For those that don't know, FYE's stock traded below a dollar in January and has dropped steadily since then. Today, it closed at .61. I have about $100 dollars in credit that I was saving for the Quantum of Solace and Twilight releases. But now I'm wondering if they will last that long. Has anyone heard anything?

Even if they do go bankrupt, won't they have to liquidation like Circuit City currently is? That would give some time to use your credit. I doubt they will just shutter the doors.

They won't be going under anytime soon, so I wouldn't worry about your credit just yet.

Still, it's only a matter of time. The company has been slowly dying for years now. Their 4th quarter and year end conference call is Thursday morning. It will be a fun listen, especially after their stock being in the gutter now.

Year after year the idiots in charge at Albany have been blaming everything left and right for the fact that they are losing millions every quarter. I wonder if any of them ever stepped foot into a Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or browsed Amazon.com and compared prices. That's your answer right there guys.

The days of $19.99 CDs and $24.99 DVDs are dead when you can easily save $5-$10 per title if you shop elsewhere.

The one in my city closed down a while back.

Not necessarily, I'm pretty sure at KB Toys, once the liquidators took over, they didn't take the gift cards.

I can't believe they're survived as long as they have. Before I heard of FYE, we had stores called "The Wall", and they were always the most expensive media store. Then FYE took them over and I went in even less.

I am not sure I would wait to see if they have enough credit to bring in new merchandise.

I remember The Wall.

I don't mind spending a little extra on higher quality or hard-to-find stuff. But FYE doesn't have much to offer. It's just regular, sorta-knowledgable employees, regular DVD's and CD's and stuff.

I just dumped $140 in FYE credit at www.wherehouse.com with their 20% off and free shipping promotion. The coupon can be applied to pre-orders and new items. Some really good deals to be had, but you cannot get the additional 10% off with the Backstage Pass. The code is WHBIGMARCH and expires on March 5.

If you have a gift card, sell it on Ebay, then take that money and get better bargains on Amazon, DD or just about anywhere else.

I have a FYE in my neighborhood, the only local store where I can buy DVDs. And they often have stuff I like that's hard to find in downtown stores (I like to see what I buy before I buy it), so I'd rather pay a little more than I'd pay at the downtown Best Buy--which doesn't always have what I want--simply to support the place and reward them for carrying titles I like. This branch of FYE has carried a lot of Japanese films and kung fu films that are not carried everywhere, e.g., The YAKUZA PAPERS box set and several of the Godzilla sets.

I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon either. Last I heard they were closing non-mall stores, which makes sense. Especially when you look at their pricing.
Sam Goody was a victim of the same price structure, perhaps they had the same honchos in charge. A new cd for 19.99, on sale for 15.99 that you can get at walmart or bestbuy or amazon, for 10.99. Of course sales are going to be down. Sam even made a big deal when they opened their website. Signs all over the stores saying "We got dot". Pricing on their was comparable to other online retailers, but the stores werent allowed to price things the same as the website. They were seperate entities.

I like FYE for the used stuff they have, as well as the frequent sales they have. Backstage pass is nice, as it takes 10% off at the time of purchase. no waiting for a certificate in the mail. In fact, I have a couple of 40% off used coupons burning a hole in my wallet as i type this.

We had a "The Wall" store, and a Tape World. Of course they were both in different locations than the current FYE. The current location used to be a Chi Chi's restaurant, then a Sam Goody.

Depending on how bad things are, they will file for Chapter 11 first, which gives them protection from creditors and allows them to reorganize. This is the phase where they shut down poorly performing stores. Gift cards and store credit should still be good, usually. Chapter 7 is the one where you have to worry about, that's where they liquidate all stores and sometimes GC and SC are no good anymore. Linens n' Things and Circuit City were/is still taking GCs up till the last day but if you wait too long, pickings get slim. If I were you, I'd use them up sooner than later.

Not necessarily true. There are Chapter 11 liquidations.

imho, comparing a typical fye to a typical walmart is like comparing green apples to red apples. at least thats what i understand it to should be.

Is FYE still owned by Music World? Best Buy owned them for awhile, then when they went back to being an independent company they suffered horribly and had to close all of the Media Play and On Cue stores. That only left Sam Goody, FYE, and Suncoast, and they ended up wiping out almost all of their Suncoast and Sam Goody stores.

I really don't see them lasting long, but they are the only media retailer in big box malls (although those seem to be dying out nowadays).

http://www.twec.com/corpsite/corporate/history.cfm

Maybe you're referring to Musicland Group? They were Sam Goody, OnCue, Suncoast, etc. In 2001 Musicland Group was bought by Best Buy. In 2002 Best Buy sold them to Sun Life Capitol or something like that. By 2006 they were bankrupt. Then Trans World Entertainemnt (TWEC) which owned FYE and coconuts, and Strawberries i think, bought Musicland group.

Musicland. That's what it was.

So they are technically the same company. Always overpriced media.

They will stay in operation until one day before I find all my gift cards.

On a related note, the other day I found a pre-order receipt from 2004, one of the LOTR DVDs I think. I had never picked it up. Took my receipt in, expecting nothing, but was able to get a refund. It was still in their computers.

Any word on how this went today?

Today they are owned by the same parent.

And your second point is quite true.

Is FYE still buying used movies for store credit?

That is the problem. Unless they can sell cds for $19.99 and dvds for $24.99, they cant stay in business. They sell the products at what they were originally meant to be priced at. Their costs did not go down, so it is not as easy as "lower your prices". Wal-Mart uses dvds as traffic generators. A friend of mine is an Assistant Manager at our local Wal-Mart. He says WM makes more money on the 2 for $10 surplus dvds than any other dvds in the department.

They do try to promote more than they used to, but they just cant operate selling dvds at low margins.