CompUSA To Close All Stores 509
An anonymous reader writes "Mexican telephone and retail magnate Carlos Slim, in a rare defeat, will exit the US consumer electronics market, shutting the last 100 CompUSA Inc. stores after sinking about $2 billion into the business. Gordon Brothers Group, a Boston-based retail store liquidator, will oversee a piecemeal sale of the Dallas-based business, the company said in a statement. Financial terms were not disclosed. Stores will remain open through year-end under the supervision of Gordon Brothers, which will also negotiate the sale of real estate and other assets."
As an ex employee... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank god, is all I can say.
-- 297504 from store 354...
fare thee well (Score:5, Interesting)
lower profit margins are a drag on any business - almost inevitable but a fact of life - they lasted longer then the company I left them for by trying to diversify but I guess BB/CC will be taking over the world now.
RB
Re:Goodbye (Score:3, Interesting)
As many others have noted, it would be useful if Fry's had some stores in other parts of the country. (You hear me, John Fry?) Even if Fry's has issues with stupid salesmen, the merchandise selection is pretty good, including off the shelf software for when you're on a deadline and can't wait for mail-order or get a vendor download. I Hope they slowly and carefully extend themselves to the East Coast and become available to more people. But not overextend themselves, that's how Tower Records killed its retail presence, by expanding into Japan.
my eyes are dry (Score:3, Interesting)
Where will I buy quad slim cases? (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, I know I accept the risk of being modded down here but I use these guys. They fit 4 CDs in the size of one standard jewel case. It was a pain when they left my state, and it'll be a bigger pain when they close their doors.
No tears here... (Score:5, Interesting)
The "final week clearance" finally had some okay deals. Nothing too great, but stuff like no-name PS/2 keyboards with the stupid "function" key for $3 a pop, 100-spindle DVD-Rs for around $40... I picked up a couple SD-cards as well. You know it's sad that when stuff's 70% off, it's still barely less pricey than ordering online.
They finally opened up a MicroCenter in the location where Comp*USA used to be. Sweet, sweet heaven... it's like Fry's, except, yeah, only about 1/3rd the size.
Re:my eyes are dry (Score:3, Interesting)
But the warranty... you do have to keep in mind that was really their bread and butter, the store warranty. For something like an inkjet it was a godsend. Esp the sub $100 epsons, you know the ones, the ones that get a waste ink full error and refuse to print, with only a cryptic error "needs service". Cheep parts and a cheep warranty could keep you in new printers for a while.
Re:Meh. (Score:2, Interesting)
Their selections were great, almost always having what I needed in a hurry. We need more stores like this, not fewer. Someone needs to come along and show the remaining stores how to do it right. They couldn't do it, Fry's, CC, and BB don't do it. Who is next?
Re:CompUSA the last great retail computer store (Score:1, Interesting)
People have the tendency to see Fry's as much better. I disagree. Their prices are often higher than even Best Buy for basic components. Granted, there's more selection at Fry's, but at sometimes outrageous prices.
MY experience (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't much care what happens to the corporation. I want justice for those employees.
Good Riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
I kinda needed the AppleCare quickly at the time, though, since my iPod's hard drive was flaking out. It was still under the 1-year factory warranty (but nearing the end of it), but I didn't want to pay $40 or whatever the service fee is after 6 mos to do the exchange by mail with Apple, and thought the AppleCare package would be a good deal, since it'd essentially just cost me an extra 20 bucks for another year of warranty service. I thought it'd be quick and easy to get AppleCare in a retail store (and CompUSA was the only one in my area that carried Apple stuff), rather than waiting a few days for Apple to ship it to me. I was wrong.
The manager at the CompUSA I went to kept insisting that I had to have purchased the iPod at CompUSA within the past 90 days, or Apple would deny the AppleCare registration. I tried to explain to him that's not how AppleCare works (the only thing in the box is a registration code, and Apple doesn't care where or when the iPod was purchased, other than that it was still under the 1-year factory warranty) -- having worked at an Apple reseller (my university bookstore) for several years, I knew this. Still wouldn't sell it to me. He tried to tell me that CompUSA was somehow different in this regard and that Apple would "know". Tried to convince him that I would take the risk of it not registering...still no go. Then he tried to tell me it was just store policy not to sell AppleCare if the iPod had not been purchased within 90 days from that store. Tried to get him to tell me where the hell this "policy" was actually written down...it should come as no surprise that he didn't even bother to try to look it up. Even tried, at one point, to tell me that if I had purchased the iPod more than 90 days ago, regardless of where I bought it, then the only place I could buy the AppleCare enrollment kit was directly from Apple.
