Ritz Camera to start store-closing sales Saturday
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Going-out-of-business sales will start Saturday at 38 Ritz Camera stores in California, part of the retailer’s plan to shut 300 stores nationwide.
Discounts will begin at 10% to 20% off, depending on the category of merchandise, said Scott Carpenter, executive vice president for Great American Group, part of the joint venture that is liquidating the stores.
“Then we will progress to 20% off, 30% off all the way to 90% off. We think it will take about seven to
nine weeks,” Carpenter said.
Like many others in the retail business, Ritz Camera Centers Inc. of Beltsville, Md., has been slammed by the sharp slowdown in consumer spending. Among the companies that have scaled back or been wiped from the retail landscape recently are . . .
Circuit City, Mervyn’s, Linens N Things and KB Toys.
But some of the company’s customers say Ritz also fell prey to the digital do-it-yourself age of photography, in which fewer people need expert help and virtually anyone with a camera and a computer can process their own photographs and edit their own work.
“It’s just so disappointing that everything went digital. It’s just taken over. Now it’s all computerized,” said Cheryl Corte, a retired Pasadena woman who still uses the Minolta XGM she said she bought at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1979.
Corte had gone to the Ritz at Foothill Rosemead Marketplace in Pasadena to buy a lens cap. The Foothill store was slated for closure, part of the big cut the chain is taking from stores as far north as Ventura and as far south as San Diego. Of the 27 Southern California stores, only five are expected to remain open.
At the Pasadena store, there was no hint Friday of what was to come -- no liquidation signs, no posters with promised discounts. Few customers seemed to know that the store would be closing.
“I’m disappointed. The service has been good. The quality has been good and it’s convenient for me,” said Charles Pickens, 60, a former banker so new to retirement that he said it still felt more like a vacation. Pickens was there to pick up some prints.
Another customer, John Morris, complained of dwindling options because most of the nearby one-hour photo locations had closed.
“Everyone like my son just does this at home now, but I don’t. I’ll have to find someplace else again,” Morris said.
About 400 Ritz stores will remain open.
Ritz customer Sue Youngson said she would have a difficult time participating in the liquidation.
“This is terrible. It’s a great, great little store,” said Youngson, who was wondering how long she had to
take advantage of a upgrade for the telescope she had bought at the store for her husband. Not long enough, she decided.
“I just can’t believe it,” she said.
A list of the stores slated for closing can be found here.
--Ron White
.