Micro Center is an American computer

retail store Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

, headquartered in

Hilliard, Ohio Hilliard is a city in Franklin County, Ohio, United States. The population was 37,114 at the 2020 census. It is a suburb of Columbus and part of Norwich Township. Hilliard is home to the Early Television Museum (the only one of its kind in Uni ...

. It was founded in 1979, and , has 25 stores in 16 states.

History

Micro Center was founded in Columbus, Ohio in 1979 by John Baker and Bill Bayne, two former

Radio Shack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

employees, with a $35,000 investment.Columbus Dispatch DFAS Magazine, "Doing the Right Thing Right" December 1995, p.12 The first Micro Center store was established in a storefront located in the Lane Avenue Shopping Center in

Upper Arlington, Ohio Upper Arlington, often known by its initials U.A., is a city in Franklin County, Ohio, United States, on the northwest side of the Columbus metropolitan area. The Old Arlington neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ...

. The store benefited from its proximity to

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

and the scientific think-tank Battelle Memorial Institute, which provided a large customer base and a source of computer-literate salespeople. Their goal for the first year was $30 million in sales, and they achieved $29.9 million. In 2009, Micro Center developed an "18-minute pickup" service where customers who order merchandise on their website can pick it up from the store in 18 minutes. In January 2014, the company planned to open two new New York City stores in Brooklyn and Queens. , there are 25 Micro Center stores nationwide in 16 states, including

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

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Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

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, New York,

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Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

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, and

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

Corporate structure

Micro Center is a subsidiary of

Micro Electronics, Inc. Micro Electronics, Inc. (MEI) is an American privately owned corporation headquartered in Hilliard, Ohio. Founded in 1979 by John Baker, it serves as the parent company of the computer retailer Micro Center, its online division Micro Center Onlin ...

, a privately held corporation headquartered in Hilliard, Ohio. Stores are sized up to , stocking about 36,000 products across 700 categories, including major name brands and Micro Center's own brands. Micro Center is an approved seller of all Apple products. The company has had

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

departments in all stores since 1982, and has included "Build Your Own PC" departments, "Knowledge Bars" for service and support, and "Knowledge Theaters" for free classes on weekends since 2007.

Public profile

Micro Center was the first retailer in the United States to sell the DJI Mavic Pro drone, launching it by hosting a three-day demonstration in their Columbus store's parking lot which was open to the press and the public. In a 2015 interview, Micro Center CEO Rick Mershad described how their product line is changing: the STEM movement is driving students and adults to make their own creations, and Micro Center is focusing on

Arduino Arduino () is an open-source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardware products are licensed under ...

projects and

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...

, which require more consultative selling.

Media reception

Joan Verdon of ''The Record'' noted that meeting customer's needs with a high level of service and skilled salespeople are Micro Center's "claim to fame". She also quoted Doug Olenick, editor at ''TWICE'', a major consumer electronics trade publication, who said that the store's salespeople, compared to others in the industry, are extremely well trained. In 2021, the store started to offer a free

solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It is a ...

to new customers, but ''Storage Review'' was not sold, concluding "it's free, but it's still not worth it". More generally, they noted that: "Micro Center's Inland brand is to tech what Amazon's dozens of brands are to toilet paper, shampoo, and such."

Awards and rankings

In 2014, Micro Center was ranked number 93 in the list of 100 hottest retailers in the US, compiled by the National Retail Federation. In 2015, the industry trade journal ''Dealerscope'' ranked it as the 18th largest consumer electronics retailer in the United States and Canada. In 2016, ''Forbes'' magazine ranked it 195th among America's largest private companies. In October 2016, Micro Center stores won first and second prizes in Intel's annual "Score with Intel Core" competition, and donated their prize money to local schools. In 2019, Micro Center stores won first and third prizes, making two more prize money donations to local schools.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.microcenter.com Consumer electronics retailers in the United States Consumer electronics retailers Consumer electronics Online retailers of the United States Computer companies of the United States Home computer hardware companies American companies established in 1979 Computer companies established in 1979 Electronics companies established in 1979 Retail companies established in 1979 1979 establishments in Ohio Retail companies based in Ohio Privately held companies based in Ohio Companies based in Franklin County, Ohio Companies based in the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area