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Not mentioned in the post: Fry's web presence has always been terrible. Absolutely, hopelessly, utterly terrible. A lot of people in this thread have brought up

Not mentioned in the post: Fry's web presence has always been terrible. Absolutely, hopelessly, utterly terrible. A lot of people in this thread have brought up MicroCenter as a strong counter-example--I'd also throw Best Buy into that mix. Different product line at Best Buy; but, if you look at the web presence, these companies are doing great with Buy-Online-Pickup-In-Store. I often use Best Buy for items that I can't (or just don't want to) wait for even the 2-day shipping from Amazon. I cannot recall a single time that I was able to find what I was looking for on the Fry's website--including many times I was able to walk into the store and find an item sitting on the shelf. That was even 10-15 years ago and it never improved. There are a whole lot of reasons that Fry's is on its death-bed; their clear lack of commitment to a strong web presence to drive instant-gratification shopping is an important lesson for other brick-and-mortar retailers.

patbaker82 7y ago
Frys purchased outpost.com which was based on 90s tech. I believe their ordering system was called MACS. They never maintained the site.
- bcrescimanno 7y ago
  Yep--I remember that, for a very long time, trying to go to Frys.com would simply redirect you Outpost.com. Even when they changed that, it went on for several more years that if you went to frys.com you would find yourself on the Outpost.com site with the logo replaced with a Fry's logo. The online selection was useless. It had little to no understanding of local store inventory. But the worst part was that the search function just fundamentally didn't work. You could type the exact model of a part into the search and it would give you random, unrelated things and not give you the part itself.
  - kn0where 7y ago
    The Frys.com search is still terrible.
mmgutz 7y ago
This! They needed better integration with their B&M store. I couldn't buy things online from their weekend ads. I used Fry's exclusively for building custom PCs since returning a failed motherboard and/or components was a drive away instead of days away with Newegg/Amazon. They had much better selection than Best Buy. Best Buy survived by adjusting to users habits, that is browsing in-store then buying on Amazon. Best Buy site isn't great but useable.

patbaker82 7y ago

Frys purchased outpost.com which was based on 90s tech. I believe their ordering system was called MACS. They never maintained the site.

bcrescimanno 7y ago
Yep--I remember that, for a very long time, trying to go to Frys.com would simply redirect you Outpost.com. Even when they changed that, it went on for several more years that if you went to frys.com you would find yourself on the Outpost.com site with the logo replaced with a Fry's logo. The online selection was useless. It had little to no understanding of local store inventory. But the worst part was that the search function just fundamentally didn't work. You could type the exact model of a part into the search and it would give you random, unrelated things and not give you the part itself.
- kn0where 7y ago
  The Frys.com search is still terrible.

mmgutz 7y ago

This! They needed better integration with their B&M store. I couldn't buy things online from their weekend ads. I used Fry's exclusively for building custom PCs since returning a failed motherboard and/or components was a drive away instead of days away with Newegg/Amazon. They had much better selection than Best Buy. Best Buy survived by adjusting to users habits, that is browsing in-store then buying on Amazon. Best Buy site isn't great but useable.