CompUSA Closing More Than 50 Percent of Stores 423
Zurbrick writes to tell us that CompUSA hs announced that they are closing the doors on over half their stores over the next three months. "CompUSA said in a statement it would close 126 of its stores and would receive a $440 million cash capital infusion, but it was not specific as to the source of the cash. The company also said it would cut costs and restructure. The company operates 225 stores, which its Web site says are located in the United States and Puerto Rico. "
And we're keeping _both_ of ours (Score:3, Informative)
I guess that's a good demonstration of the mean intelligence level here. People would rather go into ChumpUSA and be abused by surly salespeople than order something online to save a few bucks.
kinda sad. (Score:5, Informative)
For all its shortcomings, when my hard drive failed, i went to compusa to get back up and running the same day, when the 9700pro didn't offer an oem, compusa ran a special that was cheaper than the internet in general (same price + shipping). With a corporate buyer, they beat the other big box stores in both volume pricing and responsive service (usually 2-3 account reps on staff in the one by work).
Reasons why i'll miss it aside, I've gotta say that compusa is failing for a reason. The corporate office treats its parts, employees, and customers as commodities. Refunds are a pain if its open box (like a laptop keeps overheating, you gotta take it in 3 times, and the 4th time it fails you get a refund), the repairs are shoddy and if its dll hell, rather than find and replace the dll or do some other moderately advanced repair, they'll charge you 200 bucks for a reinstall of windows, provided you still have the disks. The employees will rarely be honest or knowledgeable about if a product is in stock, and most likely will say yes just to get your hopes up and you in the door.
I've also heard stories where the cashiers are told to cheat the sales people out of commissions for big computer sales, where they'll "forget" to punch in a 3 digit code that signifies bonus to the sales rep. No wonder you get minimum help for minimum wage.
Too bad (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Atlanta loses all of its stores. (Score:1, Informative)
kind of surprising that they're all going away though, the one by lenox mall was damn convenient when i didn't want to drive all the way out to fry's...
money from mexico-based bank (Score:5, Informative)
From this article [app.com]: The closings will leave 103 stores. Nunez said CompUSA said the restructuring will include receiving $440 million from Mexico City-based parent U.S. Commercial Corp, a holding company controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
Re:Source of the cash (Score:5, Informative)
Here is some hot news for you...almost all of the inventory is going up on eBay for pennies on the dollar.
Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store. (Score:5, Informative)
Let's just say: £80 network cards (that was apparently the cheapest)
I've been selling £7 NICs for ages, most expensive i remember was a Gigabit card that cost about £20.
£20 USB cables (again, the cheapest)
Nope, cheapest is £10, although the standard 2.1 metre cable is £14.99. I agree, that's expensive but you can just go to Maplin and buy them there, i often tell people about that. Cables are the place where you get ripped off most, with network cables costing £9.99 for 1 metre and most people can spend well over £20 on a long cable.
£1,200 PCs. They stock cheaper ones but I've never met anyone who ever bought one
You what? We only have 1 PC at the moment going for £1,200 and it's a beast by Packard Bell, it's trying to be like a custom-PC with a side window and lockable front and case. Frankly, 90% of the PCs i've sold are under £600 with quite a lot of people going away happy with a £300-£400 PC.
And extended warranties which cost 70% of the value of the PC, yet are serviced by spotty 16 year olds who wouldn't know a PC if it dropped on their head.
Extended warranties are PAYG and about £8/month, now i know that's not cheap but it does cover anything that goes wrong with the thing. With that your PC gets taken away and repaired by proper techies, you don't get the guys that work in the store servicing PCs under the warranty.
I'm a computing student at Imperial College London, i got my friend hired who's also a computing student, his cousin works there (again into PCs), and the tech guys actually know what they're talking about. Now our store might be a wonderful exception to the norm, but come in when we're on shift and you won't get bullshitting from us.
Good riddance (Score:3, Informative)
I find that they don't consistently post pricing for items, and their customer service is terrible. Ever order over the web for in store pickup? I keep going to the store hours after placing the order and then waiting in line for the management to task a sales clerk to go fetch the products from the shelves. Ick.
They don't know their products, nor do they know where the inventory is, they advertise products at a cheap price that are sold out when I arrive 2 hours after store opening (and when their inventory system says that they have items in stock.) They have been doing an awful job of meeting the market needs, and this is what happens in a competitive market.
I hope that a well stocked, fair priced alternative arrives. Shockingly, I'd pay more for good quality products, skilled sales people, and efficient customer service when I go to a store. I concluded long ago that this was out of the question for CompUSA, and decided to work the angles for cheap after-rebate merchandise from them while waiting for them to collapse.
