Word: circuitousness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There is no mystery as to why the No. 2 electronics retailer in the U.S., Circuit City, filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 10. You could blame it on the bad economy or decreased consumer spending - which played no small role - but the real culprit is good old-fashioned bad management...
...Circuit City was incredibly successful in the 1980s and 1990s, but they never changed after that," says David Schick, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. If it had adapted, it might have ended up like its chief rival, Best Buy, which in August reported both increased sales and a quarterly profit of $200 million. Instead, Circuit City reported a loss of $239 million in late September...
...Circuit City became complacent - a fatal mistake in the fiercely competitive and fast-evolving retail-electronics industry. The problems began a decade ago, when Circuit City failed to secure prime real estate - its out-of-the-way locations were often just inconvenient enough to tempt customers to head to other retailers, like Wal-Mart. Then Circuit City stopped selling appliances. It didn't move as aggressively into gaming as it should have. And it missed out on big in-store promotions with thriving companies like Apple Computer. That created an opening for Best Buy, now the top electronics chain...
...about 700 outlets), was basic inventory management. "They had been unable to move their inventory," says Helen Bulwik of New Market Solutions, a retail consultancy in Oakland, Calif. That backlog left the company paralyzed, unable to buy fresh product or pay off its existing debts. Circuit City still owes $118 million to Hewlett-Packard, its largest vendor, plus $116 million to Samsung and $60 million Sony...
...many consumers, however, Circuit City's most obvious failing was its customer service. In March 2007, it announced plans to lay off its highest-paid hourly employees, including salespeople, and replace them with cheaper workers. That same year, then CEO Philip Schoonover received some $7 million in compensation. It may come as no surprise, then, that a quick Web search on "Circuit City complaints" brings up hundreds of thousands of entries...