Over Memorial Day weekend, Systemax revived the Circuit City brand name and website by buying the rights for $14 million. Since then the Circuit City website has seen a fair number of deals and products reappear.
Systemax bought out the CompUSA brand and website for a discounted price when that retail store went under too. Systemax is the same company behind TigerDirect.com. The problem with the CircuitCity.com website is that the deals are very similar to what is available on the TigerDirect and CompUSA websites.
Many of the products on the CircuitCity website are selling for lower prices than the Best Buy website and is comparable to NewEgg or Amazon.com according to CNET. But when it comes down to it, the new CircuitCity is a TigerDirect and CompUSA’s triplet. Save your time and look at one of the three websites when shopping online.
This last Friday, April 20 Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC) and Napster Inc. (NASDAQ: NAPS) have announced that they’re teaming up in the launching of a new online music service called: Circuit City + Napster. The service will be powered by Napster subscription services and will be available starting April 29.Â
This partnership between the electronic store and the digital music service emulates a similar deal struck between Best Buy and RealNetworks’ Rhapsody player.Â
What Napster gets out of the deal is that they get a new marketplace. Circuit City is an established and well-known brand that consumers are comfortable with. Circuit City will be able to market itself to Napster’s 566,000 paid subscribers.
“We are delighted to create this new alliance with Circuit City which is one of the top destinations in the U.S. to learn about exciting, new digital entertainment products,” stated Chris Gorog, the chairman/CEO of Napster. “Circuit City’s strength both in consumer electronics and as a music retailer should be an ideal environment to introduce Napster’s industry leading music subscription service.”