It's the old Montgomery Wards -> Sears story repeated a hundred years later. Wards was a huge mail order powerhouse, but were upstaged by technology and marketing powerhouse Sears when they didn't adapt to new technology and business models in time. Of course the same thing happened to Sears, too.
Good by, CompUSA. Hello Buy.com, NewEgg, and Fry's!
The comments here surprise me (Score:4, Informative)
I really don't ever expect help from any tech salesperson, but I can't imagine them being less knowledgeable or helpful than BestBuy (although I have to admit that BB's salespeople are always bugging you, so at least if you need to get into a locked case you can.
What I do remember from CompUSA is they used to have fantastic sales. at BB if a $32 product goes on sale, it always seems to be for $29.99 at best.
CompUSA sales often featured products at 40% or half off. The first week a game was out, I used to always look for it in the CompUSA flier because they always seemed to have a great sale the first week--like $30 for a new $50 game.
On top of that, with all these stores I couldn't find a single decent hard-drive enclosure, CompUSA had a dozen to choose from, and I know that there are many other components I won't find at any of the others..
If our Spokane store closes, we're going to have to travel 500 miles to Seattle to get decent computer parts, or we'll have to pay BestBuys terribly inflated prices for what little they do stock.
Strangely enough, Staples has decent sales. I consider that my best alternative, bought a 20" LCD monitor there for under $140, but the selection is probably the most limited.
Hmph
how to tell if your local CompUSA is closing: (Score:5, Informative)
this list [compusa.com]
Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store. (Score:3, Informative)
Nothing to do with the internets... (Score:3, Informative)
10-15 years ago, back before our favorite set of tubes made online shopping easier than physical shopping, my friends and I used to have a game we'd play (when very, very bored).
Back then, geeks had a huge thick magazine full of nothing but mail-order ads (I think it might have had some content, but no one read it for anything but the ads) called "Computer Shopper". Need a computer? Check the CS. Need a video card? Check the CS. Need a printer? You get the picture.
Anyway, CompUSA carried this magazine. So, my friends and I would go to CompUSA, grab a Computer Shopper, and start playing as follows:
We would walk around, comparing in-store to mail-order prices, looking for the worst deal in the store (and of course, correspondingly, the best deal in the magazine). The person who found the best worst deal (ie, the highest markup over the lowest mail order price) after an hour (or when we got thrown out) won.
CompUSA's average prices usually came out to roughly double what you could get the same thing for in Computer Shopper. The "winner" of the above game usually managed to find something in the 10-20 times more expensive range.
CompUSA won't die because the internet undercut them. It should have died years ago from simple competitive market forces, and having held on so long says a lot for the saavy of the average tech consumer.
Re:It's about time... and only the beginning. (Score:4, Informative)
14 foot patch cable, $1.99 [microbarn.com]
Microbarn doesn't have the selection of rapidly-obsolete gear (like hard drives and system boards) that somewher like Newegg might, but their prices are great for the stuff they do carry, especially for things that should be cheap, like cables.
But yeah, all the retail places these days are carrying high mark-up stuff like Belkin. (Price aside, I won't touch Belkin because of the stunt [google.com] they pulled a few years ago where their routers would periodically hijack HTTP requests.)
Re:List of stores closing (Score:2, Informative)
Long Beach, CA (PCH) (Store # 175)
6310 East Pacific Coast Hwy, Long Beach, CA 90803
San Mateo, CA (Store #728)
41 West Hillsdale Boulevard, San Mateo, CA 94403
Mesquite, TX (Store #127)
1515 Town East Blvd. #168, Mesquite, TX 75150
Skokie, IL (Store #177)
7011 Central Ave., Skokie, IL 60077
There ya go.
They had it coming, a loooong time ago. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store. (Score:5, Informative)
Cheapest Network card: Dynamode, £6.99
Most expensive Network card: Dlink, £34.99
Cheapest USB Cable: 3 meter, £5.99
Most expensive USB Cable: 10 meter, £19.99
PCs: Yes, there are cheap £349.99 PCs in store, but the following one caught my eye - £479.99 AMD 64 4000 Dual Core, 1GB ram, 160GB hard disk, wide screen 19" monitor
The 'spotty 16 year old' actually turned out to be a well dressed 20ish year old who was very knowledgeable, took my 'needs' and pointed me to the above system while informing me of some pretty good reasons why it was better than the basic £349 PC - as an IT professional I couldnt fault the reasons either.
Why do a hatchet job on PC World when it hardly ever deserves it? Ive had brilliant experiences with them and while they dont have the best prices, they are competative when time is a factor.
Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store. (Score:4, Informative)
Probably not far from it though
"Progressive Pricing" (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store. (Score:1, Informative)
P.S., For more electronic selection, try Halted (HSC) in Santa Clara.