having to spend the additional effort trying to make sure I don't buy cheap knockoffs (or wondering if what I got was a cheap knockoff) I think Fry's in the bay area are suffering from high labor and real estate costs.

tfha 7y ago
Once online shopping with 2 hour delivery becomes more ubiquitous it's going the be harder to be a brick and mortar store
- colechristensen 7y ago
  Two hour delivery is expensive, and online stores are much harder to search and navigate than well-stocked brick&mortar (it's not impossible to do, but nobody does it). In the end the cost for the person to pick up and deliver an item on demand like that goes somewhere and that in particular is something that doesn't scale away. The margin improvement from having a warehouse instead of a box store won't make up for that last mile delivery charge, especially when the box store can do the same kind of delivery and benefit from impulse or high margin items from in person shoppers. Amazon is like wading through sewage to find what you want, and rarely if ever do you find something you weren't already explicitly looking for.
  - akoster 7y ago
    I completely agree with your point about brick and mortar stores. Having a showroom with multiple sizes and brands of product on display, and able to purchase on the spot is a great convenience over waiting for an item to ship. Yes, its a slight inconvenience to commute to and from the store, but it often beats waiting multiple days for something, and having no idea of its quality (or worse if you accidentally purchased a counterfeit product). After doing that a few times on Amazon, and having an issue with a return once, I have stuck to supporting B&M retailers, especially those like Micro Center who provide online stock numbers, indicate where a product is located in their showroom, and match prices (though I have mostly found Micro Center's prices to be the cheapest).
- fma 7y ago
  Frys offers same day delivery for free, with orders over $49... https://images.frys.com/art/deals/tralfaz/Free_Local_Delivery_Page/index.html https://images.frys.com/art/deals/tralfaz/Free_Local_Deliver... Once B&M stores offer same day delivery its going to be hard to be an online store.

Lammy 7y ago

You got me excited for a minute thinking there was a Micro Center in the Bay Area that I didn’t know about, but Maps still shows the nearest one as Denver. Darn :) When I moved here I was really surprised that I couldn’t find a store with the selection and prices of Micro Center in SV of all places.

mbreese 7y ago
That used to be Fry’s.
- DrScump 7y ago
  No, that was MicroCenter, in the West end of Mercado. There has never been a Santa Clara Fry's Electronics. All 3 Sunnyvale locations were around Lawrence (Lakeside, Kern, now Arques).
myrandomcomment 7y ago
Back in the time period this story is about there was a Micro Center in Santa Clara, off of Great America Parkway & 101 on the left in the shop center that now has the movies and In-and-Out. I lived near there (almost in the middle between the Micro Center and the Sunnyvale Frys). At the time the Frys was much cooler, with more kit and better prices. You could get anything at Frys at the time. CPU, RAM, latest SciFi book, tee shirts, heck I remember getting cereal and milk at Frys once.
genocidicbunny 7y ago
There used to be one near the Mercado 20 off 101, but that got closed years ago when their rent got too high.
rrauenza 7y ago
Central Computer is also pretty good, but the one in Sunnyvale burned down. I hope they rebuild it.
- Stratoscope 7y ago

eikenberry 7y ago

I wouldn't blame Amazon at all. Long before they had any impact on my tech buying habits I had already switched entirely to Newegg. Newegg was the best place to shop for computer components by far during the 2000s. They had the perfect mix of good selection, good community (ie. high quality reviews), great return policy, etc. It was only after they added 'partners' and were bought out that they started going down hill.

teuobk 7y ago

Microcenter is a great counterexample. The one here in Denver is always full of customers, and it's stuffed with all manner of computer parts, hobby electronics, and so on. It's how I too remember Fry's being back in the day. I don't really understand how Microcenter does it, but they often have equal or better prices than Amazon, and in any case, they'll price-match. Also, there's no worry about whatever I buy turning out to be counterfeit. The one slightly odd thing about the Microcenter experience is how all of the salespeople have little stickers to take credit for when they help a customer find something. Are they on commission? Is this Microcenter's way of identifying the most useful floor staff? They're never pushy about it, but it does stand out in stark contrast to pretty much every other retail shop I can think of.

InTheArena 7y ago
It definitely provides a incentive for sales people to be well informed. I’ve never found that to be the case at Frys.
- hcs 7y ago
  It's been a long time since I was in a Fry's, but at least at the Austin location, whenever I talked with a salesperson and decided to buy something (hard drivers, processors) they'd print up something for me to take to the cashier along with the product. I always assumed this was for commission purposes.
  - DrScump 7y ago
    Yes. It's called a "quote".
cookie_monsta 7y ago
I've never heard of microcenter or their sticker system but I'm curious. Does the customer get given stickers that they award to staff or does this happen at checkout or what is it?
- 7y ago

birdyrooster 7y ago

This is just my anecdotal experience but the Fry's Electronics stores in Texas are way better than the ones in California. They are better stocked, better cooled, and have nicer cafeterias.

an-allen 7y ago

Thats because all this thought that Frys was a victim to Amazon is complete bollocks. Every Frys Ive been in since 2010 has been poorly stocked and full of employees who know absolutely nothing about what they are selling... You go into MicroCenter - Every Single Time - Stocked to the teeth with everything you wanted and a bunch of things you didnt even know you wanted - and the folks who work in the store are super nerds, who impress you with the depth of their nerdiness. Worst part is the 30 minute+ line to check out around Christmas.

52-6F-62 7y ago

There’s also Monoprice.

jboy55 7y ago

My last Fry's trip, coincidentally at the Palo Alto store, I was searching for an 2-3ft HDMI extender, female to male. I figured since this was for connecting to a Raspi, I should start there. Plenty of small HDMI cables, but no dice. I happened upon another isle with 100m cables, by the ethernet cables, but a bit of searching saw they were not there. Lets check out the computer area, I see tonnes of options, search through them all, can't find it. break down and ask a guy, after much confusion he hauls be back to the raspi section. i told him I've already looked there. I walk back and see the tv/video section, of course, lots of high-end cables but no extender cable. Ask a guy, do you even have these? He shrugs, asked me if I looked through the computer section, I said yes, and I already looked in components. He started arguing with me that they didn't have ANY HDMI-anything there. "Why would you think they were there?!?!" Finally as I'm walking away, I spot some random sub-section of the tv isle. And around 8 cables there, I look over, there's one that's 5m long, weighs what seems to be 10lbs and cost $30. And I got my 10k steps in.

Stratoscope 7y ago
OMG you are describing my most recent visit to the Palo Alto Fry's. I needed some kind of USB cable, I don't remember exactly what it was. Nothing unusual, maybe an A to C, or an A to B Minor, or whatever. I asked when I walked in and they said "yes, look in aisle Foo". No luck, so I asked there. "Oh, you should check aisle Bar". Nothing there either, but the person in that aisle helpfully directed me to aisle Fizz. No luck there, but the person said "you might try aisle Buzz." And there was yet one more aisle after that. Yes, they had five different aisles with various selections of USB cables, many of them overlapping but a few different ones in each location. In the end, I had no luck finding what I needed - and I'd really hoped to get it on the spot to use for a project that evening. So I walked out a bit disappointed and spent two minutes on Amazon, ordered the exact cable I needed, and had it the next day. But the exercise of walking around the store was worth it!
DataJunkie 7y ago
The Palo Alto location has a very strange organization. I can't even describe what is wrong with it, but nothing is ever where I think it will be.