Fry's Electronics

Infobox Company
company_name = Fry's Electronics, Inc.
company_
vector_
company_type = Private
genre =
foundation = 1985
founder =
location_city = San Jose, California
location_country = United States
location =
origins =
key_people = John Fry (CEO), Randy Fry (President), Dave Fry (CIO) Kathryn J. Kolder (Executive Vice President), Omar Siddiqui (Vice President of Merchandising Operations and Advertising).
area_served =
industry =
products =
revenue = $2.4B
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees = 300 employees per store
parent =
divisions =
subsid =
owner =
company_slogan = Home of Fast, Friendly, Courteous Service Your Best Buys are always at Fry's!
homepage = [http://www.frys.com http://www.frys.com]
dissolved =
footnotes =

Fry's Electronics is a specialty retailer of software, consumer electronics, computer hardware and household appliances with a chain of superstores headquartered in Silicon Valley. Starting with one store located in Sunnyvale, California, USA, the chain now boasts sales of $2.4B [ [http://www.hoovers.com/fry's-electronics/--ID__40949--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml Hoover's entry for Fry's Electronics] ] with over 30 stores located in several Western states, two near Atlanta, Georgia, multiple locations in Texas, and one each in Illinois and Indiana.

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. [Pat Lopes Harris, "Fry's mystique: timing, focus, frugality—and lots of advertising," "San Jose Business Journal" 17, no. 39 (14 January 2000): 52.] 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. [Cite web|url=http://kepler.ss.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C1270788|title=California Secretary of State - Corporation Search Results|accessdate=2007-01-02|publisher=California Secretary of State|work=C1270788] Today, Fry's Food and Drug stores (which still share a similar logo) are not affiliated with Fry's Electronics, and are owned and operated by Kroger. [ [http://www.thekrogerco.com/ Kroger's website] showing its ownership of the Fry's "brand"]

The original Sunnyvale store (located near the intersection of Oakmead Parkway & Lakeside Drive) stocked numerous high-tech supplies such as integrated circuits, test and measurement equipment, and computer components, as well as software and various other types of consumer electronics. The store also sold technical books, T-shirts, and featured displays of soda, snack foods, and copies of Playboy Magazine.

The second store to open was in Fremont, on Mission Court. This was the store that pioneered the "theme" stores. It had a space theme and had many artifacts from the original Battlestar Galactica TV series. This was the first store that had people from Industrial Light and Magic help design the store environments.

As the business expanded, the original Sunnyvale store was closed, and a newer, larger store was opened across Lawrence Expressway on Kern Avenue. The second Sunnyvale store was designed to look like the innards of a giant computer, the walls were adorned with simulated circuit components, and the floor resembled a giant printed circuit board. The outside of the building was painted to look like a huge DIP integrated circuit, and the external door handles were designed like the ENTER and ESC keys on a Computer keyboard. As of 2007, this store is now a Sports Basement store (which still bears some of the door handle keys); Fry's moved to the current Sunnyvale location (shown in the images) previously.

Because Fry's stores are enormous, often stocking dozens of variations of a single product, they are 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 selection. In addition, Best Buy sells fully built computers, while Fry's sells computers and the parts consumers need to build their own from scratch.

As of May 2007, Fry's Electronics operates 34 brick-and-mortar stores in nine U.S. states: California (17 stores - Most Recent: Roseville,California); Texas (8); Arizona (2); Georgia (2); Illinois (1); Indiana (1); Nevada (1); Oregon (1); and Washington (1).

tore Themes

Following the lead of the Fremont store, new Fry's locations continued the use of elaborate themes and various designed props until well into the late 1990s. The original Fry's electronics store in Sunnyvale was themed to look like the inside of a computer, complete with large "Enter" and "Esc" keys on the entrance and exit doors. 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. A flying saucer protrudes from the front of the store. After all construction and expenses, including land purchase and theming, the Burbank store cost $15 million to open. Fact|date=February 2007

Some additional themes include, California stores: Tahiti (Manhattan Beach), Roman (Fountain Valley), Wild West (Palo Alto), Mayan Temple (San Jose), Alice in Wonderland (Woodland Hills), Silicon Valley (Sunnyvale), Egyptian (Campbell), 1893 Chicago World's Fair (Fremont), Industrial Revolution (City of Industry), Movies (Sacramento), NASA Space Center (Anaheim), 19th-Century California Railroads (Roseville), and Atlantis (San Marcos). Arizona stores: Aztec (Phoenix). Nevada stores: History of the Strip (Las Vegas). Texas Stores: Music Industry (Austin), Lazy-K Ranch (Dallas), Oil Industry (Houston) and Space Exploration, including a replica of the International Space Station (Webster). [ [http://www.frys.com/isp/history.html History of Fry's Electronics] ] In recent years, since Fry's acquired the Incredible Universe chain of stores, the company has reduced the elaborateness of its theming.

