Many moons ago there used to be several electronics store chains that were truly good at what they did. Back in New England where I grew up, Massachusetts had quite a few of them both regional and national, such as Tweeter, Nobody Beats the Wiz! (which still exists,) Fretter and so on. Even Service Merchandise (which also exists but online-only) had a truly decent electronics section back in the day.

Right now what we have for electronic stores in the US are big-box free-standers, such as Best Buy. The problem with stores like this is that they are very disconnected from the customer base due to their size. Yes, you can get help when you ask for it, but personal service is usually at a minimum and product knowledge low.

Another problem is that the big-box electronics retailers are essentially all the same. Using the now-defunct Circuit City as an example, if you were to ask somebody, "What was the difference between Best Buy and Circuit City?", the answer is, "Um.. one was red and the other yellow?" There was literally no other difference.

Some would say, "What about Radio Shack?" RS doesn’t sell electronics anymore, I don’t care what anybody says. Their primary focus is cell phones and has been for some time. That is what they push more than anything else, and it’s always the first thing you see when you enter the store by design.

What is desperately needed these days are smaller electronic stores. Electronics has had a huge resurgence in the market, and more people are gravitating towards the brick-and-mortar compared to online. The problem is, at least in the US, that our choices for true electronics stores are terrible. We have places that are either way too big, or traditional department stores like Wal-Mart or Target that simply have a "department" for electronics and nothing more. Both are equally awful.

I am 34 years old, meaning I’m smack dab in the core demographic of people that purchase mid-to-high end electronics for the home – but I have nowhere to go to shop for this stuff save for what’s mentioned prior.

The store chains I mentioned at the beginning of this article would typically not sell cheap stuff. Almost everything in the store started in the mid-range territory. This was actually very good to know, because no matter what you bought, you knew it at least wasn’t bottom-of-the-barrel crap and that what you bought was a quality product.

There were several other good advantages to the small-box electronics store:

• You could browse a ton of products without having to walk the length of a football field just to do it.
• For audio products you got a much more accurate representation of what it would truly sound like in your home due to the store’s smaller size.
• The box your product came in was always perfect (hey, it matters.)
• Staff was very knowledgeable about just about every product in the store.

Is it time for the small-box electronics store to come back? I think so.

What do you think?

It’s most likely true you study the electronics products you intend to purchase before you buy them. You read web site reviews, watch a demonstration video of it if available, and maybe even print out a sheet with some notes before heading to the store.

You expect, as you should, the employee you encounter who will sell you the item to know the product line.

But there are times when this doesn’t happen. You encounter an employee who knows next to nothing about what he or she is selling. And that’s not helpful at all.

Here are 5 things you can do to make your tech shopping experience at electronics retailers more pleasant – even if you encounter the dopiest of employees.

1. Get the SKU of the item you want first.

Big-box electronics stores all live and die by the SKU because they carry so much product that it’s very difficult to make heads or tails of what’s in stock – unless you have the SKU.

2. Call before going.

Before going to the store, call. When on the line, ask if the SKU is in stock. If it isn’t, you just saved yourself from wasting gas.

Note: For clearance items and/or overstock, don’t be surprised if you hear an "I don’t know". Sometimes items slated for special sales are treated differently in the system and cannot be immediately looked up.

3. Dress for the occasion.

Dressing "corporate casual" will get you more personal attention once at the store. Appearance matters.

4. Don’t engage in small talk.

You’re trying to be nice, so you try to spark up a conversation with the employee you encounter. But dopey employees couldn’t care less about you. If you suspect the employee is dopey, can the small talk and stay on target with what you want to buy.

5. Go armed with a memo pad that has the SKU written down.

You already called beforehand and received confirmation your item is in stock, however it’s not over yet. Write that SKU down on memo pad and bring it with you. If you cannot find the item on the shelf, find an employee, hand the paper to them and politely ask if they have that particular SKU.

This is not a rude thing to do and in fact makes it easier for the employee to find what you want to buy. Even the dopiest of employees know what a SKU is and how to look one up.

If you hadn’t heard there are 155 Circuit City stores that will be closing. Is the one near you getting the axe? Here’s the list.

Everybody else is blogging about this so I figured I’d chime in my 2 cents on the matter.

Firstly, this is not indicative Circuit City is going out of business. It just means they’re cutting the chaff from the wheat, so to speak. For example, none of the stores in the Tampa Bay area of Florida (where PCMech is based) are being closed.

Second, I can guarantee you that the ones being closed were the equivalent of ghost towns. This is a very common scenario in the United States concerning free-standing "brick and mortar" stores that simply don’t capture the market they’re in.

I’ll put it to you this way: If you really want to see commerce failing, read Dead Malls. There have been lots of free-standers that have either gone completely out of business or got acquired and were integrated into a larger business model or scrapped.

Some examples:

• Service Merchandise (resurrected as an online-only retailer)
• Bradlees
• Caldor
• Lechmere
• Zayres

..and there are plenty others. All gone.

I also seem to remember that not-so long ago CompUSA was on death row, but it’s not gone either. It seems TigerDirect had some good influence and this chain will be sticking around for a while yet.