Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

How have the mighty fallen..

This Dentsville Best Buy across from Columbia Mall used to be my go-to place for quick buys of computer and networking equipment when I had my previous job. It was also a good place for DVDs & CDs, back when those were a thing. Lately I have had much less need to test various networking configurations or throw together new linux & Windows installs, so my visits had become much more rare. I did feel that the merchandise was starting to rattle around in this huge building a bit as they kind of thinned out the inventory. I also felt it was becoming much more common to find unstocked gaps on the shelves where tags indicated your item *should* be, and for finding items which seemed to be completely untagged or priced..

Of course the root cause of all of those symptoms is the ongoing "creative destruction" of retailing as we have known it. It's simply the case now that I will only hit a Best Buy if I need something *today*; otherwise it's Amazon. That said, I'm still surprised they didn't stay open through the holiday shopping season.

Here's The State story announcing the closing.

Well, this is Columbia's other H. H. Gregg, closing as part of the same liquidation as the Sandhill store. Goody's is the most prominent former holder of this spot -- I'm not sure who could take on this much floor space now.

I was sure I had done a closing for 230 Forum Drive before, but looking at Alphabetical Closings, I don't see anything.

At any rate, H. H. Gregg is the latest casualty of the ongoing Amazon-era retail meltdown. With the closing of Circuit City, I thought that the appliance & electronics big box market would be able to support the two remaining stores, Gregg and Best Buy, but in the event I guess not. For that matter, it still remains to be seen if *one* store is sustainable long term.

I believe this is the only H. H. Gregg I have ever been in, and I was only in it once. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just checking it out, and as I recall, my impression was that I liked Best Buy better.

Here is a very interesting article from The Indianapolis Business Journal about this Indianapolis based company, its storied history, and the path to bankruptcy this March 7th and then quickly after that, the slide into liquidation:

In the early 1980s, when Detroit-based appliance retailer Fretter Inc. entered Indianapolis and challenged HHGregg on its home turf, HHGregg bought full-page ads in the Detroit newspapers hawking its own merchandise and offering free shipping.

Those were heady days for HHGregg, which built a loyal following in Indianapolis with an unwavering focus on customer service; an army of well-paid, full-time commissioned salespeople; and an avalanche of advertising that resonated with consumers.

It was a winning formula for founders H.H. and Fansy Gregg, who opened the first store at 4930 N. Keystone Ave. in 1955, and for the family members who helped build the chain to more than 200 locations in the decades that followed.

“The customer-first attitude came from Mr. and Mrs. Gregg,” said Ken Beckley, an HHGregg executive from 1983 to 2001 who also was the face of the company’s advertising. “When I was there, we preached to employees that job No. 1 is to take good care of the customer. If you do that, profits will follow. We never put profits first. We put customers first, and it paid off.”

The strategy helped fell a long list of rivals—including Fretter and Highland Superstores Inc., another Detroit chain that dove into Indianapolis in the early 1980s. Both firms later skidded into bankruptcy, with a Highland executive calling Indianapolis its “Death Valley.” In 1998, Circuit City Stores Inc., then a retail powerhouse, arrived in Indianapolis, only to land in liquidation a decade later.

Now, done in by a long list of problems—including overexpansion and a collapse in sales of consumer electronics, once its biggest business—HHGregg is joining the trash heap of failed appliance and electronics retailers.

The company’s demise has been unfolding in slow motion for years, but the final unraveling came with breathtaking speed.

Reminds me of Hemingway's famous quote.

Aside from Gregg, this can't be very good for Sandhill either.

After after the huge Radio Shack die-off of a year or so ago, the only two Radio Shack locations I could think of that were still open, were this one by Kmart in Lexington, and one in Murrells Inlet. Now that this one is going, I will have to keep my eye on the Grand Strand location.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)

Here is the Radio Shack in the Wal Mart complex at the old Bush River Mall site.

I see this storefront has already attracted another business: Laptops For Less. It's a little odd that the Radio Shack marquee is still up there. Usually a chain which is still in some form of existence wants their logo off of former locations. And there *are* still some open stores though the present continued existence of RS as an entity is pretty tenuous at the moment.

Well, here is this week's closed Radio Shack.

This one was on Two Notch Road in front of Target, and can't have been helped by being so close to Best Buy though I believe this store predates that. In the event, I don't believe I ever shopped this store.

I don't believe I ever went into this Radio Shack in the Food Lion plaza in Five Points. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever been into any business in this plaza other than Food Lion, unless you go back far enough to count Peaches and Sears.

You know the drill about Radio Shack by this point.

Another day, another Radio Shack. Sic transit gloria mundi.

This one is in the Wal Mart plaza at Forest & I-77, and is I believe the same operating unit that was originally in a free-standing building near the current Forest Drive Rite Aid and then in Trenholm Plaza. If so, this is the Radio Shack that I historically cut my teeth at. I used to take tubes to be tested at the freestanding location all the time, and bought (or talked my parents into buying) a number of hobby kits there. Later, I was a member of the Battery Of The Month club at the Trenholm Plaza location, and got what I call my "lucky" screwdrivers as a free BOTM gift there. ('Lucky' in that I've had them for over 30 years now, and have never lost or broken them -- yet). I remember I used to manage my BOTM days so that I could get one battery on the last day of a month, and then the next day, get another on the first day of the next month. [This was important since, a) it always took at least two batteries to do anything, and b) I never had any money]

I don't believe I ever actually went into this store after it moved to the current location. By that time, I was living out of town, had enough money to buy batteries, and had bid adieu to vacuum tubes.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

Another day, another Radio Shack.

This is the one in Parkland Plaza in Cayce, and is another casualty of the chain's bankruptcy.

UPDATE 14 March 2015 -- Gone:

Well, it's been all over the news, but this is the first Radio Shack I've driven past since the bankruptcy announcement.

This store is in Woodhill strip at the top of the lot, parallel to Garners Ferry. I've actually been inside several times over the last year, once for a AC adaptor, once for some CD-R media and once for something that currently slips my mind. The product mix is now a far cry from the old parts & kits era, or even the TRS-80 era, but still I can't see that another Sprint store is really an improvement.