Criticism

Fry's Electronics has seen criticism through the years. In 1997, Forbes reported on a series of issues relating to Fry's customer service issues and somewhat unorthodox business practices. Among the findings, an internal policy identified as "the double H" or "hoops and hurdles" it was alleged to have been designed and employed in part to excessively delay or prevent customers from obtaining refunds. [ [http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/1103/6010086a_2.html The customer is always right? Not at Fry's - Forbes.com ] ]

In 1998, Fry's received attention when it was published that a number of customers had been reporting frustrating customer service experiences at Fry's stores. [Julie Schmit, "Techies flock to Fry's despite its flaws," "USA Today", 11 February 1998, 1B.]

Fry's pays its employees' benefits using a VEBA (Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association), and maintains a policy that all employees forfeit any accrued vacation pay upon leaving the company, even when employees work in states like California which mandate that vacation benefits accrue and are to be treated as wages. [Fry's Company Handbook, page 11]

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, a processor normally sold in computers for developing countries. They also market accessories like cables and CD-R discs under the GQ brand name. Also notable are the ECS brand motherboards that are frequently bundled with processors to make them virtually free. The GQ brand of computers has not been sold at most of the stores now for over a year.

Emprex brand products are manufactured by Behavior Tech Computer (BTC) of Taiwan for Fry's Electronics. Products marketed under the brand include high-definition televisions, flash drives, and computer peripherals such as monitors.

Online sales operation

Fry's Electronics was late in establishing an online sales presence. They began offering low-cost Internet access in 2000 through their original Web address (Frys.com). [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20001018065527/http://www.frys.com/ archive.org] lookup frys.com entry for October 18, 2000.] The company later bought e-commerce website Cyberian Outpost on November 2001 and started online sales with a different URL (Outpost.com), [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20020914074223/http://www.outpost.com/ archive.org] lookup outpost.com entry for September 14, 2002.] which confused customers who didn't associate the online name with the brick-and-mortar store. [ [http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2042816,00.asp Fry's Electronics (Finally) Launches Online Store] ] In October 2006, a grand re-opening of Frys.com introduced the online store with the same name as the retail outlets. [ [http://news.com.com/2100-1017-237110.html Fry's may launch ISP as part of new Net strategy] ] [ [http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_archive.html Fergie's tech blog 10/21/06] ]

As of July 2008, browsing to Outpost.com redirects to the Frys.com online store.

Acquisition of domain name

The Domain name "frys.com" was owned in 1997 by David Peter, who manufactured and sold french-fry vending machines under the business name "Frenchy Frys". Fry's Electronics brought suit against him that year, alleging trademark infringement, [ [http://www.igoldrush.com/threads1-2.htm The fight over "frys.com"] ] and ultimately prevailed in a default judgement. [ [http://www.fenwick.com/docstore/Publications/IP/Securing_and_Protecting.pdf Securing and Protecting a Domain Name for your Web Site] ] [ [http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/08.19.99/cover/domains2-9933.html Invasion of the Domain Snatchers] ]

Since then, Fry's Electronics has aggressively tried to defend its trademark and domain names. In 2001, it successfully prosecuted a man who was posting its own print ads on the Web using the domain "frysad.com". [ [http://news.com.com/Frys+accuses+site+owner+of+cybersquatting/2100-1017_3-253096.html Fry's accuses site owner of cybersquatting] ] In 2007, Fry's Electronics lost a domain dispute against Prophet Partners Inc., an online advertising company with thousands of generic and descriptive domain names. The arbitrator dismissed the complaint, which requested transfer of the "Frys.us" domain, ruling that Fry's Electronics did not have any more right to use the "Fry's" mark, than other entities with a similar surname or commercial use of the word. [ [http://www.nic.us/policies/docs/aaa/Award_49_413_1_06.pdf Report of Arbitration Between Fry's Electronics and Prophet Partners] ]

References

Further reading

* " [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.07/negroponte.html 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.

External links

* [http://www.frys.com/ Fry's Electronics official website]
* [http://www.frys.com/isp/history.html Fry's Electronics History]