I visited the Circuit City at the mall nearest my home which, by the way, houses a Best Buy. My intention was to buy two MP3 players, one for myself and one for my wife. Nothing fancy, just some small 4Gb flash memory players. We arrived at Circuit City to find the parking lot literally overflowing with cars. We managed to find another car pulling out just as we arrived and so did not need to wait. Well, we thought, the liquidation sale must be really something to attract this many shoppers.

In we went, and the first thing we saw was a long line of customers waiting to check out. As far as we could see, there were no signs offering store-wide discounts of any kind. Items were individually priced and some were marked "clearance" while others offered "every day low prices." We looked through the MP3 players and liked the Sansa Clip 4Mb flash players. These were being offered at $59.00 each. These tiny players would be just the thing for the gym, measuring only 1" by 2" and less than a half inch thick. I managed to grab a Circuit City employee and inquire about liquidation pricing. "Ten percent off everything," he replied. Ten percent? For waiting in that long line up front I would save six dollars on each of the Sansa Clip MP3 players? That's hardly what I was expecting.

The liquidation pricing at each Circuit City is determined by an agent of the liquidation company responsible for that particular store. While the store I visited offered only a ten percent discount, Brooke Crothers reported in his article at CNET.com that he saw a storewide 30 percent discount at his local Circuit City on the west coast. Your mileage may vary.

To make a long story short, I left Circuit City without making a purchase and tried my luck at Best Buy. The exact same Sansa Clip MP3 player was on sale there for $49. Four dollars less than Circuit City's liquidation pricing... Like many customers, and perhaps part of the reason for Circuit City's demise, I chose to make my purchase from Best Buy. I left Circuit City with nothing more than a brief feeling of nostalgia.

Author: Brad Sylvester