Fry's Electronics store in Palo Alto

Fry's Electronics is a large software, consumer electronics and computer superstore chain headquartered in Silicon Valley. Starting with one store located in Sunnyvale, California, USA, the chain now boasts over 32 stores scattered about several western states, and one each in Illinois, Indiana, and Georgia (near Atlanta). Frys Electronics logo This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... Consumer electronics is electronic equipment intended for use by everyday people. ... A computer is a machine for manipulating data according to a list of instructions - a program. ... Superstore is a name used for various kinds of large retail store. ... A view of downtown San Jose, the self-proclaimed Capital of Silicon Valley. Like many large cities, San Joses downtown is expansive and encompasses much more area than shown in this view. ... Nickname: Motto: Official website: http://www. ... The Western United States, also referred to as the American West or simply The West, traditionally refers to the region constituting the westernmost states of the United States (see geographical terminology section for further discussion of these terms). ... Official language(s) English Capital Springfield Largest city Chicago Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 25th 149,998 km² 340 km 629 km 4. ... Official language(s) English Capital Indianapolis Largest city Indianapolis Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 38th 94,321 km² 225 km 435 km 1. ... This article is about the state capital of Georgia. ...

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. Frys Food & Drug Stores is a grocery store chain that has huge presence in the state of Arizona. ... A shop that sells food, either a Supermarket or a much smaller place. ... Kroger headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. ...

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. An integrated circuit (IC) is a thin chip consisting of at least two interconnected semiconductor devices, mainly transistors, as well as passive components like resistors. ... Look up Geek in Wiktionary, the free dictionary A geek (pronounciation /gi:k/ ) is a person who is fascinated, perhaps obsessively, by obscure or very specific areas of knowledge and imagination. ... T-Shirt A T-shirt (or tee shirt) is a shirt with short or long sleeves, a round neck, put on over the head, without pockets. ... A view of downtown San Jose, the self-proclaimed Capital of Silicon Valley. Like many large cities, San Joses downtown is expansive and encompasses much more area than shown in this view. ... Thriving on Vague Objectives, the latest Dilbert book Dilbert animated series, episode 212 Dilbert is a popular American comic strip. ...

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. IC in a DIP14-Package In microelectronics, a dual in-line package (DIP), sometimes called a DIL package, is an electronic device package with a rectangular housing and a row of electrical connecting pins along each of two opposite sides, usually the longer sides of the rectangle. ... Campbell is a city located in Santa Clara County, California, part of Silicon Valley. ... Ancient Egypt was a civilization located along the Lower Nile, reaching from the Nile Delta in the north to as far south as Jebel Barkal at the time of its greatest extension (15th century BC). ... A tomb is a small building (or vault) for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. ... Dur-Untash, or Choqa zanbil, built in 13th century BC by Untash Napirisha, is one of the worlds best preserved ziggurats. ... Tutankhamun (alternate transcription Tutankhamen), named Tutankhaten early in his life, was Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt (1334 BC/1333 BC - 1323 BC), during the period known as the New Kingdom. ... Fountain Valley is a city located in Orange County, California. ... The Roman Forum was the central area around which ancient Rome developed. ... Pont du Gard, France, a Roman era aqueduct circa 19 BC, it is one of Frances top tourist attractions at over 1. ... Downtown Palo Alto Palo Alto is a city in Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA. Palo Alto is located at the northern end of the Silicon Valley, and is home to Stanford University (which is technically located in an adjacent area — Stanford, California), and... Great Basin region, typical American West The Western United States has played a significant role in history and fiction. ... Woodland Hills is a community within the City of Los Angeles. ... Alice in Wonderland is the widely known and used title for Alices Adventures in Wonderland, a book written by Lewis Carroll -- as well as several movie adaptations of the book -- and is also the setting for several short stories. ... This article or section should be merged with Burbank, Los Angeles County, California This article is about the Burbank in Southern California. ... The Berryessa District in San Jose, California is located in the northeast portion of the city, between Coyote Creek and the Diablo Range foothills. ... Nickname: Capital of Silicon Valley Motto: Official website: http://www. ... Nickname: The Entertainment Capital of the World Motto: Official website: http://www. ... Downtown Austin Nickname: Live Music Capital of the World, ATX Official website: www. ... Best Buy is sometimes called the big blue box because of the prominent design on Best Buy stores resembling a blue box. ... Incredible Universe was the name of a chain of consumer-electronics stores in the mid-90s. ...