At this point, I was somewhat set on proving a point and getting AppleCare immediately, so I went to my campus computer lab nearby, logged onto CompUSA.com, and ordered the AppleCare package online for in-store pickup. Half an hour later, I was back in the store at the customer service desk, trying to pick up my online order from the (relatively clueless) salesperson there. I almost got away with it, until somewhere near the end of the checkout, either the salesguy flagged down the manager (or the manager happened to wander by--it was so long ago I can't quite remember), noticed it was me and what I was trying to do again, and shot me down. Apparently "the website was wrong" and shouldn't have let me order AppleCare.
Since then, I haven't set foot in a CompUSA and moved even more of my computer parts purchases to places like NewEgg. Of course, now that I moved to Seattle, I have a Fry's nearby, and it's actually _fun_ to just wander around that store.
I kept telling myself after that incident that I would write to CompUSA's corporate offices and complain about that manager, but I never got around to it. Oh, well. The kicker is that the following Monday, I went to my University Bookstore, walked up to my old manager and asked they had any AppleCare enrollment kits for iPod. They happened to have one or two in stock, so about 10 minutes later, after sharing a laugh about the idiocy of the CompUSA manager, I was back at my desk across campus and my iPod was now covered under AppleCare.
Ah, the venting...it feels good.
*end rant*
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's kind of amazing how fast they did all this. Management got the news Friday afternoon, via telephone. Within a couple hours, there were a couple of guards on premises to make sure employees did not steel anything. Employees were forbidden from buying anything "at cost" which employees apparently have always been allowed to do. By the end of the night, liquidation guys had arrived from corporate and were going through the process of taking inventory and repricing so they could (presumably) begin actual liquidation sales this weekend.
It's just damn crazy. I've never cared for CompUSA except that since there are no longer any real mom and pop independent computer stores around, your choice is between CompUSA and Fry's. And Fry's isn't available in most places (which is a shock to those of us from the west coast when we visit other parts of the country). Without even a CompUSA around anymore, I don't know where you're going to pick up hardware in person? It was always nice to have a place you could go to as a last resort if you needed to replace a mobo RIGHT NOW.
What was their deal with taking credit cards? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Good riddance (Score:5, Interesting)
That's an easy one. It's called a shrink wrap machine. All the big stores have one. They just take the product you returned, shrinkwrap it and put some official-looking stickers on the outside so it looks factory fresh
Anyone remember Tandy's ill-fated "Computer City" stores? Same problems there, and guess what, they also are out of business. Hell, I spent fifty bucks (fifty bucks!) on a nice joystick, back in the days when I was playing Descent II a lot. Got it home, opened the box
And they wonder why nobody wants to shop brick-and-mortar anymore. It's not just that online ordering is somehow magically "better", sometimes it is nice to walk around an actual store, but these guys don't seem to be working very hard to make it worthwhile.
A Question.... (Score:5, Interesting)
You complain about the service, but greedy corporate chains don't pay much, so who works there? As the old adage goes, pay peanuts and you get monkeys. Moreover, as they're the only store in town you can like it lump it as far as they're concerned. No wonder they treat the public with contempt, we let them. Perhaps its time we returned to the old days of smaller, private stores??? After all, if my business relies on a good reputation and repeat trade I'm likely to offer a good service in return. Yes, things might cost a little more, but then you have to also ask the question about whether you're paying the true cost of anything these days. For example, I live in the Sub-Carpathian region, but amazingly bananas are cheaper than apples in the supermarket! Eh? Same for most products now, be it computers, food, clothes... all the same, someone gets screwed somewhere because the end user is tight fisted. Maybe, just maybe, we have to stop thinking about everything in simple $$$$ terms. People say they saved x number of cents on a product, but wasted x number of hours (and stress) when it didn't work, went wrong etc.
I for one will continue to support my local, privately run computer store. I pay a little more, but I get to talk to a guy who knows what he's on about, can find what I want and competently fix my machine when it's wrong. I save a lot this way, time and blood pressure namely, and as an added bonus I know a decent chap's getting paid fairly for his work. Chain stores will never compete with that level of service, not in a million years.
Re:The good old days (Score:4, Interesting)
Back then they were paying a living wage to their hardware salespeople (Or fairly close to it), had a decent tech department, and had a great Mac section.
