Circuit City to relaunch as online store in February

Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Electronics retailer Circuit City announced it plans to relaunch its brand after going out of business.

Circuit City CEO Ronny Shmoel announced the brand relaunch at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday, stating it will focus on the retail verticals of e-commerce, mobile, technology, omni-channel commerce.

"Under new ownership, Circuit City will relaunch with a dynamic, social-focused e-commerce site, along with various concepts of innovative retail stores, and unprecedented e-commerce technology offerings," the company said.

Shmoel said Circuit City will launch a personalized online shopping experience Feb. 15 that melds e-commerce, social networking and solution selling to "allow the products to find the consumers" as they browse the site, Twice reported.

The site will include features such as videos, virtual vignettes, search-by-photo, augmented reality and real-time tech support through video chat.

IBM Watson's artificial intelligence commerce platform, which can learn customers' interests, will be used to support the site.

"The IBM web commerce platform will allow Circuit City to expand offerings for a personalized shopping experience and enhance the product discovery journey," Circuit City said.

Products available on the site will include computers, small appliances and smart-home products by vendors such as Samsung, Panasonic and Canon as well as smaller brands.

Following the launch of the site, Circuit City plans to expand to kiosks, then store-in-stores and finally showrooms.