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. Campbell is a city located in Santa Clara County, California, part of Silicon Valley. ... The Bose Corporation is a privately held American company based in Framingham, Massachusetts that specializes in audio equipment. ... Closeup of a loudspeaker driver A loudspeaker, or simply speaker, is an electromechanical transducer which converts an electrical signal into sound. ...

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. This article is about the city in Saudi Arabia. ...

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, Fry's sells all the parts for a consumer to make their own. Best Buy is sometimes called the big blue box because of the prominent design on Best Buy stores resembling a blue box. ...

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, rectal thermometers, and body massagers are not re-sold, according to policy.

Customer service

Many, but not all, 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. Another large joke is the amount of paperwork and the ancient sales computers. The process by which Fry's accepts business checks and personal checks is much longer than that at other stores, and often involves calling banks that are closed or hard to reach to verify funds. Depending on a customer's previous check history, the time of day and the amount involved in the purchase, paying by check often takes over ten minutes and in some cases has taken over 30 minutes. Customer service is the set of behaviors that a business undertakes during its interaction with its customers. ... An in joke is a joke whose humour is clear only to those people who are in a group that has some prior knowledge (not known by the whole population) that makes the joke humorous. ... Look up Geek in Wiktionary, the free dictionary A geek (pronounciation /gi:k/ ) is a person who is fascinated, perhaps obsessively, by obscure or very specific areas of knowledge and imagination. ... A target market is the market segment which a particular product is marketed to. ...

Moreover, Fry's still uses a paper-based system for gift certificates, forgoing the more modern, and less susceptible to forgery, gift card format.

Fry's advertising slogan is "Your Best Buys Are Always At Fry's, Guaranteed," as featured at the end of television 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 in the Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register as well. The Mercs sections vary by day of the week, but Business, Sports, and The Valley are standard daily fare. ... The Austin American-Stateman is the major daily newspaper for Austin, Texas, the capital city of Texas. ... Friday is the fifth day of the week, falling between Thursday and Saturday. ... The Los Angeles Times (also known as the LA Times) is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California and distributed throughout the western United States. ... The Orange County Register is a daily newspaper published in Santa Ana, California. ...

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 sold out once one arrives at the store. On almost all days it is very rare for a Fry's store to run out of advertised items. But such is not the case on the massive one day sale events at Fry's. 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 sale prices that are usually done. Extreme cases involve a computer usually sold for $299.99 being sold for $99.99, and a TV usually sold for $349.99 being sold for $99.00. On these massive one day sale events, long lines of customers form early in the morning, long before the 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. store opening. On these days, it is common for the most drastically reduced items to sell out early in the day, and for a large numbers of customers coming in later in the day to be disappointed by the unavailability of these items. A bait and switch is a form of fraud in which the fraudster lures in customers by advertising a good at an unprofitably low price, then reveals to potential customers that the advertised good is not available but that a substitute good is. ... Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, is historically one of the busiest retail shopping days of the year. ...

On the day that the fourth Harry Potter book was released, Fry's had it on sale that day for only $13.99, much lower than the suggested retail price. Stores typically began the day with 400 to 800 copies, and despite such copious supply, many stores ran out of this book before noon, leaving hundreds of customers disappointed when they came in later in the day.

When an item has a drastically reduced price, often the advertisement will say "Limit 1 Per Customer." However, it is very common for some patrons to checkout line multiple times, disregarding the supposed "limit". Some complain that this causes sale items to disappear in a matter of minutes, as the earliest customers simply cycle through the line multiple times in order to purchase more than one of the said good.

