The Fall of Fry's - and why it impacts you
Fry’s is closed now, the infamous electronics store that just happened to sell just about everything.
They sold toys, electronics, consumer goods, treadmills; they even had a pretty good deli!
But officially, on February 24th, Fry’s closed.
Frys was special to me and to many other people. The store was always so big, and while they didn’t always have the newest products, there was always something to satisfy your need. Sure, they were technically just electronics stores, but man, they sold everything.
The stores were pretty cute too, every single one had a theme, I remember every time I went on a vacation or went on a road trip and I saw a Frys, I always wanted to stop by it, even if for a second, just to see the store theme. Every store had a fun little theme, like an Egyptian temple, pirate ship, space station, and more. Sure, it seemed like 3 out of 4 stores had the Egyptian theme, but maybe that was just me…
So why did they close? Well I mean if you shopped in one, it was pretty obvious it was doomed. I remember even 3 or 4 years back, I remember asking how in the world the store was open. It was so big but so empty; great for a little kid to run around but not so much for paying the bills. Just, really, the store was so big, it felt even bigger than Costco. It was probably one of the largest stores I’ve been in. (Side note, many Fry’s stores were much smaller, but most of my memories were with the large ones), but it does demonstrate a point.
Why did Frys go under? Well, many other big-name stores have fallen in similar ways, just to name a few: Sears, K-Mart, Sports Authority, and Kodak. These downfalls may seem unrelated, but they all have one business failure they have in common: they didn’t adapt. For the former three I listed, these companies had poor internet service. They underestimated the power and how important the internet would be. Sure, a person watching from their couch may just point and say, “How in the world did the executives not see how important the internet would be.” In defense of the companies, fads happen all the time, and bubbles get popped every day. If a company tries to follow all of the fads, they’ll just get burned. However, this doesn’t absolve them from blame: this fatal flaw caused the company to go under.
Kodak, although not necessarily killed by the internet, they also failed to adapt to changing times. Or they just underestimated where the market would shift. In Kodak’s case, they failed to realize the importance of the digital revolution. When other companies started shifting to digital cameras and media, Kodak thought that film cameras would still be king. Well given how the market for digital cameras turned out...that definitely wasn’t the smartest call. Now they seem to be pretty much condemned to printing out puzzles, as they want to make use of their expensive printers.
So I guess in the future when you end up running a million or billion-dollar company, make sure not to fall into the same trap. Or just sell your company before it happens. I wish you the best of luck, I'm sure you'll be successful!
