Good Guys are no more....

[polkatese]

Time to go shopping!

EDIT: CompUSA the parent company has finally gave up on the chain, and will fold the line as part of CompUSA stores.

Dragon, there are several in SD county, I wonder if those Parasound Halo would be 60% off. Time to check 'em out.

[Burnzy]

Heard that on the radio this morning. There's a GG just down the road. I'll have to watch for some "Going Out Of Business" sales...

:)

[Burnzy]

Bad news... :(

Good Guys - Closing Locations without Special Sales

Several Good Guys locations will close immediately and will not have Special Sales.

I just tried calling the Valencia store and there was no answer...

[Danny Tse]

I guess I saw the "writing on the walls" when I noticed clearance tags all over the place at my local Good Guys.

With Good Guys out of the picture (pardon the pun), I guess high performance audio/video has pretty much disappeared out of the mass market retailers....unless you have a Magnolia Hi Fi in side your local Best Buy.

[Burnzy]

I guess I saw the "writing on the walls" when I noticed clearance tags all over the place at my local Good Guys.

With Good Guys out of the picture (pardon the pun), I guess high performance audio/video has pretty much disappeared out of the mass market retailers....unless you have a Magnolia Hi Fi in side your local Best Buy.

I don't know if that will happen. From the good Guys website it says...

"All California & Hawaii CompUSA locations will expand their selections to include and feature premium home entertainment. Good Guys customers can continue to receive the best in quality products and services they know and trust through CompUSA."

So I think what they are doing is just moving their inventory to expand the CompUSA stores. Especially if some of the GG stores closed w/o any sales, they have to do something w/that inventory.

[polkatese]

I was in GG at McCarthy, Milpitas, a couple months ago. They were in the middle of renovating the whole store. It's a shame, I bought my first Polk from them 12 years ago.

Several of the stores other than the 11 shut-downs immediately, will have special sales. I might actually going to check out the one in Montclair. Let it be HALO on clearance....:)

[Burnzy]

Same here. A few years back the wife and I where looking to upgrade the home stereo. After checking out BB, CC we went to GG and bought a Denon and the Polk RMS1600 series w/the free Polk sub and free RT10 bookshelf speakers.

[heiney9]

I don't know if that will happen. From the good Guys website it says...

"All California & Hawaii CompUSA locations will expand their selections to include and feature premium home entertainment. Good Guys customers can continue to receive the best in quality products and services they know and trust through CompUSA."

So I think what they are doing is just moving their inventory to expand the CompUSA stores. Especially if some of the GG stores closed w/o any sales, they have to do something w/that inventory.

Damn....the CompUSA here in town just closed I think.

H9

EDIT: Nope I'm mistaken.....I was thinking of the Jewelry store next to it that just closed. I have a friend who's a jewelery designer and he mentioned it as we were passing by the other day.

[dragon1952]

Time to go shopping!

EDIT: CompUSA the parent company has finally gave up on the chain, and will fold the line as part of CompUSA stores.

Dragon, there are several in SD county, I wonder if those Parasound Halo would be 60% off. Time to check 'em out.

It doesn't suprise me that they're folding. The times I've been there recently there were very few customers and I still couldn't get a salespersons attention. They used to have a really nice audio section but that went downhill bigtime. It seems like all they were trying to sell is TV's. I'll have to visit again. Thanks for the heads-up ;)

[MacLeod]

Tweeter is still around to carry the high end torch.

We have one here in town and they seem to be doing pretty well. They have the high end but also carry a good selection of entry level gear.

[Toxis]

I was just in a CompUSA about two months ago and they no longer do the home theater thing. A few TV's, but no audio what-so-ever. We don't have GG's here but thought I'd throw that out there.

[brettw22]

To think that people are going to walk into a CompUSA to buy HT equipment is laughable.....

[aaharvel]

it's a sad day when the nicest speakers at Best Buy are Klipsch and the nicest speakers at Circuit City are Polk MONITORS.

it's almost as if they WANT us to shop online from now on...

yeah, Tweeter's ok. Their sales staff aren't too friendly however, especially if you know what you're doing.

[Danny Tse]

Here in the Bay Area, Good Guys still carry some pretty good stuff....Energy, Mirage, Monitor Audio, Parasound, Klipsch, Pioneer Elite, Sony ES, Denon, etc. But I think the overwhelming emphasis is on video....plasma this, LCD that. Audio takes a backseat to everything else in the store, even the iPod.

If CompUSA can build something like a Magnolia HiFi, which carries Denon to Martin Logan and Definitive Technology, then it should be OK. Otherwise, I am hearing to the independent stereo stores.

