Fry's Electronics
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Fry's Electronics is a medium-size chain of software, consumer electronics and computer superstores headquartered in Silicon Valley. Starting with one store located in Sunnyvale, California, USA, the chain now boasts over 32 stores located in several Western states, and one each in Illinois, Indiana, and Georgia (near Atlanta).
History
Fry's Electronics was started in 1985 by the three Fry brothers, John, Randy, and Dave, and Kathryn Kolder. The brothers were heir to the Fry's Supermarkets chain, but had little interest in grocery store retailing. Instead of groceries, the brothers experimented with a single 20,000 square foot (2,000 m²) store in Sunnyvale, California. Fry's Food & Drug stores are not affiliated with Fry's Electronics, but are owned and operated by Kroger.The original Sunnyvale store stocked numerous high-tech supplies, such as ICs, software, computer components, test and measurement equipment, various types of consumer electronics and numerous other computer geek delights. Since the store also had massive displays of soda and snack foods, home appliances, as well as technical books and t-shirts; a running Silicon Valley joke is that a geek can live his/her entire life without going to any store other than Fry's. Most of the stores now sell geek stuff like Dilbert merchandise, as well as large home appliances like dishwashers and refrigerators.
As the high-tech side of the business expanded, the original Sunnyvale store (which was located near Oakmead Parkway and Lakeside Drive) was closed, and a newer, larger store was opened across Lawrence Expressway on Kern Avenue. For a number of years during the 1990s, a computer surplus/salvage store named Weird Stuff was located across the street from the Kern Avenue store. The combination of a large store selling new computer components and another large store selling surplus computer components made the location a prime shopping stop for computer hobbyists. This fortuitous co-location helped distinguish Fry's from the many other stores within Silicon Valley selling computer components.
The Kern Avenue store also pioneered a concept that endures to this day: store themes. This store was designed to look like the innards of a giant computer. The walls were adorned with IC patterns and blinking lights, and the floor resembled a giant printed circuit board. The outside of the building was painted to look like a huge DIL integrated circuit, and the external door handles were designed like ENTER and ESC keyboard keys. One of the next stores in Campbell resembles an Ancient Egyptian tomb. The outside is ziggurat-ish and the inside is embellished with artifacts that look like they could have been lifted straight from King Tut's tomb. The Fountain Valley location pays tribute to the ruins of Ancient Rome, complete with a flowing aqueduct. The Palo Alto location has a wild west flavor. Store #8 in Woodland Hills offers an Alice in Wonderland theme, while the Fry's in Burbank has a '50s-style Sci-Fi B-Movie motif. Another one of Fry's Electronics stores in Berryessa, San Jose has a Maya temple inerior theme. The Las Vegas store has an immense slot machine as its facade. The Austin store similarly sports a giant piano on its front. Compared to other stores' modern themes (such as Best Buy), Fry's is starkly utilitarian in its arrangement of products and the way they are presented. However, several stores have recently gone through major rearrangements of the store floor; though mostly just to use space more efficiently. Some of the stores were formerly Incredible Universe stores.
The original series of stores displayed elaborate themes and various other painstakingly designed props. The Burbank store feature many huge statues, including a huge robot named Gort, 100 foot long giant ants hanging from the ceiling, a flying saucer protruding from the front of the store, a statue of Darth Vader, and '57 Chevy Buicks gutted for use as dining tables in the cafe. After all construction and expenses, including land purchase and theming, the Burbank store cost USD$15 million when it was opened in 1995.
More recently, Fry's has drastically reduced the elaborateness of it's theming. This move was prompted after the San Marcos store was built. The theme was Atlantis, and the cost of the construction and upkeep of the huge aquariums and rare fish was apparently so high that Fry's decided to discontinue elaborate theming because of the high cost. In addition, several days after the Grand Opening of the store, several of the Store's prized sharks died. San Marcos, however, is said to be one of the most strikingly beautiful Fry's locations open today. The Oxnard store only has large pictures of Oxnard's strawberry farming past. It and future stores will only feature spartan decorative elements.
All the stores are enormous, often stocking hundreds of copies of one product. Some stores (such as the Campbell location) also have a special "Bose theater" that showcases the abilities of the diminutive speakers. At the Campbell location, a customer can bring his own DVD and play it in the replica theater.
Today the stores are still a geek Mecca. The stores often run special sales and host events, such as the launching of new products and free give-aways. Such events jam parking lots and intersections for blocks in all directions of the stores. Understandably, Friday afternoons and the weekends are their most active times. However, parking lots are almost always fifty percent full during business hours.
As of 2005, Best Buy, the nationwide consumer electronics specialty store, is the main competitor to Fry's. Generally, the Fry's stores have more retail floor space and have a wider and much more advanced selection than the Best Buy stores. While Best Buy only sells fully built computers with some basic accesories, Fry's sells all the parts for a consumer to make their own.
