Circuit city was founded in 1949 by Samuel Wurtzel under the original name or Ward’s. Due to Wurtzel’s business skills, President Kennedy appointed him to the U.S. Foreign Trade Mission to Switzerland and Austria. Originally opened as a television store, Circuit City has come to sell almost all electronic goods ranging from television and video products to cell phones and car stereo equipment.
Circuit city competes in a consumer electronic market. The main competitors of Circuit City are Best Buy, Comp USA, Wal-Mart, RadioShack, and Amazon.com. Second in sales in this industry, Circuit City operates more than 600 stores nation wide and an additional 1,000 stores in Canada under its subsidiary InterTan Inc.
While Circuit City normally sells a wide variety of products from different companies, in 2004 it stated carrying their own product line. This line includes LCD computer monitors through their Liquid Video brand, other consumer electronics through Verge, and easy, simple, affordable products through ESA brand.
Circuit city grew rapidly between the 1960’s and 1980’s. During the 1990’s the sales rate leveled off and in 1999 their revenue passed the $10 billion mark. They have been trying to revitalize the chain by eliminating certain products, such as appliances, and by lowering operating costs. Currently Circuit City is at a maturity level with declining sales and revenue.
Over the past 55 years Circuit City has transformed from a small local television store to an international chain of superstores. Circuit City will continue to be a competitive company in the consumer electronics industry as long as they offer a strategic plan that leads to larger sales.
We decided to choose Circuit City because we wanted to learn more about a company that was in risk of having to make many changes to compete in the technology world. Since there are so many companies competing in this field we though it would be interesting to see the possibility of success in a company who is revitalizing their company’s structure.