[polkatese]

Update:

I visited GG in Montclair, CA. Here is the deal:

all DVDs 20% off, average price: $8.99 + tax
Audio Gears incl. speakers, Plasma, etc. 10% off - there are several Parasound Halo, open box 15% off MSRP
all Cell phones accessories, AC adapter, car adapters, Bluetooth headsets, clips, etc. 30% off
Car Audio, parts, etc. 10%-20%
high-end Furniture stands 10-20% off, limited to no stock, so mostly open box (which means hauling them home is an effort, no home delivery available)

All sales are final (receipts got stamped "void" immediately as you exited the store), no exchanges either (I supposed can be done through manufacturers if defective)

All stores will stay open for 60 days from yesterday, most audio gears will be on discount schedules: 10% first month, 20% - 40% off second month (if any good stocks left and open boxes), liquidators bidding after that

I walk out with a couple DVD and car charger for my Nokia.

This whole exercise reminds me of the demise of Rogers Sound Lab (RSL) and Federated (electronics) chains, in the late 80s ('89 I think). I snatched my Adcom 535 for 40% off at that time. Are we on some kind of cycle in this industry??

[heiney9]

Yes we are in a cycle....a very scary cycle of high-end audio disappearing into the cracks. It's back to have special pass-words and secret meetings to find the good stuff. Then when you do the sky's the limit on the cost of such items....OK maybe I'm being dramatic, but it is happening our circle is getting smaller & smaller. Even Polk, not speaker specialists anymore now they are Innovators. As much as people want to deny it Polk's focus is shifting and just keep adding on the years and they will be farther away from being THE speaker company. I understand it's about survival and that a compromise is being met, but no one will convince me they will ever produce a speaker as good as the SDA series again. The market won't allow it.

[MacLeod]

I disagree. I think more and more people are getting into audio due to there are more options for cheap like HTiaB systems. These are the people that would be listening to tv speakers forever but due to the fact they can get a home theater setup for $200 they get that instead.

I think people see more and more people getting the cheap stuff and think its the high end guys going cheap. I maintain its the people that never cared about audio and would never buy a set of Monitor 40's much less a set of SDA's. I think there are just as many high end enthusiast out there as ever. If there werent there wouldnt be speakers costing $100,000 and brands like Focal, Krell and others wouldnt exist.

[polkatese]

Both of you have good arguments going in, high-end B&M mortars have always been there. The big-box stores are the one failing, mainly because of poor planning and unreasonable expectations of the market segmentation it tries to cater. Online internet stores are definitely change the paradigm on how audiophiles would spend their money too. GG was in the middle of renovations of their stores when the hammer falls. A major waste of money? yes, but if the ROI doesn't look promising, they would pull the plug in a heartbeat. What sad is, GG has been in the red for at least 48 quarters +, and that's why CompUSA bought them out, in the first place. I supposed they look into options and realize that the only option left is to shut it down, to stop the bleeding. CompUSA is not doing well either.

Now, if I am Bill Gates or Larry Elison (with plenty of play money to burn), I would buy GG, and turn it into a very niche specialty boutique high-end stores with limited store coverage, low profit expectation, high customer service, quality over quantity, cater to membership-only audio geeks....hmmm..sorta Nordstorm of audio with even less profit-drive, but salespeople have to be willing to travel to clients (not customers) house for on-site training (for free).

Ok, I stop. Time to face reality...

[cheddar]

and, of course, there's the boom in custom installers...

Used to be just run the electrical conduit and put up the drywall. With the current housing boom, remodels and new construction are going up all over the place with the custom installer coming in with his cables and high-end components for rich people with money to burn but who don't know the first thing about quality products themselves...

[polkatese]

A good article LA Times this morning:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...ck=1&cset=true

A good summary paragraph to the "why" question:

"To say that this is the end of specialty audio-video retailing as we know it may be overreaching," Smith said. Unfortunately for Good Guys, he added, "they weren't big enough and they weren't small enough."

[Burnzy]

rats...need a user name to log in to read the article... :(

[polkatese]

rats...need a user name to log in to read the article... :(

here it is, the full article:

Changing Consumer Habits Spurred Demise of Good Guys
As shoppers migrated to electronics superstores, the audio-video retailer wasn't able to keep up.


By James F. Peltz, Times Staff Writer


Struggling to keep pace with the fast-changing market for consumer electronics, Good Guys Inc. found it wasn't quite good enough.

The retailer, which specialized in higher-end televisions, home audio systems and other cutting-edge electronics gear, catered to savvy technophiles while providing trained store personnel to educate less sophisticated customers.
But as a regional chain serving a narrow audience, Good Guys couldn't survive the mass market's migration to electronics superstores such as Best Buy Co. and Circuit City Stores Inc. and to discount retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. And Good Guys' emphasis on bulky, high-priced sound systems was out of step with young consumers more apt to enjoy music with the aid of computers and hand-held players such as the iPod from Apple Computer Inc., analysts said.

