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Fry’s Electronics shutting down all stores, ending 36 years as a big-box stop for tech enthusiasts - GeekWire
Fry’s Electronics shutting down all stores, ending 36 years as a big-box stop for tech enthusiasts - GeekWire |
Posted: 24 Feb 2021 12:00 AM PST Fry's Electronic's, the big-box chain that was a longtime, one-stop shop for tech enthusiasts, is shutting down after 36 years in business. The company cited "changes in the retail industry and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic." Fry's made the announcement in a statement on its website early Wednesday, where all other content had disappeared. But the writing had been on the wall for at least two years as empty store shelves began to signal that the San Jose, Calif.,-based company was in trouble. Fry's operated 31 stores across nine states, including one in Renton, south of Seattle — the only Washington location. GeekWire visited that store in October 2019 as internet reports began to circulate that the chain may be struggling in the age of Amazon and increased online shopping. The 152,000-square-foot Renton store was a sea of empty shelves at the time, with very few employees — or customers — wandering departments ranging from personal computers to televisions to office furniture. But a spokesman for Fry's told GeekWire back then that Fry's was "gearing up for the holiday season" and that it was planning to restock over the next several weeks with no plans to liquidate or close any stores. Holding an extension cable to power a CPU in a computer he was fixing, customer Jordan Jones told GeekWire in 2019 that Fry's was "the last bastion of hardware shopping." He said then that empty shelves were a scary sign for brick-and-mortar retail in general. "They used to have all these computer boxes stacked," he said, waving his arm from floor to ceiling at scattered boxes on shelves nearby. Founded in 1985 in Sunnyvale, Calif., Fry's had been an electronics institution for decades, once boasting on its website that it catered to the high-tech professional and sold more than 50,000 electronic items in its stores. As rumors of the shut-down began circulating on Twitter Tuesday night, some shoppers shared their appreciation for the chain's adherence to a bizarre "theme" approach to each store's decor. While the Renton store focused on regional history, others had elaborate displays tied to Egyptian history, Atlantis, the Wild West, the Gold Rush and more.
Here is the full statement on the closure from the Fry's website:
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