Circuit City Bankruptcy Likely In ’09: Analyst

i disagree with the top post - firing the top earners was basically retail suicide. they should have fired the BOTTOM earners, then given the top earners even more incentives to excell and sales would have increased.

Circuit city has many positive aspects like branding, locations, and their website. I do believe it was a good decision to layoff their commissioned sales people that made over $40,000 per year because expenses had to be controlled and streamlined to better compete against Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Costco , Sears, etc. Here''s the problem. They replaced a good part of their workforce with lower paid workers with no experience and knowledge. This plan takes time to implement because Circuit City did not have a well thought process for training these new associates. They did have a few bullet points and quizzes that they would give the associates every now and then but the real burden of closing sales laid heavily on the managers and lead associates (associates making under $40,000 that weren''t fired). Accessory sales dropped, Extended Service Policies dropped (cheese for you Circuit City insiders), and selling better models droppped. Circuit City should have instead partnered with local companies to create a mutually beneficial partnership of outsourcing their sales and installation department. Their are key points to this plan that I came up with when I worked for the company as a commisssioned sales person from 1995-1999. And later refined my plan from my experience in owning my own custom installation company from 2000-present. But my personal opinion is that Circuit City tried too hard to mimic Best Buy rather than creating a new entirely different alternative to them with a more complete offering.

CC ruined their own company by firing all of their high paid in store employees. The board agreed with the past CEO to fire them, in return the company would hire 16 year olds to advise consumers on thir buying decisions. Needless to say I had the pleasure of working with them twice while making a purchase. First time the youngster didn''t know he even carried a product I found on their site for in store pick up. On my last visit he couldn''t tell me the difference between a V series Bravia and a S series.