CompUSA Inc., which acquired Good Guys in 2003, closed 11 of the chain's 46 stores this week and said it would shutter all but one of the remaining stores — almost all of which are in California — in two months. One store in Santa Clara, Calif., is being converted to a CompUSA.

There is "a decline in the need for free-standing stores that only sell high-end home entertainment products," said spokeswoman Katie Means of CompUSA, which also has shut down sales on Good Guys' website.

CompUSA, which is controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, said it would move much of Good Guys' inventory into 38 of its CompUSA stores in California and Hawaii, further expanding its product line beyond computer equipment.

Good Guys' passing marks the end of a longtime California retailer. The chain was started by entrepreneur Ronald Unkefer, whose first store in San Francisco bore the sign "The Good Guys." The Alameda-based company expanded rapidly, going public in 1986 and opening its first Los Angeles store in 1990.

In Good Guys' fiscal year ended Feb. 28, 2003 — its last year as a public company — the chain was operating 71 stores and earned $1.1 million on sales of $750 million.

But the profit was an anomaly. Before that, Good Guys had lost money for six straight years, and Dallas-based CompUSA was able to acquire the chain for $55 million — the equivalent of 7% of Good Guys' annual sales.

Because CompUSA is privately held, it declined to provide more recent financial details for Good Guys or say how many employees might be laid off with the latest closures. But Good Guys' performance "confirmed our belief that consumers wanted a broader product offering in one location," Means said.

Competitors such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy offer one-stop shopping for a wide range of electronics, DVDs and audio CDs, which they can sell at relatively low prices because their size gives them buying clout with suppliers. Best Buy and others also are beefing up their service and support, diluting one of Good Guys' strengths.

Changes in consumers' tastes, and in technology, also sealed Good Guys' fate, analysts said. "This has less to say about CompUSA than it does the state of the consumer electronics industry as a whole," said Stephen Smith, editor in chief of Twice, a trade publication.

Good Guys, for instance, was known for peddling sophisticated tabletop receivers and large, expensive speakers. But "that business has completely dried up because young people don't sit in a chair with two speakers blasting at them much anymore," said William Armstrong, an analyst at investment firm C.L. King & Associates Inc.

Many audio fans today increasingly listen to iPods, MP3 players and other portable devices that play songs downloaded from personal computers. Home entertainment systems also are increasingly melding their video and audio capabilities with computers.

U.S. factory-to-dealer sales of audio components such as receivers and home speakers are expected to total $1.16 billion this year, down 8% from 2001, according to the Consumer Electronics Assn. Meanwhile, sales of portable MP3 players are forecast to hit $2.65 billion this year, more than double 2004 sales.

The convergence of computer and audio-video technologies is one reason CompUSA is moving Good Guys' products into its own stores, so that consumers can be exposed to all of them in one place.

The shift also left Good Guys too dependent on sales of high-end TVs, a cutthroat market where "you're competing head-to-head against Best Buy and Circuit City," Armstrong said.

Good Guys hasn't been the only mid-size electronics chain to feel the pressure. Ultimate Electronics Inc., a Thornton, Colo.-based chain that once had more than 60 stores in 14 states, filed for bankruptcy protection in January and has since closed about half of its locations. Tweeter Home Entertainment Group Inc., a Canton, Mass.-based chain with 160 stores in 22 states, including California, also has struggled in recent years.

That doesn't mean independent electronics stores can't survive, said Smith of Twice. Many consumers still prefer the service of small, local stores, and the independents — if well managed — also can avoid the financial headaches that often come with overexpansion, he said.

"To say that this is the end of specialty audio-video retailing as we know it may be overreaching," Smith said. Unfortunately for Good Guys, he added, "they weren't big enough and they weren't small enough."

[audiobliss]

I was just wonderin' if perhaps GG had iPods on sale. I think I'm in the market for one.

[mrmusicman]

I went to G.G. in Fresno,CA today and right now the sales are 10%-30% off nothing really special,mabe as time goes on things could get cheaper.

[brettw22]

Is it just me or does ONLY profitting $1.1 million on sales of $750 million seem absolutely ridiculous? I know they were losing sales, but to have actually SOLD that much merch, you'd think that there would be a much higher profit margin......

[polkatese]

In case anyone interested, GG is now 20% of all electronics, 30% on DVDs. Inventory seems to be still pretty high, unusually high Energy speakers in stock.

[audiobliss]

Oooh. Energy speakers.