If ever a business reflected its customer culture, it's Fry's Electronics. From the idiosyncratic product selection (I just need to grab a gigabit adapter card and some Cat 5, a thousand melon-flavored jawbreakers, a foot massager and some anime porn.) to the single-thread multiprocessor checkout system designed to avoid the techie bête noire of inefficient cashier allocation, Fry's is The Store That Geeks Built.
Sure, they've got the ambiance of a warehouse. And when they do attempt interior design, it's more or less what you would expect from techies: flying saucers and giant mutant ants. And sure, they're kind of confusing and uninviting (If you people would just RTFM you wouldn't need any handholding.) But the fact is that the people who take characteristically sedulous and well-documented offense at the sometimes high-handed service simply don't recognize their own culture when it's reflected back to them. (Replace "customer" with "user", Mister IT Guy, then ask yourself whether he's always right.)
Which is what makes Fry's interesting. It's a store that serves and reflects the geek lifestyle rather than a "lifestyle" store designed to flatter customers with an aspirational and false image of themselves.
Jeffre, I've tagged you. 5 things about you that no one knows and then tag 5 people. I'm sure you know the drill.
Posted by: kevin r. | December 20, 2006 at 08:28 AM