BritGuyTN

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/...3-15560568.htm

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Circuit City (NYSE:CC) Stores Inc. said Wednesday it plans to cut costs by laying off about 3,400 store workers and hiring lower-paid employees to replace them, and by trimming about 130 corporate jobs.

Its shares rose 3 percent in morning trading.

Circuit City, the nation's No. 2 consumer electronics retailer behind Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE:BBY) , the store workers being laid off were earning 'well above the market-based salary range for their role.' They will be replaced with employees who will be paid at the current market range, the company said in a news release.

So these people have been doing a fine job, but are being fired purely because they make a decent living? Not even to make straight redundancies, but so they can hire cheaper personnel

WOW - thats pretty callous in my book

Elvira

And let me guess: the ex-employees are welcome to re-apply for their old jobs? :curse:

anotherlimey

Look on the bright side, at least they're honest about it!

BritGuyTN

true, but why not just tell the staff that they are taking a 20% paycut rather than just laying them off as it appears on the report?

I had to do exaxtly that in 2001 - company not doing well - everyone lost 15% salary

TouristTrap

The problem with this, apart from the screwing of the employees, is that us, THE CONSUMERS who pay THEIR salaries, will be stuffed as well - left to wander the stores with untrained minimum wages trailing us.....

franc11s

Mmm, nothing too new there then

Seriously, CompUSA has just last month announced it too is CLOSING half it's stores... http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070228-8940.html

This is really all writing on the wall. It came a LOT later than I predicted but there's more of this to come (doom and gloom).

Retail stores cannot compete with the internet UNLESS there is significant added value. Tech Stores than don't hire people who are even half as smart as the customer will NOT survive.

We ALL shop around for the most part for cheaper stiff (easpecially things over $100). If I can save $20 by buying from one of the now very many reputable web stores, I WILL. Mind you, I like window shopping IN store to "touch and feel" the goods first. I do not talk to any of the planks of wood these people hire. Sorry.

TouristTrap

I wonder if small family owned niche stores will be making some sort of a comeback in future. Personally, I shop at an independent store for a bunch of products which I could probably buy cheaper over the net, but it is the fact that I can get help from knowledgeable folk first hand that makes me pay that extra bit.

BamaBrit

I often like to browse around CC, i usually get a good laugh listening to the employees trying to help the customers who are not as tech savy as myself. I sometimes want to jump in there and help the poor buggers it gets so bad sometimes. It is pretty sad when you walk into a store like CC and know more about their products then they do.

scrubbedexpat099

It did get a mention on the hourly radio news.

It seems to vary quite a bit, the one near me is not that bad, the one I went to in CA was awful.

I have noticed that for Laptops, the Brick Stores often have better deals, if you wait for their specials. I guess they have relied on those who have not.

Having an Internet presence seems a bit odd, when they charge you Sales Tax, sort of defeats the object.

franc11s

In a Best Buy one time, trying to buy a multi-HD (Component) switch. They have been trained to say exactly what you want to hear. He said :-

"sorry, we don't sell them but we should as I've been asked a lot for them lately. I've told my manager we need to start stocking them".

I went over the the DVR/Digital section to browse and what would you know, 6 friggen boxes of multi-HD Component switches.

I actually went back to the bloke and told him next time to just be honest and say "I don't friggin know".

I have another brilliant story about warranties - but I'm sure we all have those too

Muppets.

Richardowen

This is crazy business sense !!! Getting rid of your most knowledgable staff and advertising the fact so that all your customer know that not only are you a complete ar5ehole but you don't care who gives advice to your customers as longs as you don't have to pay them more then the going rate which is always distorted for budget calculations.

I'm never going there again and just checking to see if the domain "worst-buy" is available to start the hate campaign !

scrubbedexpat099

Another case it seems of Jobs Americans will not do.

BritGuyTN

I will personally make it a point to never purchase something from CC again

considering the last thing I bought was a free after rebate microsoft wlan adaptor, I should be OK

Bob

Not the only one's to do that though...plenty of places do that, it's crap though.

Usually don't lay people off though, but give them crap shifts and the like and make them leave...where the missus use to work, you probably know the place by now, that was their SOP to trim cost, give family workers schedules that ran really late or really early in the day, hours that normal people wouldn't work, and people who needed those crap hours because they needed the extra money, or were students were given better hours etc...they managed to cull loads of people without having to pay any redundancy, and medical was cut straight off...if they made you redundant, you'd get a month, or 6 months if management, so they made you leave.

Always went down a treat when they said they weren't hitting targets and had to reduce costs, so x-mas bonus wasn't being given...especially when the head boss got a $6M bonus.

Hiro11

That's already the case. Try to go to a store to buy a decent digital camera:

Me: "Does this one have a full frame sensor?"
Them: *desperate blank look* "Uh, yeah, definitely".
Me: "How's its high ISO performance?"
Them *Oh Jesus, get me out of here look* "It's a great camera! Look at this sticker, it says the camera's got 10 megapixies (sic)!!!"
Me: "Does it offer RAW?"
...etc.

It's even worse if you need a new desktop or laptop. These guys are worthless.