Fry's Electronics

Fry's has been keeping hi-tech professionals supplied with products representing the latest technological trends and advances in the personal computer marketplace for over 18 years. The company opens its first store outside of the San Francisco Bay Area. With its headquarters located in San Jose, California, Fry's Electronics, Inc., is a private company that runs a chain of 28 electronics superstores, ranging in size from 50,000 square feet to more than 180,000 square feet. Each stores offers about 30,000 items and exceeds the competition in breadth of choice. The stores are also known for cheap prices and notoriously poor customer service. The first Fry's, located in Silicon Valley, was frequented by hi-tech professionals who did not require, nor welcome, assistance from salespeople. These customers liked Fry's unique one-stop approach to buying electronic products and components. Not only could they buy little-found items at a reasonable price, they could also stock up on junk food, No-Doz, and men's magazines while preparing to work all night. They could also talk shop, gossip, and network while they were at it. As Fry's has become more mainstream, however, the chain's disinterest in customer service has become more of a problem. Nevertheless, the stores remain popular. Part of Fry's idiosyncratic charm involves the stores' often bizarre theme-based decor. For instance, the Campbell, California, site features an ancient Egypt theme, complete with a two-foot sphinx and King Tut tombs. The Fremont, California, store pays tribute to the electricity exhibits from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. In Woodland Hills, California, shoppers are treated to an Alice in Wonderland motif, while the Las Vegas store features the world's largest slot machine. All told, Fry's operates 15 stores in California, six in Texas, two in Arizona, and single units in Georgia, Illinois, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington. In addition, Fry's sells merchandise on the Web through Outpost.com. The company is owned and operated by three Fry brothers--John, Randy, and David--and a former girlfriend of CEO John Fry, Kathryn Kolder. The Frys are private by nature and do not grant press interviews. John, Randy, and David Fry's father was Charles Fry, a highly competitive person who was an all-state high school basketball player in Oklahoma. After earning a college degree in mathematics, he opened a supermarket in Contra Costa County, California, in 1954. Throughout the 1960s, he grew a chain of 41 Fry's Food Stores in the San Francisco and Phoenix, Arizona, markets. He sold the business in 1972 for approximately $14 million to Modesto, California-based Save Mart Supermarkets, but he stayed on to manage the chain until 1983. His eldest son, John, took after him in a number of ways. He was also a star athlete, a quarterback with professional promise. He was recruited by Santa Clara University to play football but due to injuries was never able to realize his potential. Like his father, he also earned a math degree, graduating from Santa Clara in 1978. He then went to work for his father's supermarket chain, managing the computer system. Thus, he not only learned the techie mindset but also the low-margin grocery business that would later serve him well in selling electronics. After the Fry family discontinued managing the supermarket chain, John Fry envisioned a new retail operation, one that would be a variation on grocery retailing: an electronics supermarket. According to people interviewed by the San Jose Mercury News for a 1997 company profile, Fry thought through the idea in his own fashion: "He measured the ratio of low prices to high sales. He multiplied the prototypical engineer's basic needs times a variety of sundries. And he found the intersection between a sales clerk's level of expertise and a customer's level of tolerance. The result was a retail operation that has helped define Silicon Valley." After selling his chain of supermarkets, Charles Fry