Fry's Electronics

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Fry's Electronics, Inc.
Type	Private
Founded	1985
Headquarters	San Jose, California, United States
Key people	John Fry, Randy Fry, Dave Fry, Kathryn J. Kolder
Employees	300 employees per store
Slogan	Home of Fast, Friendly, Courteous Service ® Your Best Buys are always at Fry's!
Website	http://www.frys.com

Fry's Electronics is a specialty retailer of software, consumer electronics, and computer superstores headquartered in Silicon Valley. Starting with one store located in Sunnyvale, California, USA, the chain now boasts sales of $2.4B^[1] with over 30 stores located in several Western states, two near Atlanta, Georgia, two in Arizona, multiple locations in Texas, and one each in Illinois, Indiana, and Washington.

Contents 1 History 2 Criticism 3 Advertising 4 House brands 5 Locations 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

[edit] History

In 1972, Charles Fry sold the Fry's Supermarkets chain for USD $40 million and gave a cut of the money to each of his sons, John, Randy, and Dave.^[2] The Fry brothers had little interest in grocery store retailing. Instead, in 1985, they joined together with a fourth partner, Kathryn Kolder, to open the first Fry's Electronics store at a 20,000 square foot (2,000 m²) site in Sunnyvale, California.^[3] Today, Fry's Food & Drug stores are not affiliated with Fry's Electronics, but are owned and operated by Kroger.^[4]

The original Sunnyvale store stocked numerous high-tech supplies such as integrated circuits, test and measurement equipment, computer components, as well as software and various other types of consumer electronics and home appliances. The store also sold technical books, T-shirts, and even featured massive displays of soda and snack foods.

As the business expanded, the original Sunnyvale store (located near Oakmead Parkway and Lakeside Drive) was closed, and a newer, larger store was opened across Lawrence Expressway on Kern Avenue. The now-closed Kern Avenue store pioneered a concept that endures to this day: store themes. Designed to look like the innards of a giant computer, the walls were adorned, 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.

Following the lead of the Kern Avenue store, new Fry's locations continued the use of elaborate themes and various painstakingly designed props until well into the late 1990s. For example, the Burbank store which opened in 1995 is themed primarily after 1950s and 1970s science fiction movies and features huge statues of popular characters such as the robot Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still and Darth Vader from the Star Wars movie series. In addition, 100-foot-long giant ants (from the movie Them) hang from the ceiling, and 1957 Chevys and Buicks were gutted for use as dining tables in the cafe. Even a flying saucer protudes from the front of the store. After all construction and expenses, including land purchase and theming, the Burbank store cost $15 million to open.^{[citation needed]} In recent years, since Fry's acquired the Incredible Universe chain of stores, the company has drastically reduced the elaborateness of its theming.

Because Fry's stores are enormous, often stocking hundreds of copies of a single product, they are quite popular with electronics and computer hobbyists. As of 2005, Best Buy, the nationwide consumer electronics retailer, is the main competitor to Fry's. However, Fry's stores have more retail floor space and have a wider and much more advanced selection than those of Best Buy. In addition, Best Buy only sells fully built computers with some basic accessories, while Fry's sells all the parts for consumers to build their own. Fry's also tends to have a more upscale atmosphere with hardwood floors, and employees with collared shirts and ties; many of the newer stores even have in-store cafes.

[edit] Criticism

A number of customers have reported frustrating customer service experiences at Fry's stores.^[5] Some of these customers have established websites to discuss their experiences. In addition to this, the Fry's online site Outpost.com is not integrated with the physical stores, and thus one cannot receive service from Fry's stores for a product purchased on Outpost.com. In 2006, Outpost.com was renamed "Frys.com," and in December of that year, Fry's/Outpost was the 30th-lowest ranked company out of 11,000 stores on the ResellerRatings.com website [2] (694 reviews). As of early 2007, the site is currently undergoing major renovations, presumably to resolve these issues.

Fry's returns policy limits most returns to a maximum of 30 days. Some notable exceptions include notebook computers, air conditioners, CD and DVD burners, cameras, and other items which are limited to only 15 days.