Fry's has a practice of repackaging some of the returned merchandise and selling it (clearly labeled as a previous return) at a slight discount, almost always 5%, alongside new merchandise. This is only done if items are not believed to be defective, and some types of items must pass a diagnostic test before being re-sold. Also some brands, such as Creative Labs, are exempted from this and have all of their returned units sent back to the manufacturer. Items in some types of packaging, such as plastic "bullet packaging" are always sent back to the manufacturer. Anything that gets put on or in the ear or face of the customer, or goes against a customer's body, is returned to the manufacturer for hygienic reasons once returned. For example all headphones and earphones, electric shavers, massaging foot pads, thermometers, and body massagers are not re-sold, according to policy. As of recently, Portable Air Conditioner units most likely cannot be returned, once opened and used, due to hygenic health reasons.
Customer service
A number of customers have reported frustrating customer service experiences at Fry's stores. Some of these customers have established web sites to discuss their experiences, many though from as long as 9 years ago. One of the slogans of Fry's (as shown on newspaper ads) is "Home of Fast, Friendly, Courteous Service", but the level of customer support available at the stores is something of an inside joke among geeks, who are considered the chain's target market. Fry's is reputed to be even less attentive to less-knowledgeable customers.Moreover, Fry's still uses a paper-based system for gift certificates, forgoing the more modern, and less susceptible to forgery, gift card format.
Returning a product with missing or defective DVD/CDs can be difficult or impossible, so it's worthwhile to check them before leaving the store.
Recently, Fry's has become almost ridiculously lax with it's return policies. If one complains enough, (most of the time you don't have to complain at all) one can very easily get away with almost anything. Examples include returning items without packaging, essential software, returning something that was purchased as long at 120 days ago (Fry's Returns policy limits most returns to a maximum of 30 days.)
Fry's does not charge any restocking fee on any items. This process has led to several jokes being formed among employees; one of the most popular is that Fry's does not sell cameras, but instead, rents them, due to the overwhelming amount of cameras that are purchased simply for a birthday or other significant event, then returned, with no penalty whatsoever to the customer.
Another example of Fry's poor customer service is the near absence of useful information on their official web site, which has basically remained unchanged through the last decade.
Fry's advertising slogan is "Your Best Buys Are Always At Fry's, Guaranteed," as featured at the end of television and radio commercials for the company.
Advertising
The company is a major purchaser of newspaper advertising. It is normal for multiple full-page ads of Fry's sales to be in the San Jose Mercury News and the Austin American-Statesman on multiple days of the week. On Fridays, an 8-page Fry's "section" appears within both newspapers. Similar four-page sections appear weekly in the Los Angeles Times, Contra Costa Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Orange County Register, and Chicago Sun-Times as well.Advertisements are produced locally, so sale prices offered in one area may not be honored in another area. For example, while both Southern California and Dallas might have the same hard drive advertised, it could be advertised for $79.99 in CA and $89.99 in TX. Also, Fry's usually will not match prices from their website, [Outpost.com].
These advertisements, however, have been considered notorious by critics for many times being at the level of bait and switch, whereby extremely limited supplies of a product are sold at a very low price but are quickly depleted to nothing as the day wears on. The busiest day of the year at Fry's is the day after Thanksgiving, and the second busiest is the day after Christmas. On these two days, as well as the day of the grand opening of a store, the sales advertisement has items at much lower prices than even the usual sale prices. Examples may involve a computer typically selling for $299.99 being sold for $99.99 or a TV usually sold for $349.99 offered for $99.00. During these one-day sale events, customers typically form long lines early in the morning before the 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. store opening. The most drastically-reduced items sell out almost immediately, with subsequent customers visitors disappointed.
For example, on the day of its release, the fourth Harry Potter book was offered for only $13.99, much lower than the suggested retail price. Many Fry's stores started the day with 400 to 800 copies. But despite such copious supply, many stores ran out before noon, leaving hundreds of later would-be customers frustrated at their unavailability.
Fry's tries to combat instant sellouts by advertising "Limit 1 Per Customer" on heavily-discounted items. However, it is still common for some patrons to cycle through the line multiple times, disregarding the supposed "limit". Some complain this practice aggrevates the problem.
Fry's litigated for control of the domain name frys.com for several years. In the meantime, Fry's purchased outpost.com and began using it as its e-commerce site. The frys.com litigation finally ended with Fry's obtaining control of the domainname. However, it never switched operations from outpost.com to frys.com. Frys.com content appears to have been unchanged for years.
