A few days ago I had emailed my friend who works in the U.S. about the effect of the whole recession, economic slow-down thing in the states. He mentioned about the value of his home going down, car dealers getting hit by dip in sales, electronic retailers getting hit bigtime etc.
On a personal level, he said he is avoiding buying new gadgets (he is a gadget freak), has
decided to postpone changing his car & instead is sticking to his few years old Honda Odyssey van etc.
But it was only when I read in yesterday's newspaper about CircuitCity filing for bankruptcy that the seriousness of it all hit me. CircuitCity and BestBuy were my 2 favourite stores for shopping anything electronic, while in the U.S.. I liked the reasonable prices, the store display/arrangement, the big spacious stores, the huge parking lot, the shopping experience
etc that these two offered.
So, knowing that one of these stores is going down makes me feel bad, even though I don't
own any stake in it or know anybody who works for them. To me, they seemed to be doing everything right - atleast from a customer's POV. Maybe the relentless price-war with other retailers killed their margins or maybe it was the ridiculous pay/bonus/stock-options of the
top executives that bled them.
It is stores like these (and others like WalMart, Target, ToysRUs etc) that make shopping
such a pleasurable experience in the U.S., unlike the irritating experience it is in India. One
of my long-time dreams is to take my wife to the US and let her experience this amazing shopping experience. I think it would take her atleast one full week to just go around a
"Super WalMart" and check out all the stuff in the store. I am sure though that she would
love the experience.
I hope CircuitCity is able to make a turnaround soon and are back to what they do well -
not just selling a wide range of electronic goods, but making shopping pleasurable.
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