The Ken Crane’s Home Entertainment Chain, which has sold TV sets in the Los Angeles area for 62 years, is going out of business,
the
Los Angeles Times
reported.
At its peak, the company had ten stores, the report noted.
Crane’s daughter and son took over the company after their father died in 2004. Pam Crane, Ken Crane’s daughter and the company’s executive vice president, “blamed the chain’s demise on the economy more than on cutthroat competition in the home electronics business,” the
LA Times
article said.
Sales for 2010 were estimated to be less than half those of 2007, the company’s banner year, when consumers bought $60 million worth of TVs.
The company made its first layoffs in 2008. In January, Ken Crane’s closed four stores and had 75 remaining employees, down from 200, the article said.
Company president Casey Crane said the last straw was the lending crisis, which hampered the business’s ability to get credit to acquire inventory.
“Customers, for fear of losing their jobs, quit spending, finance companies quit lending, and eventually our ability to purchase became limited. It was the perfect storm for disaster.”
(Source:
Los Angeles Times,
June 22, 2010.)
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