Circuit City announced plans to relaunch its e-commerce site February. These charts show a timeline of its history, and an analysis of the competition in consumer electronics online retail.

After a six-year hiatus, the Circuit City brand will come back to life, again, this time in February, according to CEO Ronny Shmoel.

The Circuit City brand has changed hands several times over the last decade, after the original corporation filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and ultimately liquidated in 2009. Systemax Inc. acquired CircuitCity.com in an auction from the shuttered Circuit City Stores Inc. and relaunched the e-commerce site in mid-2009.

Circuit City was exclusively an online brand till 2012, when Systemax consolidated CompUSA.com and CircuitCity.com into its core consumer brand at the time: TigerDirect.com. Shmoel purchased the Circuit City brand, domain and associated trademarks from Systemax in 2015. The electronics retailer announced the launch date of its online store during a press conference last week at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Circuit City is back

Circuit City did not respond to requests for comment, but on its corporate site states: “We understand the struggles of online shopping. CircuitCity.com will be user friendly and will offer a unique shopping experience. Some of the features will include Vendor Micro-sites and exclusive offers direct from the manufactures. We offer our customers peace of mind with lightning-fast delivery and cutting-edge logistics.”

Circuit City is entering a much more competitive e-commerce market compared with its previous iterations.

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Since 2009, the top 40 consumer electronics retailers have grown web sales approximately 29% to $36.36 billion from $28.28 billion, according to Internet Retailer’s Top 500 research. Add in Amazon.com Inc.’s sales from consumer electronics products, and that number would approach $50 billion.

Here’s an analysis of the current market, as well as a historical look at Circuit City’s online business.

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Jessica Young contributed to this report.

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