The Digital Home

Wal-Mart is preparing to offer in-home tech support to its customers, according to Reuters.

The retail giant will partner with product-support firm N.E.W. Customer Service Companies, the report said. By the holiday-shopping season, all U.S. Wal-Mart stores plan to offer customers the opportunity to use N.E.W.'s service in their homes. Reuters said the service already kicked off this month in specified locations.

Wal-Mart will give shoppers the option of buying service plans "on a prepaid card, ranging from $99 to $339," Reuters said. The service plans will provide "basic television installation on the low end" to more advanced services like home-network or home-theater installation. Reuters said the plans include a "preliminary consultation and a tutorial after installation is completed."

The decision to bring on a Geek Squad-like service seems to underlie Wal-Mart's desire to become a major player in the electronics business. It may also solidify its position as Best Buy's most dangerous brick-and-mortar competitor since the death of Circuit City and its FireDog in-home service.

It wasn't long ago that I used these pages to write Circuit City's eulogy. At the time, many of us thought the company would be gone forever. Oh, how wrong we were.

Last week, Circuit City came back to the Web. On May 19, Systemax, the company behind TigerDirect and CompUSA, purchased the Circuit City brand and Web site for $14 million. It took only a few days for Systemax to populate the site with products. And now it's live.

Systemax's decision to acquire Circuit City shouldn't be a surprise. In 2008, the company acquired CompUSA's brand and domain for a discounted price. Systemax then relaunched CompUSA.com. Today, it even operates a series of CompUSA brick-and-mortar stores.

There's currently no indication that Systemax will be opening Circuit City-branded brick-and-mortar stores. Right now, it seems that the company is focusing mainly on CircuitCity.com.

I've spent considerable time on the site, evaluating its design and comparing offers to see if it's a place worth spending cash. And after just a few seconds, it quickly became clear that it's basically just CompUSA.com (or TigerDirect.com) with a different name and logo.

I like the idea of in-store pickup that Best Buy and other retailers offer. When you're in a hurry to get a product that's available at a retail location near you, you can go online, buy the product just as you normally would, if it was getting shipped to you, but opt instead to pick it up at your local retail outlet.

You don't typically save money over retail, but you do ideally get the product in your hands right away. You don't have to deal with looking for it at the store or standing in the register lines, since you've paid online already. Plus, you guarantee that when you get to the store, the item will be there for you, not sold out. In theory, at least.

In practice, it's a disaster. I've used in-store pickup at Best Buy more than once, and it hasn't worked. The first time, the site said my item (a camera) was available for in-store pickup, so I paid online, selected the in-store pickup option, and ran down to the store a couple hours later.

I went to the pick-up counter, explained why I was there, and waited a good 10 minutes before the representative came back and told me that the store had no record of me purchasing that product with in-store pickup.

A few weeks later, I purchased a product online for in-store pickup, and when I got to the store, it had a record of my purchase but couldn't find the item. One last time (in the name of research), I did everything the way it should be done through the site, only to find that it was sold out when I got to the store.

Explaining my issue and the fact that the Best Buy Web site told me the device was in-stock and that I had already bought it, I was told to come back in "a couple of days," and they should have one for me.

I'm not alone.

Earlier this week, I discussed how utterly appalled I was at the (lack of) value a local Circuit City store offered me in my area during its "liquidation" sale. But that's not the whole story.

Right across the street from that Circuit City is a Best Buy. For years, I have gone back and forth to get the best price out of both stores. More often than not, it was Best Buy that would earn my business, thanks to its salespeoples' greater willingness to match the best prices of any competitor in the area.

Competition breeds results. I liked that CIrcuit City was across the street from Best Buy because it kept both stores' managers on their toes and more willing to do whatever they could to keep me in the store and ensure that they earned my business.

But now, that competition is gone. I'm starting to worry that Best Buy may not be as willing to match pricing any longer. I'm starting to worry that Best Buy will get complacent and stop doing everything it can to earn my business. Most importantly, I'm starting to worry that Best Buy won't be able to compete on any level with the Web.