"Renting"

Fry's is noted for stocking refurbished, returned, or previously used items. The prices at Fry's are almost always the same as at its competitors. Also, the terms of its return policy is almost identical to many competitors, allowing a 30 day return period for most items and a 15 day return period for some items. Fry's has never charged a restocking fee from customers who return an item that has been opened and used, as some of its competitors, like CompUSA, have done in the past. All kinds of stores have problems with return fraud, and by not having re-stocking fees Fry's can be a primary target for fraudulent return attempts.

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 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. Even the people who process returned merchandise get a commission whereby when customers as a whole buy more and return less, these people get paid more. 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.

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, and those in the Customer Relations area.

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 also 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. In addition 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. 1. ... The Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), commonly known as HP, is a very large, global company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. ... Sony Corporation (Japanese katakana: ソニー) (TYO: 6758 , NYSE: SNE) is a global Japanese consumer electronics, financial services and entertainment corporation based in Tokyo, Japan. ... Compaq was a personal computer company founded in 1982 by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto. ... Linspire, previously known as LindowsOS (also Lin---s, pronounced as Lindash), is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian. ... Tux is the official Linux mascot. ... Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT, SEHK: 4338) is the worlds largest software corporation, with 2005 global annual sales of close to $40 billion USD and about 64,000 employees in 85 countries and regions. ...

Locations and themes

Nickname: Motto: Official website: http://www. ... A computer is a machine for manipulating data according to a list of instructions - a program. ... Nickname: Motto: Official website: http://www. ... Great Basin region, typical American West The Western United States has played a significant role in history and fiction. ... Manhattan Beach is a city located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 33,852. ... Map of Tahiti Tahiti is the largest island of French Polynesia. ... Campbell is a city located in Santa Clara County, California, part of Silicon Valley. ... Ancient Egypt was a civilization located along the Lower Nile, reaching from the Nile Delta in the north to as far south as Jebel Barkal at the time of its greatest extension (15th century BC). ... Fountain Valley is a city located in Orange County, California. ... The Roman Forum was the central area around which ancient Rome developed. ... Woodland Hills is a community within the City of Los Angeles. ... John Tenniels illustration for A Mad Tea-Party, 1865 Illustration by Arthur Rackham Alices Adventures in Wonderland is a work of childrens literature by the British mathematician and author, Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, written under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. ... Nickname: Capital of Silicon Valley Motto: Official website: http://www. ... The word Maya or maya can refer to: The Maya – a Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America the modern Maya people the pre-Columbian Maya civilization the Maya language Maya – a concept in Hindu/Vedic philosophy a state of misperception of reality the inherent force of... Nickname: Motto: Official website: http://www. ... NASA logo Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2005-09-01, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... 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Athanasius Kirchers map of a possible Atlantis location. ... Nickname: The Entertainment Capital of the World Motto: Official website: http://www. ... The south end of The Strip. ... Industry (or City of Industry) is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. ... A Watt steam engine in Madrid. ... Downtown Houston Nickname: Space City Official website: www. ... Nickname: Renton, Ahead of the Curve Motto: Official website: http://ci. ... Downers Grove, Illinois Downers Grove is a suburb located 19 miles west of Chicago, Illinois in DuPage County, Illinois. ... Nickname: An All-American City Motto: Official website: http://www. ... Webster is a city located in Harris County, Texas. ... Space exploration is the physical exploration of outer space objects and generally anything that involves the technologies, science, and politics regarding space endeavors. ... Irving is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas within Dallas County. ... 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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 Electronics and is the first mention of Fry's Electronics in published fiction.

Wired is a full-color monthly magazine and on-line periodical published in San Francisco, California since March 1993. ... Rudy von Bitter Rucker (born March 22, 1946) is an American computer scientist and science fiction author, often included in lists of cyberpunk authors. ...

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