Circuit City Store Design

Most Circuit City stores are pretty similar. Not identical like Best Buys, but relatively similar. This morning, though, I had to go to one and I was compeltely thrown off. It was entirely different than any other Bircuit Bity store I'd ever been in.

First of all, it just didn't seem like they had all that much stuff. Secondly, the layout was confusing. To pick up a USB card reader, I was directed to computers and eventually stumbled my way to one display that seemed to have nothing but cards and card readers. But, it turns out, the card reader I was looking for was on another display, halfway across the store. Of course!

The checkout process at Circuit City has always been a bit confusing ("Sure, you can checkout anywhere there's a terminal... if you can find someone!"). Here, it was only confusing because they put the checkout counter in the front corner of the store, easy to miss when walking in, even though it's pretty large. Then, after checking out, I expected to be able to walk out a certain way, only to realize that, no, there's no door there. Unlike other Circuit Cities that have two or three sets of doors, this one only has one. No wonder they had a greeter at the front -- she also made sure that no one walked into a glass window thinking it was a door ("Everyone thinks they can go out that way" she told me. Great design!).

So, that's Circuit City in 2008 for you. Generally unimpressive, poorly designed, and only occasionally decent with their pricing.