Commissions
Many, but less than half, of the employees working at Fry's are paid a combination of an hourly rate and a commission on some specific aspect of the store's operations. The employee (aka exiting Courtesy Associate) who checks your bag at the door gets paid if he finds an item not rung up, or that you were overcharged, or any one of another couple dozen possible problems. Of the cashiers, those who have passed a written test and are "certified" cashiers get paid a percentage of the total dollars they ring up. Supervisors/managers are paid through multifaceted formulae that can include a percentage of the gross profit earned in the part of the store they supervise. And of course, the sales staff earn commissions, too. Rather than a straight percentage, each item pays a fixed amount. Many items carry no commission, so obviously the salesperson is not interested in selling those items. Part of the reason the shopping process gets so time-consuming is that the salesperson is only paid the commission if she writes up a quote — so if someone offers to quote you on a product, you can be sure it pays a commission. A Fry's sales person also receives a commission on their "extended" warranties.Recently, Fry's has been moving its employees to other forms of commission. For example, Software Salesmen are no longer paid commission. Instead, they are paid a base pay calculated with the gross profit of the department per quarter. Therefore, depending on the performance of the department as a whole, one's pay can rise or fall every financial quarter.
In addition, Computer, Audio/Video, Appliance/Telecom, and Components Salesmen have moved to a form of commission called "draw commission". What this means is that Fry's Electronics will match the amount of money you make hourly with commission, no matter how much commission you actually make during that week. For instance: if one made $400 at the $6.75 hourly base pay (minimum wage in California,) one is required to make $400.01 in commission. If this doesn't happen, for instance, they make only $200 in commission for that week, Fry's would front you the money to raise your commission to $400.01. However, you now owe Fry's $200. The next week, (if you made the same total hourly pay) you need to make back the $200 that Fry's fronted you for the previous week: a total of $600 in commission. If you continuously draw for an extended period of time, you're fired and your final paycheck is withheld.
Some notable exceptions: Until Fry's moved the Outpost.com customer service call center from Connecticut to San Jose in November 2005, most of those employees received no commission or profit sharing. Within the Fry's Electronics stores, the employees who are not paid on any sort of commission include: the members of the Audit department, all the employees who work in the warehouse and the shipping/receiving area, people who stock shelves and have the title "__________ Accessory Sales" (e.g. Computer Accessory Sales), cashiers who are not yet certified, those who work inside the electronic components cage, those who deliver appliances and other items to customers houses, officers of the Loss Prevention department, those in the Customer Relations area, and now the Service department in some stores.
As of recent (May 2006), Customer Service Sales Associates (Returns) had their minimum base pay raised, previously it was $6.75/hr, now it's $9.50/hr. The commission for this side of the Customer Service Department has changed, this time it will be based on average customer service satisfaction per week. When the average percentages for the quarter (13 weeks) have been figured, the commission will pay 50 cents/hr. (e.g. one quarter averaged 90%, added to $9.50/hr equals $12/hr pay for the current quarter).
Many, perhaps most, of Fry's employees are college students. Despite paying higher wages than most other (non-union) retail stores Fry's experiences a very high turnover rate as employees finish school or find new jobs.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
House brands
In addition to selling many major brands of PCs, Fry's also sells two models of in-house PC designs. Their flagship Fry's PCs compete with similarly featured Windows PC offerings from Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Compaq. In addition, they offer a lower end model branded as Great Quality PCs. Great Quality PCs tend to be Fry's cheapest PC offerings, often priced in the sub-$200 range during daily and weekly sales. Great Quality PCs are often bundled with the Linspire Linux based OS in addition to Microsoft's Windows, one of the few Linux offerings available in a retail PC configuration. They also market accessories like cables and CD-R discs under the GQ brandname.Locations and themes
Further reading
- "[The Future of Retail]," Wired 6.07, July 1998, page 146. Photo essay showing customers and their purchases; reference to customer service.
- "The Hacker & The Ants," Rudy Rucker contains a passage describing vintage pre-expansion era Fry's and is the first mention of it in published fiction.
External links
- [Fry's Electronics official website]
- [Fry's Electronics History]
- [Fry's Photo Project], containing photos of most Fry's stores.
- [Wired Magazine article; Issue 2.01, 1994]
- [A page discussing customers' experiences with Fry's customer service]
- [A page discussing customers' experiences with Fry's customer service (another)]
- [Outpost.com - Fry's online store (note that the products there are not always stocked at the brick and mortar stores)]
- [Salon.com article], "customer Disservice"
- ["Breakfast at Fry's" reprinted article]
- [Internet reprint of Fry´s newspaper advertisements]
- [San Jose Mercury Daily Fry's Ads]
- [Downer's Grove, IL Fry's Ads], posted by forum regulars
- [Fry's Electronics Reviews]
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