I left in 1993 and ended up working for Apple Computer.
The funny thing was, I left just as Best buy was coming into the market, and CompUSA management was all freaked out about it. I didn't understand why Best Buy scared them (and still don't). CompUSA at the time was a "computer store" and a big one. Best Buy was what? Appliances, with some computers?
Back then CompUSA resembled Fry's more closely than Best buy, and they made the decision to go "retail". They could have gone the other way and been a little more "geeky".
Fry's, which currently looks like a big success story from my standpoint, flew a banner outside of their store at grand opening in Naperville IL which read: "Welcome IT Professionals".
I'm no fanboi for any retail chain. But there's some things I observed that first day shopping at the Naperville Fry's:
1. I ran into three of my contemporaries, all accomplished IT professionals.
2. When I talked to a guy in the computer components department about a logic board, he knew what chipsets were, which one I was using, why I chose it, and which boards used it.
3. It was amazing to me that I had the option of buying a 19" relay rack, an oscilloscope, coffee (Love their french roast!!), computer components, and a vacuum cleaner. (And have over the years bought some very strange permutations of geeky products, and rejoiced at the opportunity)
Strangest purchase combination: A DVD player, laser pointer, exercise DVD, tea, 19" relay rack, and a radio controlled car.
4. I noticed that under certain circumstances I'll forgo internet shopping for the brick and mortar shopping experience- even if I pay more.
Sadly, CompUSA never tried to touch the above market. As disjointed and strange as that product mix seems it *works*. CompUSA could have gotten a lot more techie in response to Best Buy. They didn't- and they lost.
11 years since last visit to Fry's... (Score:2, Interesting)
CompUSA was CompFUSA. No stock. Prices were higher than the street for most items. The staff and their training was nil. As I look back, I have hardly bought any good hardware lately, except for a couple of DVD drives for the kids systems and a power supply for one that decided to go poof. My personal webserver is on a Celeron, my BigBox is an Athlon64 and my laptop is a T42. My next purchase will be probably be a hard drive for BigBox, just based on age. I don't see why I have to keep desperately upgrading my hardware just because something new comes out. I am seeing BestBuy cutting back on their computer stock here. They took out about 20% of their computer supply floor area to put in a fou-fou Apple kiosk that shows about 5 models.
I would expect that in the next few years, most stores like BestBuy and CircuitCity will be ditching their computer parts and that will be relegated to Fry's, NewEgg, and a couple of online retailers as they concentrate on TV's when the analog channels shut down here in the US and everyone scrambles for new boobtoobs.
As everyone else is saying - When will Fry's be moving to my area - Milwaukee/Chicago.
-- Aetherburner
"In the company of wind, dust achieves great heights. In the company of rain, it's mud."
Re:As an ex employee... (Score:2, Interesting)
I come around looking for some coverage needs 2 years after I buy it and I am told that the warranty is up... I said "WTF I bought a 2 year coverage plan over and above the manufactures plan warranty."
The guy told me that the 2 year coverage covers the first and second year and I said so basically I paid out the ass to double cover myself in the first year?
the only thing that would have been worse is if I decided that 1 year "extra" coverage would have been enough.
Re:Meh. (Score:2, Interesting)
They Screwed Radio Shack (Score:3, Interesting)
I always wondered why Radio Shack didn't turn into a huge computer retailer, which was a perfect growth for the only store like that until PCs got huge, even selling the first laptop to sell well, the TRS-80 Model 100 [wikipedia.org]. Evidently it was CompUSA that contractually obligated the Shack to stay mainly a Battery Club. I be the Shack would have made something closer to Fry's, but instead with actual live nerds all too willing to explain the inventory.
Changing tactics did them in (Score:5, Interesting)
Then, management(VP's, RM's, DM's) somehow went crazy. Sales were going down a little. So, they started to go crazy on people anytime something was amiss. Maybe perhaps pressure will increase sales, In reality more training and more unity would have.
Then they bought out good Guy's. They took away the commissions, and fired 95 percent of the sales staff who all ended up in better jobs. This left the incompetants on the floor who really had no motivation to sell other than pressure. They never trained them properly either. Even worse, they all now made about 6-9 bucks an hour. For these people the job was just a fling. Nothing they cared about beyond the next check for booze. Even the ones who did care weren't promoted to a place that they could do anything.
Then, they started to model what good guys had been doing in creating high end selling rooms with pretty fixtures(expensive). However, there were no high end sales people to sell them. So what happened? