Here is the Fry's Electronics in Southwest Houston. Fry's stores are huge warehouse style stores that opened in the Houston area beginning in the early 2000's. They are located mostly in the Southwestern United States, and the company has remained small with slightly less than 40 stores now down to 31 as of this posting in 2020. Their slogan is "Your Best Buys are always at Fry's Electronics". Fry's stores also have distinct themes. For example, the NASA Rd. store is designed like a space shuttle and West Rd. like an oilfield. Fry's stores used to be packed full of electronics large and small, but things are much different now.
This store opened on April 2, 2005 and was the 3rd and final location in the Houston area. Fry's has been in the news lately for low inventory and empty stores, this store was certainly very empty as you will see below.
As you can see, this store is huge. This is the interesting oval lighting you first see as you walk into the store.
Out of the 3 area Fry's locations, this is the one with the least interesting design. The design of this store is nearly identical to the Irving Texas Fry's location. In the future, we will show you the other 2 Houston locations which are much more interesting.
Now that I look at this, I could use some ink refills.
Build your own computer. Your choices are fairly limited, shelves are not very well stocked.
The historical photos are a nice touch. They are all around the store and show Houston area captures.
Now we are getting into the store a little more.
The empty shelves are all over the place.
Odds and ends are filling in gaps of space, but there are a lot more display items than actual products for sale.
One of the frequent complaints about Fry's was the battery selection. Here we see a large open space, but the most common battery types were in stock.
This is the main movie selection. It is so much smaller than it used to be, but nearly every company that sells electronics has cut way back on movie inventory as well. The issue with Fry's is that they have huge stores and not a lot of items to fill space with.
Things like Gatorade fill shelves. If you did not know Fry's had Gatorade you would probably want to grab a shopping cart. Well now you need to walk back to the front of the store to get the cart.
Here is another area of videos and some blu-rays.
Now we are in the video game department. This whole area used to be dedicated to video games.
One of the biggest failures of retro gaming consoles. Sadly Fry's was $40 more expensive than you could find these PS1 classics online.
There are not a lot of options for video games besides PS4 games. Everything else is fairly thin.
Lots of stuffed animals of mostly video game characters.
Next to the video games, we have some computer accessories.
Not much to buy in this department either.
Pre-built computers and monitors.
These weird lights are all across this part of the store.
There is a little more product available in this part of the store.
A peak into the stock room shows a lot of empty shelves.
This is the other side of the stockroom on this side of the store. Not much back here either. The doors to the stockroom are wide open to look inside.
Here are more views from the video game and computer side of the store.
The Nintendo Switch display works to try out video games.
An aisle full of POP figures. These things are all over the place, but I never see anyone buying them.
Bikes and scooters.
Here is an interesting way to take up space, an electric piano. I did not hear it being used on my visit, but I have heard it before.
Office place, this is one area of Fry's that still is in demand. There are some good deals to be found here.
Furniture is thin. There are some good options though.
The center aisle of the store looking to the front entrance.
The cafe is only open limited hours. Each Fry's has a cafe with the store number. This one is Cafe 29.
TV's ready to go, filling up empty space in the center aisle of the store.
The presentation room is locked up. Each Fry's store in the area has one of these rooms that is basically a mini-theater. A big screen and cinema seating fits a small group of people. Only one Fry's in the area still had the room open, and it was not showing anything when we walked inside.
The mini rooms just had some strange setups to take up space.
This is a pretty cool display for Bose products.
This room looked like it was setup and someone was living here. These walls used to have shelving with speakers all over to try out.
The next door audio room still had a lot of speakers, but the displays to test out were mostly missing or disconnected.
This part of the store was mostly televisions, media players, and car stereo equipment.
This is a fancy TV showroom, but there are lots of holes and turned off TV's.
Fry's was known for having advanced TV's, but did they have any of these in stock? I didn't ask to find out.
Now this is where things get bad, wrapped up boxes sitting in the corner of the TV display area. There were actually more boxes stacked here than in the stockrooms.
Here are closeups of some of the displays in the TV area.
The car stereo test room was similar to the home entertainment rooms. Most radios and speakers did not work.
I did not test out the speaker wall. It looks like some buttons were illuminated, but it was quiet.
Here is the second audio test room, the displays were not working at all.
Stockroom on the opposite side of the store was much like the other one.
As you can see here some aisles are just filled with random items. Air conditioning units fill this aisle.
Lots of appliances on display, but not much in stock.
More of the random products to be found throughout the store.
The store has a lot of kitchen items, who would think of Fry's as a place to find these kind of items?
Fry's handbasket and cart.
Walking up and down the aisles back toward the TVs.
And some more views of the products available and views of the store.
Let's stop again to mention the fact that there are barbeque grills and charcoal across from water coolers and wine chillers.
TV's strategically placed to fill shelf space.
This aisle is pretty sad.
More sadness and emptiness.
Mattresses and gym equipment, what is this Sears?
Strange setup in this corner of the store.
Cell phone accessories were pretty well stocked.
Shopping carts and other random things setup. A few of these were being used for stocking.
Here we can see how empty this part of the store is.
Still too much space dedicated to magazines.
Now we are close to the front of the store.
Another wall of bottled refreshments.
The date of our visit was August 29 at 2:45pm, this bathroom form was dated June 25th. Not a good look for the store.
A peak from the front of the store into the backroom.
Looking from the front of the store towards the TV's.
Register area.
This area used to be the movies. Now there are products from as seen on TV, pets, music records, random products and extras from other departments.
The advertisement displays were off.
More of the random products in the front area of the store.
Forgot to mention the cosmetics and fragrances. What is this Sephora?
Records
Music CD's
More views of the store.
Views of the checkout area from slightly different views.
Last chance products on the way to the checkouts.
The long walk back towards the front door to the open checkouts.
Customer service counter at the entrance to the store.
More views of the store exterior.