Fry's has a practice of repackaging some of its returned merchandise and reselling it at a slight discount--almost always 5%--alongside new merchandise. Usually there is a tag stating that the package has been returned, and a list of missing items. According to Fry's, 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. However, according to reports on the aforementioned customer-created websites, incomplete items (such as missing cables, documents or accompanying software) may indicate this policy is regularly violated.

[edit] 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 eight-page Fry's "section" appears within both newspapers along with The Arizona Republic. Similar four-page sections appear weekly in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Contra Costa Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dallas Morning News, Orange County Register, Chicago Tribune, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Houston Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, The Oregonian and Indianapolis Star as well.

Fry's also produces television and radio advertisements featuring their company slogan, "Your Best Buys Are Always At Fry's, Guaranteed." Rebate pricing is a mainstay in Fry's advertisements, although Fry's usually will not match prices from their website, Frys.com.

[edit] 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 Microsoft Windows PC offerings from Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Compaq. In addition, they offer a lower end model branded as Great Quality (or "GQ") PCs. GQ PCs tend to be Fry's most inexpensive PC offerings, often priced in the sub-$200 range during daily and weekly sales. GQ PCs are often bundled with the Linspire Linux based OS as well as Windows, one of the few Linux offerings available in a retail PC configuration. Some of their Linux PCs feature AMD Geode processors, unusual in the United States, since they are mainly sold in computers for developing countries. They also market accessories like cables and CD-R discs under the GQ brandname.

[edit] Locations

Store Number	Location	Theme	Date Opened
1	Sunnyvale, California	no theme (closed, relocated to store 4)	1985
2	Fremont, California	Inside a Spacehip (closed, relocated to store 21)	ca. 1990
3	Palo Alto, California	Wild west
4	Sunnyvale, California	Inside the Computer (closed, relocated to store 12)	ca. 1991
5	Manhattan Beach, California	Tahiti	1989
6	Campbell, California	Ancient Egypt	1991
7	Fountain Valley, California	Ancient Rome
8	Woodland Hills, California	Alice in Wonderland	1996
9	San Jose, California	Mayan	1999
10	Anaheim, California	NASA flight deck	1992
11	Burbank, California	50s-70s Science fiction	1995
12	Sunnyvale, California	History of Silicon Valley	1998
14	Sacramento, California	none yet (former Incredible Universe)
15	San Diego, California	Aircraft Carrier (former Incredible Universe)	1994
16	Wilsonville, Oregon	none yet (former Incredible Universe)
17	Tempe, Arizona	none yet (former Incredible Universe)
18	Dallas, Texas	Lazy-K Ranch (former Incredible Universe)
19	Arlington, Texas	none yet (former Incredible Universe)
20	Phoenix, Arizona	Aztec
21	Fremont, California	1893 World's Fair	2000
22	Austin, Texas	music industry
23	Houston, Texas	oil industry
24	Concord, California	History of Concord
25	San Marcos, California	Atlantis
26	Roseville, California	Roseville's Railroad History	April 2007
27	Las Vegas, Nevada	Las Vegas Strip
28	City Of Industry, California	Industrial revolution	1998
29	South Houston, Texas	South Houston's pioneer heritage
30	Renton, Washington	Renton's industrial evolution	2003
31	Downers Grove, Illinois	History of Downers Grove	2004
32	Alpharetta, Georgia	History of Alpharetta	2006
33	Plano, Texas	History of the railroad's influence in the region	2005
34	Webster, Texas, a suburb of Houston, Texas	History of space exploration, with emphasis on the International Space Station
37	Irving, Texas	History of Irving
38	Duluth, Georgia	History of Duluth, GA	2004
43	Fishers, Indiana	Auto racing/Indianapolis 500
44	Oxnard, California	History of Oxnard	2005

[edit] References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Pat Lopes Harris, "Fry's mystique: timing, focus, frugality—and lots of advertising," San Jose Business Journal 17, no. 39 (14 January 2000): 52.
3. ^ California Secretary of State - Corporation Search Results. C1270788. California Secretary of State. Retrieved on January 2, 2007.
4. ^ Kroger's website showing its ownership of the Fry's "brand"
5. ^ Julie Schmit, "Techies flock to Fry's despite its flaws," USA Today, 11 February 1998, 1B.

[edit] Further reading

• "The Future of Retail," Wired 6.07, July 1999, 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.

[edit] 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)
• 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