It's a sad state of affairs at Circuit City.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

I remember when "liquidation" meant something. There was a small electronics store in my area that was closing down a few years back. Signs all over read "Liquidation Sale." In the store, I found prices slashed considerably. Some good stuff was 75 percent off. It was a fire sale, and it was fantastic. That was a going-out-of-business sale done right. What Circuit City is doing now, though, I don't get.

The company is shutting down, as we all know. But I was still shocked when I went into Circuit City this past weekend and found a store that was a shadow of its former self. The signature red shirts on employees were ditched in favor of jeans and sweatshirts; DVD sales racks that were once barely browsed were overrun by customers who couldn't help but dive in to the store's 50 percent off DVD sale. But the real bargains that Circuit City claimed we all would love weren't so sexy after all.

I need a new HDTV. Usually, I buy my HDTVs from Amazon.com because I've found it has the best prices and delivery service. But since I knew Circuit City was going out of business, I decided to make a trek down there to see if there were any hidden gems at a good price. Signs said the TVs were 30 percent off, and when I looked around, I realized the inventory wasn't picked over, as I had feared. There were some nice Sony LCDs on the shelves, as well as Panasonic plasmas.

I was drawn to the Panasonic TH-58pz800u, which was on sale for approximately $2,600 at the store. I own the 50-inch model of that plasma and couldn't be more pleased with its quality. So when I saw it offered at such a discount, the wheels started turning and I was thinking about how I was going to be able to fit it into the back of my SUV.

So long, Circuit City.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Circuit City, the world's second-largest electronics retailer announced on Friday that it has been forced into liquidation after attempts to sell itself to a third-party failed.

Circuit City's liquidation is sad, but it shouldn't come as a surprise. The company has been facing serious financial issues for the past few years and was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after filing for bankruptcy and witnessing its stock price plummet to near worthlessness. Moreover, the economic crisis had a severe impact on Circuit City, and fewer creditors were willing to offer the company attractive rates as it tried to purchase goods for sale.

But it wasn't always like this for Circuit City. The company once enjoyed great success, and it can trace its roots all the way back to 1949.

Why is it so hard for everyone discussing Circuit City's Chapter 11 filing and New York Stock Exchange stock suspension to tell the world what really happened with this company?

No, Circuit City isn't dying because of the credit crunch, and there's no way we can blame its demise on the preferential treatment competitors like Best Buy are receiving. And we certainly can't blame it on the online-retail industry.

For some reason, every story I see written about the topic gives the company line--Circuit City is forced to file for Chapter 11 protection because of the "tight credit market"--and yet no one tells it like it really is: Circuit City is dying today, and will be a mere memory in just a few short months, because the company's executives ran the business into the ground.

Some believe that with the online onslaught being what it is, there's really only room for one major electronics retailer in the brick-and-mortar space. Anyone who believes that has no grip on reality.

There is room for multiple big-box electronics retailers. If Circuit City executives established a business model that competed with Best Buy's instead of trying to copy it, none of this would have ever happened, and we would be wondering which retailer will have the better holiday shopping season.

Instead, we're digging Circuit City's hole.

When Circuit City announced on Monday that it was closing 155 stores amid financial trouble, it didn't surprise me at all. If you've been following this page over the past year and a half, you know that I've been saying since the beginning that Circuit City doesn't have the chops to stick around and compete with Best Buy.

(Credit: Circuit City)

And although yesterday's announcement was probably a shock to some at the company, it shouldn't have been. For the past few years, Circuit City has been the victim of one of the steepest declines this industry has ever seen.

Right now, the stock is in danger of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, thanks to a share price that can't make its way above the $1 mark. In fact, even after announcing the closure of 155 stores, the company's shares rose only 10 cents in daytime trading, bringing its stock price to 36 cents per share.

We can't forget, upon analyzing Circuit City, that this isn't the end of store closures, nor the beginning of financial success. The company is now going to engage landlords in negotiations to "aggressively" reduce rental rates in stores nationwide.

Once that initiative fails--and it will--Circuit City will have no other option but to close even more stores as it tries to find the right balance between size and financial stability.

Circuit City may have to close 150 of its stores. But as I point out in my latest show, the company is out of options and it's time it sells to the highest bidder or face destruction.

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