When my local Fry’s store opened parking was a challenge despite the large size of the parking lot. They had 20 check out windows and that wasn’t enough. You had to wait in line for fifteen minutes or more to get to a check out window.
To make the store even more fun the store was decorated in an Alice in Wonderland motif.
The store was the place to go to buy a PC computer. That was about the time the Windows operating system was implemented. Thousands of us wanted that new system. Fry’s offered a wide variety of units and the components to build your own computer.
In addition to computers there were printers, software, and a variety of other electronic components. Weather stations, electronic test equipment of every kind lined the aisles.
They added televisions, sound equipment and cameras in the hope of remaining relevant. However their prices were not particularly low and so there was no motivation to visit the store.
But time has passed and today the novelty has worn off. Computers have become as prolific as televisions. Low cost laptop computers and small portables called tablets are no novelty. In other words these units are just viewed as commodities. Software in many cases is now sent to our computers via the internet.
I have not been in that store in the past two years. Many others weren’t going either.
Like Sears and Montgomery Ward what they had to offer just was not what the public wanted. I am sure the Fry family became wealthy and will go on to other endeavors.
And that’s life.