Fry's Electronics: История сети магазинов электроники для профессионалов Кремниевой долины.

Former American big box store electronics retailer
the Fry's electronics stores

In 1972, Charles Fry sold the Fry's Supermarkets chain based in California for US$14 million to Dillons. He gave a portion of the proceeds, around $1 million, to each of his sons, John (who had worked as the IT manager for the supermarket chain), W. Randolph (who goes by the nickname "Randy"), and David, none of whom had much interest in grocery store retailing. Today, Fry's Food and Drug stores are owned and operated by Kroger, and are not affiliated with Fry's Electronics, although they have similar logos. John's idea was to use the model of grocery retailing, with which the brothers were familiar, to sell computer and electronics supplies. The original Sunnyvale store (located near the intersection of Oakmead Parkway and Lakeside Drive At first, roughly half the store was stocked with groceries, including fresh produce, but the groceries section quickly diminished to displays of soft drinks and snack foods. The store billed itself as "The One Stop Shop for the Silicon Valley Professional", as one could buy both electronics and groceries (computer chips and potato chips) at the same time. Most components from most OEMs, were available for purchase, to assemble a desktop computer, à la carte. As the business expanded, the original Sunnyvale store closed, and a newer, larger store was opened across Lawrence Expressway on Kern Avenue. The second Sunnyvale store was designed to look like the interior of a giant computer; the walls were adorned with simulated circuit components, and the floor resembled a giant printed circuit board. The exterior was painted to mimic a huge DIP integrated circuit, and the door handles imitated the ENTER and ESC keys on a computer keyboard; since 2005, this store has housed a Sports Basement store (which still bore some of the door handle keys until sometime between 2009 and 2013). Fry's moved again to its final Sunnyvale location at 1077 E Arques Ave. at the corner of Arques and Santa Trinita Ave, the former site of a facility of the Link Flight Simulation Division of the Singer Corporation. Each of the three Sunnyvale store locations was located within of the others. Because Fry's stores were enormous, stocking a wide range of each product category, they were popular with electronics and computer hobbyists and professionals. One of the few stores to challenge Fry's in all dimensions (production selection and store wide themes) was Incredible Universe, a series of Tandy (Radio Shack) superstores, which were established in 1992, bought out, and converted into Fry's in 1996. Historically, Circuit City and CompUSA were major competitors in the computer space, but they collapsed during the late 2000s recession, leaving Microcenter and Newegg as Fry's main competitors. In August 2014, Fry's Electronics operated 34 brick and mortar stores in 9 U. S. states: California (17), Texas (8), Arizona (2), Georgia (2), and one each in Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. In August 2019, Fry's announced that it would close its oldest extant location in Palo Alto, by January 2020; the company said its lease at the location would not be renewed. On September 10, 2019, The Mercury News reported that customers were finding barren shelves in most stores, speculating that the chain was about to fold; Fry's responded by stating the company was changing to a consignment model with its vendors and was not planning to close any store other than Palo Alto. However, on January 7, 2020, The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that the Fry's location in Duluth, Georgia, was shuttered without advance notice during the 2019 holiday season. On February 25, 2020, Fry's announced that they would close their Anaheim location by March 2, 2020. On November 10, 2020, Fry's closed its Campbell location permanently without notice.

On the evening of February 23, 2021, several internet sources began claiming employees were given notice that all remaining stores would close to the public nationwide, with the Frys. com website scheduled to go offline at 12:00 am PST. The company deleted its Facebook page, and set the company Twitter account to protected, hiding all activity. Bay Area broadcaster KRON TV confirmed the closure later that evening. Fry's officially entered General assignment on April 2, 2021, and began to liquidate all remaining assets, including owned real estate with Hilco Global.

In 1997, Forbes reported on a series of issues about Fry's customer service and unorthodox business practices. Among the allegations was that the company had an internal policy, identified as "the double H" or "hoops and hurdles", to delay or prevent customers from obtaining refunds. In 2003, actors Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sued Fry's for $10 million each for posting their images on television sets on their print ads and flyers without permission. On Black Friday 2007, customers at the Renton, Washington location complained that Fry's employees were offering to let people cut in front of a long line for a fee. After complaints in the media, Fry's management offered anyone who paid the fee their money back. In 2008, the Federal Communications Commission found Fry's failed to place the required "analog only tuner" consumer alert label on analog televisions, fining them $384,000 (~$ in ). In 2008, Fry's vice president of merchandising and operations, Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, was charged by federal prosecutors in a kickback scheme involving Fry's vendors, fueling sales with mail in rebates. The alleged scheme was designed to defraud the company. Siddiqui used the funds to feed his gambling habit in Las Vegas, where he lost about $162 million. In September 2012, Fry's Electronics agreed to pay $2.3 million (~$ in ), and to implement preventive measures, to settle a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit brought by the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The settlement was in relation to allegations that an assistant store manager at the Renton store harassed a 20 year old sales associate by frequently sending her sexually charged text messages and inviting her to his house to drink. After her direct supervisor reported the harassment to Fry's legal department, the company allegedly fired the female salesperson and fired her supervisor for standing up for her. In 2017, a store in Webster Texas made headlines when a manager set up a display to demonstrate indoor grow lights for sale and used realistic looking but ultimately fake marijuana plants. This was considered unacceptable by the local community considering marijuana was illegal in the state of Texas. In 2019, rumors about the chain folding spread rapidly, mainly because shelves were empty for long periods of time and stores seemed to emphasize makeup and fragrances over electronics. Fry's responded by stating they were simply switching to a consignment model, not closing down entirely. The company later bought e commerce site Cyberian Outpost in November 2001, and started online sales with a different URL (Outpost. com), which confused customers who did not associate the online name with the brick and mortar store. For a time in the mid 2000s, the Web site identified itself as "Fry's Electronics Outpost. com", using dual branding in an attempt to create a connection in visitors' minds. In October 2006, a grand reopening of Frys. com introduced the online store with the same name as the retail outlets. The outpost. com URL later began redirecting to the Fry's online store.

In 1997, David Peter (or David Peter Burlini), who manufactured and sold French fry vending machines under the business name Frenchy Frys, owned the domain name frys. com, and was also involved in another dispute over the domain newricochet. com with Ricochet Networks. David Burlini attended Santa Clara University around the same time that the Fry Brothers were attending. Fry's Electronics brought suit against him that year, alleging trademark infringement, and ultimately prevailed in a default judgment. Fry's Electronics aggressively tried to defend its trademark and domain names. In 2001, it threatened to sue Garret Maki for scanning and posting the company's print ads on the Web using the domain frysad. com. 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.

Fry's Electronics is prominently featured in the 2022 film Nope, which filmed at the Burbank location following its closure. The Phoenix, Arizona location is also featured in Season 2, Episode 12 of Mr. Robot.