Fry's Electronics rumored to permanently close nationwide tonight
The American software and consumer electronics store is closing its doors for good.
UPDATE: February 23, 2021 at 9:27 p.m. PT: KRON4 has confirmed that Fry's Electronics is closing its doors permanently. The report states that the company is expected to post closure details on its site sometime on Wednesday.
Fry’s Electronics has been a staple in the consumer electronics industry for a few decades now, and it would seem that it’s time has come. Some reports are starting to surface claiming that Fry’s Electronics is closing its doors for good as of February 23, 2021.
A Twitter user called Bill Reynolds broke the news late Tuesday night. In their Tweet, Reynolds claims that Fry’s Electronics is closing business nationwide, according to a store employee from Wilsonville, OR. The rumor continues that the website is scheduled to go down at 12:00 a.m. The timezone is currently unknown.
BREAKING Scoop: Fry’s Electronics is closing business nationwide effective tonight. Source: Wilsonville, OR store employee. https://t.co/EXrdflQlu0 website will go down at 12am #Frys #FrysElectronics
— Bill Reynolds (@bill0004) February 24, 2021
This was quickly picked up by Wario64, who followed it up with a link to a Reddit thread by user luluono89. In this Reddit post, the user states that they were called into the office and told that “today was the last day Fry’s is open to the public”.
The Reddit thread is a mixture of people mourning the loss of a store they remember shopping in, users claiming the writing was on the wall, and other users offering condolences for those that will be left without gainful employment.
It’s been a tough year for businesses as the pandemic has swept the nation and the world. With people stuck inside and cutting expenses, it’s been difficult for a lot of companies. The likes of Sega Sammy has sold off a majority of physical arcade and amusement center operations and even gaming events are being cancelled (though some are tentatively still on).
Be sure to keep it locked to Shacknews as we update you about the situation with Fry’s Electronics and whether or not these rumors turn out to be reality.
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replySam Chandler posted a new article, Fry's Electronics rumored to permanently close nationwide tonight
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The general consensus is that Fry’s owned almost all of their stores outright, as in they owned the building and the land. The first stores to outright close were places like the Palo Alto location where they didn’t own the place were paying rent.
As the months stretched on and the stores both didn’t close and didn’t get restocked the theory people had evolved into the idea that they were basically closing down the chain in such a way as to maximize profit on selling their assets. I’m not sure I understand it but I guess the idea is a chain that’s gone completely under has a fire sale on their building and a chain that hasn’t maybe can charge more.
What I want to know is what the hell happened to where they were going under to begin with. Tech is a thriving sector and Fry’s sold tons of things that are being sold happily by its competitors. If the consignment model switch is true then it was likely triggered by a lack of cash flow. Why was that the case? What happened to cause them to suddenly not be able to buy stock anymore? Was it just a general decline in revenue over time that they couldn’t overcome or was there some particular precipitating factor?
Like the armchair pundits of the world figured Amazon put Toys R Us out of business but really TRU was bought up by some investment firm and was essentially sacrificed by theme despite individually being profitable. I’m wondering if there’s some sort of particular shenanigans going on with Fry’s.
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Going to pour one out for Fry's tonight. Had one within walking distance of me as a kid. I'm fairly certain that the store changed a policy on returning games due to my friends and I buying a game copying it and then returning the game. We'd pass the cash on to the next kid and he'd make the next purchase. "This game doesn't work with my PC." Worked great for about a year. At the time I had a hand-me-down 286 with CGA graphics. I would go there and drool over the Amigas and machines with EGA graphics.
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At least we now know the origin of your user name.
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My friend bought 256 MB of RAM or something and then returned his 64 MB to Fry's once.
Then a few days later our math teacher in high school had something to get off his chest about how over the weekend he bought 256 MB of RAM for his computer and then turned out to be 64 MB and Fry's wouldn't take it back.-
That teacher still can’t play Doom to this day.
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Hahahaha
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That’s too bad. I have fond memories of that store.
Although I remember asking a sales rep which set of pc speakers were better. He came over, shook both boxes, and said “this one” as he handed me one of them and walked off.
I also remember returning a likely ESD’d motherboard that fried when I tried to assemble a computer on the carpet as a kid. “It just didn’t work...”-
I better hurry up to buy this Hyundai laptop before they close https://www.frys.com/search?search_type=regular&sqxts=1&isFSK=true&cat=&dSort=true&query_string=10080541+10076861&nearbyStoreName=false
4gb of ram and a Celeron?? Golly.
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Rip
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Honestly I have a lot of great memories from Fry's.
I wonder if the employees were notified or if they found out when everyone else did.-
I imagine it's like management knew but one of them told one guy about it so they won't come in tomorrow and then that person shared it with everyone else as it cascaded.
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I would guess the biggest dividing issue was their online presence. Fry's web experience was awful, whereas Best Buy has a decent web interface and delivery.
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I remember having my mind blown the first time I walked into a Fry's after moving to California. It was geek Nirvana! RIP
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Manhattan Beach location was a staple to visit in the 90s! CompUSA was a goto, but Fry's had some really obscure stuff, and a lot of DIY electronics repair. When I dealt with SCSI, the only real place to buy items for it was Fry's, as no one else had those specific parts. Shame they became a shell of their former self.
Microcenter in Tustin is a bit of a drive, but I won't mind it the next time I need parts. -
On a more practical note I now have no local options for low-level computer components like motherboards, fans, cabling, cases, adapters....Fry's definitely went downhill the last few years, but they were still a good option for that stuff.
Everything is online now.-
Yeah it's just kinda luck for me that a little ways further down 75 is Micro Center in Dallas (well, Richardson I guess)
Honestly they've been a better option than Fry's for years now. I had sentimental reasons for liking Fry's, namely that I had heard these mythical things about them before moving to the DFW Metroplex and the first one I went to, I think, was the cow store in Dallas or whatever and it kinda blew my mind. You could buy games, electronics, computers, fridges and Almond Roca in the same building. I once had a Fry's credit card (store credit thing) and built and paid off a computer that way. In California locations Blizzard would have launch parties there. Games which were scarce at GameStop were available by the pallet load at Fry's.
Maybe it's the inevitable march of progress to everything being online but I have to think there's still a place for retail if for no other reason than places like Best Buy still exist.
Anyways, sad. -
I feel so lucky in Vancouver. We've got multiple online components shops that have brick and mortar locations in the city that are well stocked. There are like 8+ locations within 30 minutes.
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End of an era. Built my first entirely from scratch PC with parts from Fry's. Sad times.
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Bought my first computer from Fry's :(
