Fry's is closing!
The ultimate big box tech store, known for outlandish themes has permanently closing its doors last night nationwide.
I have been going to Fry's since the late 80's when I discovered it's Manhattan Beach store. Since then I have shopped at it's Fountain Valley, Roseville, Sacramento, San Jose, Concord, Anaheim, Oxnard, and Woodland Hills stores. I am going to miss wantering thru the stores and salivating at the latest processors, cases, dimms, etc. Oh and the themes were great too. I last went to the Concord store about 8 months ago and it's shelves were bare then. Only 3 other customers in the store at the time. On line retailers and Covid have killed this bit of tech history.

The company, which had 31 stores across nine US states, said in a statement on its website that it "made the difficult decision to shut down its operations and close its business permanently" because of changing consumer shopping habits and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

I feel your pain.
The UK lost its high-street chain (Maplins) a couple of years back due to the impact of some poor stocking decisions and on-line sales. They were very handy when rigging for a gig and found you were one widget short of a full set, thus my box of widgets is now three boxes so I've always got the one I need :-(

btw. That store is a really great bit of whacky exterior design - did other stores have equally eye-catching exteriors?

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Each one was unique. Here are a few of my favorites.

Well poo. I did have one in driving distance. I guess Best Buy is my next best choice if I have to have it now. My brother said that Best Buy is like Amazon’s show room. If you can wait then Amazon is the cheaper option.

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I'm shocked they held on this long. For the last three years their shelves have been somewhat bare. The good stuff got replaced with candy, soda and books.
First pic is the Burbank store.

Used to go to the store in Arlington TX and occasionally Dallas TX. Would go to browse aisles every few weeks.

Like others have said last 3 to 4 years mostly empty shelves just candy and soda. Their prices not too competitive in same time frame even on website.

These ChinaVirus lockdows & Amazon have killed lots of retail stores.

Not too many people are wanting to go to a box store when they can just click and in a few days it's delivered to the house.

Appears BEST BUY is heading the same way as Fry's:
https://mb.ntd.com/best-buy-just-laid-off-5000-workers-and-will-close-more-stores_572406.html

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