The company continued to grow and acquired stores in other locations including Albany, New York; Mobile, Alabama; Washington, D.C.; and Costa Mesa, California.

Wards experimented with several retail formats in Richmond, including smaller mall outlets branded "Sight-n-Sound" and "Circuit City".

[7][8] After developing a long range plan for the company in 1973, construction began on a distribution center and new corporate offices building at 2040 Thalbro Street (named after Thalhimer Bros. Department Store) in Richmond, Virginia and in the extra space, "Wards Loading Dock", its first warehouse showroom opened on May 1, 1975.

The company continued to expand with the new format modeled after "Wards Loading Dock" and renamed it Circuit City Superstore in 1978; the first locations called such opened on June 22 of that year in North Carolina.

The next year, Circuit City opened five more Superstores in the market and closed the licensed electronics and appliance departments it operated in Zodys stores.

The company also returned to New York City opening a 40,000 sq ft (3,700 m2) superstore in Union Square, the first of two planned Manhattan locations.

The offer was rejected by Richard Sharp, Circuit City's CEO, since he believed they could open a store in Best Buy's home territory of Minneapolis and easily beat the competitor.

However, executives were concerned about the competition from Home Depot and Lowe's and believed there would be big savings in warehouse storage and delivery costs if they quit the large appliance business.

[25][26] Another store format, called "Tide", was created based on research conducted that found women and teenagers were not respected by the Circuit City sales staff.

Power poles and movable fixtures allowed for easy rearrangement of the store and lowered the cost of remodeling older locations since the floor did not need to be trenched.

Many previously commissioned sales associates were offered new positions as hourly "product specialists", while 3,900 salespeople were laid off, saving the company about $130 million per year.

Circuit City paid approximately US$284 million for InterTAN's 980 stores, which operated in Canada under the trade names RadioShack, Rogers Plus, and Battery Plus.

Chairman and CEO Alan McCollough believed these existing small-format stores provided an easy entry into Canada, a country where Best Buy had been expanding.

[38] On February 8, 2007, Circuit City announced that it planned to close seven domestic Superstores and a Kentucky distribution center to cut costs and improve its financial performance.

In a press release on March 28, 2007, Circuit City announced that in a "wage management" decision in order to cut costs, it had laid off approximately 3400 better-paid associates and would re-staff the positions at the lower market-based salaries.

[48] On November 4, 2008, Circuit City announced that it would close 155 stores and lay off 17% of its workforce by the end of the year as a result of continuing difficulties in remaining profitable.

[57][58] On November 18, 2008, it was announced that Ricardo Salinas Pliego, current owner of Mexican television broadcaster TV Azteca and electronics store chain Elektra, had purchased 28 percent of Circuit City.

[62] The Canadian operations, which were run under The Source by Circuit City banner, were not initially affected by the liquidation, but were later sold to Bell Canada.

[80] On August 22, 2018, Circuit City Corporation officially relaunched the brand name as an online retailer and announced plans to begin operating as a store-within-a-store chain.

Shmoel aims to establish strategic alliances (in alternative to brick-and-mortar stores) with undisclosed national enterprises (potentially including JCPenney) to launch a "Powered by Circuit City" initiative.

CarMax grew slowly for its first four years as the team refined the basic concept, then went public through an IPO as a "tracking stock" (KMX) of Circuit City in February 1997.

The offering was managed by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and raised more than $400m for a 20% interest in the company, with Circuit City retaining the remaining 80% ownership.

CarMax used the proceeds to repay Circuit City's initial $170mm investment in the company, then used the remainder to grow rapidly, adding 27 more stores from 1997 to 2000, and turning its first profit in FY2001.

CarMax was spun off from Circuit City in a tax free distribution to shareholders in October 2002 to allow both companies to grow and be valued independently.

[92] In 2004, RadioShack sued InterTAN to prematurely terminate its role as reseller for the Radio Shack line in Canada;[93] the stores rebranded as "The Source by Circuit City".

In 2005, InterTAN sued RadioShack in an attempt to prevent it from re-entering the Canadian marketplace as a direct competitor;[94] while this effort failed, the nine new RadioShack-branded stores closed their doors by 2007.

[95] In 2005, Circuit City agreed to pay $173,220 in settlement and investigation reimbursement costs due to a false advertising claim in a 2004 New Jersey court case.

The court, however, upheld the plaintiffs' claim that the monies paid for the protection plan be reimbursed and credit be issued for non-working goods returned.

[98] Due to the expansion of Circuit City stores in the 1970s–1990s, the company accumulated a surplus of unused real estate with a presence in nearly every major market in the country.

During Circuit City's 2005 fiscal year (March 1, 2004, through February 28, 2005), the company disposed of approximately 1.2 million square feet (108,000 m2) of vacant retail space.