April 2nd, 2021, passing through the area we noticed the signage for the liquidation sale of the store. Fry's abruptly closed the entire chain on February 24, 2021. Timing was great here as the liquidation opened up the day before. Even better was that we got photos before the signs were covered up with tarp. The store was pretty much open for us to document. Only a small section of the store was blocked off.
Axiom Space took this building over in 2022. A lot of the fixtures were to remain in place, but no photos are available online to see how the building looks now.
So glad we got to see this store again. There was a huge difference now, you will see in a bit.
Unlike most store closing sales, there was no actual inventory left. It was just fixtures and random stuff from backrooms. What happened to the inventory?
A hint on what happened to the inventory is in this photo.
A look at one of the stock rooms.
Found the inventory, it was all pushed here to the back corner of the store. None of it was for sale. A lot of Fry's inventory was sold off in large boxes out of California with advertisements on Facebook Marketplace. The inventory situation was complicated in the final years of the company's existence, so it is anyone's guess where it all went. I would guess that inventory also went to closeout retailers and possibly back to the suppliers.
This is how little they actually had in the store for sale prior to the closure. Almost half of the store was closed off a few months before the store closed due to a lack of inventory. Even after that half of the store was closed off, there were many empty aisles mixed in with the aisles that had some products. With the exception of the perfume and Covid stuff no aisles were filled up with products like we had seen in the past.
Remember when Blu ray movies were a hot commodity? Fry's certainly did even in 2021.
More of the backrooms.
The shopping basket holder on the left is now sitting in my garage. $10 paid for a piece of history. I did get some shopping baskets as well for $5 each.
$1,800 Yeah that is a bit steep for a dusty old astronaut.
Some of the ancient P.O.S. computer systems still in place at the store.
The equipment testing room.
A lonesome P.O.S. computer in the back of the store.
In 2021, the design screen looked well behind the times.
The emptiness of the closed off areas of the store. The next 2 photos were taken in the area of the store that was closed off in late 2020.
Here is a part of the store that I never truly documented before, cafe 34. All Fry's electronics stores had a cafe that was numbered after the store.
Looking back out into the store from the cafe.
Another view from the other cafe entrance.
Now for more images from around the store.
The artwork at the front entrance of the store was so awesome.
A few display appliances were facing the closed off side of the store.
Now for more of the entryway of the store. Lots of random things for sale.
More from around the store. We spent a lot of time looking around. Only a couple of employees were left to finish up the store closing fixture sale.
April 3rd, 2021. Signs tarped up now.
Enjoy the extra round of photos. It was during this visit that we found out how much longer the sale was going to last. We were able to go in one last time after this visit.
More of the store was barricaded off to the public. Lots of noise was also being made as people were taking down fixtures.
April 23, 2021. Final visit to Fry's. The products in the back were now gone.
More of the store was barricaded off and a lot of fixtures were coming down.
The last of the photos as we head out. One of the employees got mad because we were taking videos/photos so this trip was cut short. There is more video footage from this visit that will eventually go up on Youtube.
A sad ending to the once-great electronics chain. We certainly miss Fry's for what it was, not what it became as the company struggled to stay afloat.
Wow! These are some amazing photos! It is really interesting to see the last days of the NASA Fry's Electronics. I made my last trip to Fry's in late January 2021 at this exact location and the chain didn't last for much longer after that. It was not a surprise at all to see Fry's close as they were just barely hanging on for the last couple of years. Even still, I did get some great deals on CD-R discs and envelopes during my last visit. Fry's didn't have much left at point aside from Covid supplies and blank optical discs, oddly enough. I kind of wish I had bought more CD-Rs from there as I'm getting close to using the last of the discs I bought from there. Many stores still sell CD-Rs, but they all charge a lot more than what Fry's was at the time.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you were able to get a few souvenirs from these highly memorable stores. It is too bad an employee got mad at you during your last visit, but it does look like you got some good footage anyway. As for what happened to the inventory, I guess some of it ended up on Facebook Marketplace. Maybe they figured it was cheaper to liquidate stuff that way than to do it through the stores especially since so few shoppers actually visited these stores down towards the end. I know Fry's was selling some items on consignment down towards the end so those were probably returned to the vendor. I feel sorry for the employees who had to sort and pack all this stuff up, it was probably a pain especially since they were losing their jobs anyway.
It looks like Fry's was running an unlicensed version of Windows 7 on that POS computer. I saw Fry's using some Windows XP computers down towards the end as well. Both Windows 7 and especially XP were out of date by 2021.
As we can see from these photos, Fry's was selling a lot of random junk down towards the end. Some may consider CD-Rs to be that, but that was useful junk to me at least, lol. As for the corn dog makers, yeah, I don't think there was high demand for that, lol. I'm sure a lot of that stuff ended up at Ollie's and other closeout stores. As we all know, Fry's was famous for selling a lot of Covid supplies and even body bags down towards the end. It was a very strange mix of stuff they had for sale.
When I first visited Fry's when they opened near Greenspoint Mall in around 2000, it was hard to even find a parking spot because the stores were so packed with shoppers and in-demand items. By the 2020s, when I would go in, I was often the only shopper in the entire store and the inventory was truly pathetic. MicroCenter still sees large crowds, but MicroCenter actually has the inventory, prices, and service that people want. It is interesting to see Fry's become irrelevant the way they did, but at least we got to experience the really neat NASA and Greenspoint stores.
The immediate closure of the entire Fry's chain came as a huge surprise. I remember the Discord deadmalls chat rumor mill going crazy that night before the news was finally confirmed. I was especially nervous since I needed more Covid supplies, and they had them. There is still a lot of mystery surrounding the decision to close the stores the way they did it.
DeleteAs you know, the inventory situation at this Fry's was really bad towards the end. You saw it after the Christmas shopping season. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the same products I saw in November were sitting in the back area when I went back in April. That outrageous Covid aisle was the only fully stocked area of the store. Fry's always had some oddball items, but that aisle took the cake. I was really hoping that Fry's could have morphed into a Supercenter type of place with a huge focus on electronics. In some ways that happened, but it was never fully executed. They were just hit by several things all at once. Declining physical media sales, declining prices for electronics for lower profit margins, oversized store size for the demand, inventory stock issues going from bad to worse. Even the store computer systems being outdated could have caused some havoc with customer sales. Inventory issues leaving many areas of the store mostly empty. Computer parts were hit or miss. Many items were replaced by lower tier product. The weekly doorbusters were gone, one of their biggest tools to bring shoppers in the store. And then Covid hit, at the worst possible time for the company. Fry's was one of the weakest stores before Covid hit. There was no saving the business without a major cash injection to refill the store with good merchandise, not the downgraded crap that was their consignment items.
MicroCenter has the stuff people need. Fry's was just throwing out stuff hoping it would sell. MicroCenter just did everything better. Better location, full stores, name brand items for sale, minimal inventory items that are not electronics. Microcenter was fast to stop selling physical movies and other dying product lines.
As for the trips to the store, I did not know when the last time I would have been able to make it back, so I made the most out of my opportunity to pick around the store and do a final documentation. I still have my video footage from the trips to post on Youtube. Sadly, Youtube video creation is very time consuming. I just saw that my last video was over a year ago. Looks like I have a few more things in my backlog to post, lol.
Pretty crazy to see all the inventory just lined up in multiple carts like that. Nice photos of the store.
ReplyDeleteI dig the blu-ray display. And congrats on the shopping basket holder!
It was so weird being in there with the store in that condition. I also have some video footage that I need to compile and post on Youtube. I barely have time for the blog so it may be a while, lol. Thanks for the comment!
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