Tuesday, November 11, 2008

General Motors and Circuit City file for bankruptcy

Just saw the news on Yahoo

General Motors and Circuit City in the US have filed for bankruptcy. Both are big companies in the US..and I do expect more to be coming, especially the non-financial companies. Its time the effect actually hit these companies.



I could see the bankruptcy of Circuit City coming as I was in the US at the start of the year for a school exchange program.
The reason I went to visit Circuit City was because a US friend of mine was buying a new laptop. When I was visiting the shop ,I was shocked. Because :
  • The 1 storey building is huge, around 1/2 a soccer field, bigger than any Singapore electronics shop
  • The number of Plasma TVs, Home theater system is really crazy, imagine the amount of power it uses
  • BUT, there was less than 10 customers in the shop, and it was at around 7-8pm, essentially many many more staff than customers
  • Customer service was really bad. We spent like 1/2 hr waiting for the sales assistant to get the laptop from the storeroom. Worst still, we had to spend a full 15min waiting at the counter before the person actually attended to us. Considering the fact that there were MANY other staff personal around the counter, but just not behind the counter
  • Things in general are more expensive than eBay,amazon and other online shops. According to my friend, US consumers are shifting towards eShopping so its inevitable such shops will have to close down soon..

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