Fry's Electronics & Incredible Universe: What Happened?  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: donotdespisethesnake
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2019, 02:41:12 pm
content: tldr; the internet.The "retail chain" was only one way of getting products from factory to user, there are various means of doing that. The "warehouse store" was a clever optimisation, retailers need warehouses anyway, so why not get the customer to the last mile delivery and get them to go to the "warehouse"?But now the internet moves the warehouse back closer to the manufacturer, let couriers do the point to point delivery.

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2019, 04:46:37 pm
content: @donotdespisethesnake, the internet doesn't help if you're a retailer but I think the decline in electronics retail outlets started long before the internet, seems kids just don't have the same interests these days. Hands on craft subjects like woodwork and metalwork might still be taught in schools but they are probably seen as being low paid menial work in a factory so there will be some parental discouragement against anything that could be seen as "manufacturing"If you want sell stuff to practical people who want to build things and do it through a high street retail outlet then good luck.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2019, 07:38:36 pm
content: I had to look away when he was walking down the isles with the camera, as it gave me motion sickness. I'm the only one who gets that when watching videos of people walking with the camera? I can't play some games for that reason.The prices on those LEDs are extortionate. This reminds me of Maplins a year or so before they closed, except the stores weren't so big.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2019, 07:59:17 pm
content: One of the other stores is in Wilsonville, Oregon (~15 miles south of Portland, OR).Same scenario, big grand opening as Incredible Universe, then demise and re-opened as Frys.Frys did OK back with their original business model as a "convenience store" for electronic components in Silicon Valley.But when they tried to become an electronics super-store with branches in non-high-tech areas, it appears to be struggling.It doesn't help that the store in Wilsonville is so far from the urban area (Portland, OR, Vancouver, WA)When I can get next-day pickup from an Amazon locker within walking distance of my home (vs. 30 mile drive through anti-car Oregon traffic from Silicon Forest Hillsboro) I just marvel that they have held on this long.

author: raptor1956
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2019, 12:13:30 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on January 13, 2019, 07:38:36 pmYou are not alone -- I feel your nausea. I fly a drone and shoot video with it, but I find lots of other drone pilots that make videos have no idea that the way they fly can induce motion sickness. For me, watching a drone fly along with the camera pointed down for more than a few seconds and I need to look away or risk pulling a technicolor yawn!Brian

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2019, 02:28:45 am
content: Retail in general is struggling all around the country because its unable to keep up with the prices of online stores like Amazon which gets more than half of the online business in the US. Amazon at its core is a web application so its costs are low compared to brick and mortar stores that have a far more costly set of expenses and more employees they must pay. (Amazon has huge warehouses where much of the work is automated, with complicated stocking tasks done by robots.)They are sending messages loud and clear that deliveries in the future will be automated.Lots of malls are closing down and its not clear what will be done with the huge spaces they once occupied.

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2019, 04:33:53 am
content: I used to buy components at Fry's in Sunnyvale and Palo Alto all the time, and browsing in general was fun just to discover new and interesting products. None of that is needed anymore and I haven't been to either location more than maybe once the last ten years. I'd rather order from Mouser, Digikey, or even Amazon for generic stuff and get exactly what I need or want, than have to drive to a store. To be honest I think the best would be to tear them down and repurpose the land for housing mixed with underground parking, mixed with small storefronts for things like coffee shops, grocery stores, clothing, etc. Housing is at a far greater premium than sprawling big-store shopping. The absolutely easiest way to make a ton of money off of a store like this would be raze it and turn it into 3 or 4 story housing. So it's mainly local governments and their inability to re-zone that's the problem. They're probably stuck in the past in terms of vision for their municipalities.

author: raptor1956
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2019, 04:52:59 am
content: Quote from: cdev on January 14, 2019, 02:28:45 amRetail had an arc that from my early memories in the early 60's went from warehouse like buildings for large retailers and smaller general stores to department stores that were more upscale to Malls and then Gallerias that were the pinnacle of the brick and mortar retail outlets. The move to more upscale stores coincided with the increase in buying power of the middle class and spoke of the more upscale expectations the middle class had. By the late 70's though the middle class were shutout of the gains in productivity they once had and by the early 80's the retail world reached its peak as a lagging indicator. By the mid 80's Malls were in decline and by the early 90's the move back to discount warehouse outlets was in full swing. All of this preceded the internet lets remember.So, as the working class was shutout of the gains in productivity there income expectations began to decline and that decline, lagging the cause by 5+ years, resulted in the working class setting there sights lower for the first time since the Great Depression.By the mid 90's the PC had come of age and the Internet was just then becoming something useful and those two things were the final nail in retails coffin. The smartphone was the hammer that drove the nail in hard.As a child in the early 60's the large retail store we went to, Big Ben if I remember correctly, was a largish warehouse style department store built from a WWII Quonset hut like hangar building and the items were racked much like a Costco is today. Not long after that my mom got a job at the newly opened Montgomery Wards which was typical of the next step with somewhat more upscale facilities. By the late 60's we had our first Mall and by the late 70's the first Galleria. That arc then reversed with the Malls dying a slow death as anchor stores went under and foot traffic slowed and the rise of the big box warehouse style stores like Wal*Mart and Costco grabbing up the working class shoppers while upscale shoppers continued to shop at the boutiques that only they could afford. Interesting that this arc played out within a single lifetime. I should add in case someone thinks I grew up in some backwater that I grew up in NY and within 75 minutes of NYC.Brian