Circuit City: A Real Loss For Small Businesses

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The liquidation sales are in full swing after last week's announcement that Circuit City is closing all of its doors. That's 567 stores nationwide if you care to count. This is sad news for a number of reasons.

1. 30,000 people will be out of work.

2. Now there is one less place out of too few options where you can actually go touch and feel the merchandise before making a tech purchase.

The big enterprise level businesses aren't really affected by this. When Pepsi buys PC's, they don't send someone out from the IT department to scoop up a few thousand desktops or notebooks from a local store. Smaller businesses and self-employed folks are more likely to do so.

Not all computer shoppers buy into the Dell concept of customizing and buying online (which, by the way, even Dell now sells computers at Wal-Mart).

With Circuit City now liquidating into that long goodnight, what's left?

There's Best Buy, Costco, Wal-Mart (as mentioned), Fry's (in California), Staples, and others here and there.

All those retail outlets have one thing in common; they don't specialize in computer sales.

Best Buy comes closest. But, it sells consumer electronics that include computer equipment. Heaven help you if you go in to look at laptops at a time when the sales person from the vacuum cleaner department is covering the computer area.

There's an obvious joke here. But, I will take a pass out of respect for the sadness of the occasion.

Renee Oricchio

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio