26 Facts About Circuit City

Circuit City is an American consumer electronics retail company, which was founded in 1949 by Samuel Wurtzel as the Wards Company, operated stores across the United States, and pioneered the electronics superstore format in the 1970s.

Circuit City continued to grow and acquired stores in other locations including Albany, New York; Mobile, Alabama; Washington, D C ; and Costa Mesa, California.

Circuit City continued to expand with the new format modeled after "Wards Loading Dock" and renamed it Circuit City Superstore in 1981.

Wards Company officially changed its name to Circuit City and became listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1984.

Circuit City, which had leased floor space from the Zodys discount stores as well as other department stores, began acquiring retail stores and turning them into Circuit City Superstores.

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In 1981, Circuit City entered the New York City market by acquiring the six remaining stores of the bankrupt Lafayette Radio chain.

In 1985, Circuit City entered the Los Angeles market by opening seven Superstore locations in former The Akron discount stores.

The next year, Circuit City opened five more Superstores in the market and closed the licensed electronics and appliance departments it operated in Zodys stores.

In 1988, Circuit City began constructing the new "plug" design Superstore formats.

In late 1988, Circuit City had an opportunity to purchase Best Buy, a growing competitor at the time, for US$30 million.

Many Circuit City stores were out of date and in bad locations, unable to compete with newer Best Buy stores.

In July 2000, Circuit City abandoned the large appliance business in all stores to make space for more small electronics.

In 2003, Circuit City converted to a single hourly pay structure in all stores, eliminating commissioned sales.

In 2004, with the expansion of the wireless phone market, Circuit City partnered with Verizon Wireless to include full-service Verizon Wireless sales and service centers in each Superstore.

Circuit City stopped selling wireless phones with all other carriers due to the agreement.

Circuit City paid approximately US$284 million for InterTAN's 980 stores, which operated in Canada under the trade names RadioShack, Rogers Plus, and Battery Plus.

Circuit City lost the lawsuit and all Canadian locations were renamed The Source by Circuit City in 2005.

At that time, Circuit City's stock traded well below $1 per share, and was removed from listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Canadian operations, which were run under The Source by Circuit City banner, were not initially affected by the liquidation, but were later sold to Bell Canada.

Besides retail auto dealerships, Circuit City closed more retail locations in the U S than any other retail chain in 2009.

Circuit City selected Great American Group LLC, Hudson Capital Partners LLC, SB Capital Group LLC, and Tiger Capital Group LLC to handle the liquidation of all stores nationwide.

Circuit City Express was a chain of mall-based Circuit City stores with over 50 locations at its peak.

Circuit City Express stores offered Superstore prices and the Circuit City "Price Match Guarantee" in a mall environment.

Circuit City took a US$114 million loss to close its DIVX division.

Circuit City was in charge of designing product displays and other electronic services for Circuit City.

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Liquidators handling the sale of remaining Circuit City inventory have become the target of consumer complaints, not only for often-uncompetitive pricing of items but for an "all sales final" policy which allows the sale of defective or damaged merchandise at former Circuit City locations with no recourse afforded to the consumer.