When Circuit City last Friday (Jan. 16) announced that a judge had ordered the chain shut down and more than a billion dollars worth of inventory liquidated, it moved quickly to start going out of business sales. While the stores were open for business early the next morning (Jan. 17), the chain's E-Commerce site was shuttered almost instantly--and shuttered it has stayed.
It's indeed a curious move. The Web site was already live and functional. If you had that much merchandise to move and had a site as sophisticated and extensive as Circuit City's at your disposal, couldn't you come up with some profitable ways to use it? Maybe company execs are prepping to sell their Web servers on eBay with the headline "Hardly Used"? It's sad enough when a chain such as Circuit City goes out of business. But when a vast E-Commerce setup is thrown away along with the Returns desk, it's a bitter reminder of how little many in the industry respect E-Commerce.