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What happened to NCIX

Dave Farquhar Retail, security January 23, 2024January 22, 2024

NCIX was a Canadian computer retailer, similar in concept to Fry’s or Micro Center. It went out of business in 2017 and its data was breached in 2018. Here’s what happened to NCIX.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.

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How W.T. Grant broke capitalism

Dave Farquhar Retail November 6, 2023March 16, 2024

W.T. Grant was once one of the largest retailers in the United States, operating for 70 years, from 1906 to 1976. Its decline was rapid and catastrophic, and had lasting implications we still feel decades later. When your favorite company’s stock drops after announcing quarterly results in spite of turning a profit, just because its sales didn’t grow as much as the previous quarter, you’re feeling the after-effects of W.T. Grant.

Dave Farquhar

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What happened to Blockbuster

Dave Farquhar Retail May 23, 2023March 14, 2023

Blockbuster video was a staple in American neighborhoods and a key part of Friday and Saturday night entertainment for about two decades. Now this giant is reduced to a single location. Here’s what happened to Blockbuster and why Blockbuster failed.

Blockbuster was a benefactor of a disruptive technology. However, like the icons it displaced, Blockbuster itself got disrupted by two upstarts that it had the opportunity to buy early on, declined, and then had to replicate at higher cost.

Dave Farquhar

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What happened to Fry’s Electronics

Dave Farquhar Retail January 31, 2022March 27, 2024

For about three decades, Fry’s Electronics was the go to computer store for enthusiasts, almost an Ikea of computer stores. It was a big box store, larger than Comp USA, selling not just software and pre-built computers and peripherals, but also parts, and even discrete components. So what happened to Fry’s Electronics?

The chain peaked at 34 stores in nine states. So that means a significant part of the population never got to set foot in one. But it took on mythic status thanks to computer magazines and the internet. Byte columnist Jerry Pournelle would write about computers he built cheaply from parts he bought at Fry’s at “prices so low, they might as well have been giving it to me.”

Dave Farquhar

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What do Home Depot prices mean? How to decode them

Dave Farquhar DIY, Retail May 27, 2021May 22, 2021

Retailers can and do use prices to manipulate you. But rumors of hidden codes in prices also abound. Home Depot is no exception to that. So what do Home Depot prices mean? Here’s how to find the hidden meaning in prices so you know when you might have found a bargain, and how long that bargain might last.

There are rumors that you can tell how long an item will be on sale from the numbers in the price, but those numbers don’t match what I found at my local store. Still, there are tricks for finding closeouts and other sale items.

Dave Farquhar

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Payless Cashways remembered

Dave Farquhar Retail March 16, 2021May 21, 2023

Payless Cashways, not to be confused with the shoe store with the similar name, was a regional hardware store, based out of Kansas City. Much like its cross-state neighbor, Central Hardware, it pioneered the big box home improvement store format, featuring a real lumberyard. It, too, was in a poor position to capitalize on the booming home improvement market. It went out of business September 10, 2001, after 71 years of existence.

Payless Cashways was born out of the Great Depression and grew as a result of the post-World War II boom in DIY home improvement. But the threat of takeover by a corporate raider in the 1980s ultimately proved its undoing.

Dave Farquhar

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Can Gamestop survive?

Dave Farquhar Retail April 30, 2020May 31, 2023

Gamestop, the venerable video game retailer, announced in April 2020 it’s closing 300 stores. Rumors of Gamestop’s demise are rampant, and have been for a long time. Can Gamestop survive?

Changes in the way people buy video games has made life more challenging for Gamestop. I believe the company could survive, but it will have to change its business model and improve its customer service a lot in order to do it.

Dave Farquhar

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Which post office is open on Sunday?

Dave Farquhar Retail January 27, 2020October 23, 2022

If you ask the US Postal Service, the post office is closed on Sundays. But that doesn’t mean you can’t mail a package on Sunday. There’s a loophole, and I’ve used it myself. A lot. This can be a useful life hack.

While the traditional post offices are not open on Sunday, many USPS retail stores are open for limited hours on Sundays. You can mail a package from one of those stores if it’s open, and it will get a Sunday postmark.

Dave Farquhar

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The decline of toy stores

Dave Farquhar Retail May 13, 2019April 27, 2019

The retail market is certainly changing and there’s a lot of consolidation in the market. But some retail categories have pretty much dried up on a national level, like toy stores. It ought to be a safe market, because new kids are born every year to replace kids who become adults. What’s behind the decline of toy stores?

While there’s been a degree of mismanagement involved in the decline of the two most recent toy store chains to go belly-up, both Toys R Us and Kay-Bee Toys had something else in common, and it wasn’t Amazon. They didn’t need to survive for their owners to make money, and that’s why they ultimately didn’t.

Dave Farquhar

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Toy stores that went out of business

Dave Farquhar Retail January 2, 2018May 15, 2023

Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy in late 2017, stoking concerns about its future going forward before closing in the summer of 2018. The venerable retailer outlasted a large number of defunct toy store chains, but toy stores have been in sharp decline for decades. Here are some names of old toy stores that went out of business, and what happened to those old toy store chains.

Dave Farquhar

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