As most everyone already knows, Circuit City is shutting down. All the stores will be liquidated and I’m guessing that by March, they will just be empty buildings. This closing isn’t really that surprising considering that Circuit City shut down a bunch of stores a few months ago. The fact that the two in Madison remained opened said a lot. I rarely saw anyone in those stores and they were deemed more profitable than the ones they ended up closing.
A few weeks ago I saw the headline in The Onion about Radioshack being unsure why they are still in business (“Even CEO Can’t Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business“). I’m not sure what, if any, the effect of Circuit City has on Radio Shack. I’m sure Best Buy is happy and Radioshack is still somehow surviving.
More than anything else, I wonder about The 40 Year Old Virgin. That movie took place in SmartTech, a fictionalized version of Circuit City. I really can’t think of any other store, Big Box or otherwise, that has/had the layout that Circuit City does/did. I wonder if in 5 or 10 years, people will be confused about SmartTech in The 40 Year Old Virgin. Will they wonder why there aren’t any cash registers located in the front? Why is that woman checking out in the middle of the store? I think The 40 Year Old Virgin might be the biggest victim in this closing.
I think you’ve still got that.
Examples: Apple Stores (albeit, with no registers at all) and Sears (which has registers near the exits, but you’ll find them buried as well, which leads one to question whether they even worry about shoplifting, as you don’t often see pillars near the exits).
I guess I was thinking Big Box stores, but Sears is a good example.
15+ minutes waiting at the Apple Store in West Towne … Honestly, I’ll be happy when 25% of the checkouts are self-service, and near the exit. (In all stores, in general, that is.)
Your headline should be “its” without the apostrophe. Your word nerd friend, *PZ
Speaking of which, this brings out a great example of a hack that I needed to do for WordPress (if I remember correctly); there’s no meta description for this page.