The History of Circuit City

How Circuit City went from riches to rags

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_City#

By: Cristian Reinaga Claros, Journalist

It is a electronics retail store that was once the most extensive electronics retail and formally called Circuit City Stores. Inc, but now is the Circuit City Corporation, inc.
Early Years(1949-1976)
In 1949 Samuel Wurtzel, who was on vacation in Richmond, Virginia, saw the start of television in the South and, after returning to his home and moving to Richmond later. He successfully opened the first Circuit City called Wards Company, and by 1959, there were 4 Wards Company stores around Richmond. But after nothing happened in the 1960s, they would first make their stores bigger by putting their store in a warehouse they called “Circuit City Superstore” This store would be the first to introduce a wall filled with TVs and would be the first store that had the name Circuit City this would all happen in North Carolina.
Greatest Years(1977-1997)
It went successful, but it didn’t change its name until 1984, when it changed to Circuit City Stores, inc and entered the New York Stock Exchange 3 years before. It failed to expand to New York City after acquiring 15 stores of the Lafayette radio company, which filed for bankruptcy. However, they were able to expand to Los Angeles in 1985 successfully. Though their famous “Plug” design superstore would be introduced in 1988 and later in 1988, they had an opportunity to buy Best Buy for $30 Million, they declined because they thought they could take over Best Buy’s Origin state Minneapolis and then quickly destroy the rest of Best Buy and in 1989 they introduced there new Slogan “Where Service is state of the art.”
Though 1993 Circuit City created Carmax in September 1993, which they would own until 2003. Though in 1995, Best Buy passed Circuit City as the most giant Electronics Retail Store in the U.S.
Rebrand till death(1998-Present)
After a good year in 1998 and 1999, they dumped their most prominent market, appliances, as they were the 2nd Biggest Retail store for Appliances, only behind Sears in 1999. And they would miss the 2000’s housing market boom, which caused Appliances Sales to nearly double in sales which Circuit City missed. Though with the expansion of the wireless phone market, they would partner with Verizon Wireless in 2004. And their recent investitures in other stuff failed badly because, before their failure, they would invest in things like the TV and other products, which helped their sales. Still, recently their recent investments in the last couple of years have been a mixed bag, and their investment to HDDVD competing with Blu-Ray in the Mid to late 2000s would completely backfire as HDDVD would lose to Blu-Ray in 2008. And in Canada, all their stores were renamed and rebranded to “The Source” 3 years before, in 2005. So, as a last-second way to still survive, they rebranded to “The City” in 2008. Still, it wouldn’t go far as in September of 2008, Circuit City stores, inc would file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Due to this, their stores in Canada that were “The Source” would go to Bell Canada, and all of their retail stores would be in jeopardy of shutting down. However, they needed a bidder to buy the Company before January 16 of 2009, to keep the stores open. Still, no bidder came, and they would have to shut down all their stores by March of 2009 as their Chapter 11 Bankruptcy became Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, and with that, all of these assets would be liquidated.
But in May of 2009. Systemax would buy the Circuit City Brand name. And in 2018, Circuit City would return as an online retailer, and that’s how far it has gone for the time being.

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