http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/WalMartEffectStrikesAgain.aspx
Now, it is becoming apparent that Wal-Mart's calculated decision to break the $1,000 barrier for flat-panel TVs triggered a disastrous financial meltdown among some consumer-electronics retailers over the past four months.
The fallout is evident: After closing 70 stores in February, Circuit City Stores (CC, news, msgs) on March 28 laid off 3,400 employees and put its 800 Canadian stores on the block. Tweeter Home Entertainment Group (TWTR, news, msgs), a high-end home entertainment store, is shuttering 49 of its 153 stores and dismissed 650 workers. CompUSA is closing 126 of its 229 stores, and regional retailer Rex Stores (RSC, news, msgs) is boarding up dozens of outlets, as well as selling 94 of its 211 stores.
http://tech.msn.com/products/articlecnet.aspx?cp-documentid=4768046>1=9332
Indeed, the prices of flat-panel TVs dropped dramatically last year, between 38 percent and 75 percent in a range of screen sizes, according to DisplaySearch. The rapid drop in prices alarmed many in the high-end TV business. Last fall, the price war among brands was like a "gunfight at the O.K. Corral," said Dave Workman of the marketing and merchandising firm PRO Group.
"What happened last fall was someone sent the sheriff on vacation, passed out pistols to everyone and said, 'Go have a blast,'" he said. "Retailers are often undisciplined when left to their own devices," he added, and major manufacturers such as Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, LG and Sharp were not strict enough with their minimum price requirements as they joined in on the discount binge.
Though unit sales of television are actually up due largely to the great deals, some brick-and-mortar retailers are hurting. Many of them are operating on, as Ross Young of DisplaySearch put it, "margins thinner than Nicole Ritchie."
Those low margins are wearing on national consumer electronics sellers such as Circuit City, CompUSA and Best Buy. Circuit City announced last month it would be closing 70 of its North American stores and would restructure the company due to price-margin pressure in the flat-panel television market in the third quarter. CompUSA is taking even more dramatic steps, announcing last week it would shutter half of its stores in the next two or three months.
Best Buy has weathered the storm better than most, said Matthew Fassler, managing director of Goldman Sachs. The nation's largest electronics retailer actually raised its operating margins to 5.6 percent in 2006 from 5.3 percent the previous year by pushing hard with a high-end specialty home theater section called Magnolia, Fassler said. (Circuit City's operating margin, by comparison, dropped from 1.9 percent to 1.2 percent.)
But other specialty home theater retailers aren't having quite as easy a time of it. At Ken Crane's, the January average selling prices were "the lowest in years," Colky said. Unit sales are way up, but executives at the retailer worry they're carrying too many brands, he said. "I'd rather have two Samsungs and two Sonys" than a variety of no-names because of the promise of a better return on shelf-space, he said.
That's not to say the Sonys and Panasonics of the world are getting shoved aside. Amazon reports that the top sellers are still the premium brands, and not, in fact, Vizio. Of the more than 1,000 television sets it offers for sale, Amazon's top sellers Tuesday were, in descending order, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony and Mitsubishi.
As much as I hate Wal-Mart, I hate big box electronic retailers even MORE. Good riddance.the lesser of two evils is still less evil.
the lesser of two evils is still less evil.
Eh, this is actually kinda bad for the tech industry as a whole. The bigger picture is that these out of nowhere off-brand manufacturers are working for short-term gains without focusing on actually controlling the progress of the market/technology. With Wal-Marts obvious help in this area the manufacturers that are RESPONSIBLE for SUSTAINING the industry are suffering, as is HEALTHY Competition against Wal-Mart which is the closest thing to a Monopoly in the United States these days.
They're pretty backwards, and your comment reinforces my comment about the narrow selection. My mom lives in a town in Western Wa with an economy that Wal-Mart has utterly destroyed by building right at the enterance to town. Aberdeen WA is a tourist stop-off, and since Wal-Mart is stopping tourists right at the entrance, taking their money, and sending them on their way, all of the smaller business are DEAD. The mall in town was also crushed by Wal-Mart.
Now my mom complains that she can never find anything interesting to buy, that its all 'wal-mart stuff'. UNFORTUNATELY the Wal-Mart probably employs half of the town.
They're pretty backwards, and your comment reinforces my comment about the narrow selection. My mom lives in a town in Western Wa with an economy that Wal-Mart has utterly destroyed by building right at the enterance to town. Aberdeen WA is a tourist stop-off, and since Wal-Mart is stopping tourists right at the entrance, taking their money, and sending them on their way, all of the smaller business are DEAD. The mall in town was also crushed by Wal-Mart.
Now my mom complains that she can never find anything interesting to buy, that its all 'wal-mart stuff'. UNFORTUNATELY the Wal-Mart probably employs half of the town.
God fucking DAMN. They must be stopped!
With a machine gun and our firsts?
I feel sorry for the electronic retailers. The way Wal-Mart is monopolizing commercial america sector by sector is honestly a little scary because when you get down to it the types of products offered within a particular spectrum is actually pretttty narrow. This is of course good for technology, but bad for america's businesses.
They're pretty backwards, and your comment reinforces my comment about the narrow selection. My mom lives in a town in Western Wa with an economy that Wal-Mart has utterly destroyed by building right at the enterance to town. Aberdeen WA is a tourist stop-off, and since Wal-Mart is stopping tourists right at the entrance, taking their money, and sending them on their way, all of the smaller business are DEAD. The mall in town was also crushed by Wal-Mart.
Now my mom complains that she can never find anything interesting to buy, that its all 'wal-mart stuff'. UNFORTUNATELY the Wal-Mart probably employs half of the town.
wtf is Video Only?
wtf is Video Only?
Local (I think, at least) chain that deals exclusively in televisions and other video devices. They've been around for a long time and advertise a lot on the radio. They have GREAT prices.
Whats horrible is as more stores move out of that mall the higher the rent gets for stores that stay. I think Sears is still around cause of all the old people still in Aberdeen.
Now when I visit my mom in aberdeen I just bring a bunch of dvds and stuff cause there's jack shit to do in aberdeen. Of course the capitalist in me still appreciates the town finally getting a starbucks ;)
:-\ The best place to buy a tv is a place like "Video Only," it's cheaper too.
3 Dollar Crates of Scotch isn't good Scotch.RAINING CATS AND BALLS
What you get at Wal-Mart for cheap isnt QUALITY which is why you end up buying replacements at Wal-Mart.
http://movies.eyebum.com/parts.php?id=543I would care more if people didn't try to make a career out of working at Wal-Mart. In my eyes that's the equivalent of working a 40 hour for the rest of your life at McDonald's.
That's the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices and it will disturb you. I know they paid their employees scraps but they actually told their employees that couldn't afford healthcare to go on welfare, use the government to provide your healthcare from a company in a supposedly capitalist country is one of the most horrible things I have heard in my life. They make a pipeline for china, they don't have to make their own markets, maybe they gave a little incentive to the government to have imports from china have a %2.5 tax and exports to china have a %25 tax? They also severely under-staff their stores. I've heard of this in other big businesses about hating unions of course but I've never heard of having special teams that set up a bunch of security cameras and wait in the parking lot in a van when there's a rumor of having a union in a store, that's a bit new to my mind. There's a lot I didn't remember but I highly recommend watching the documentary.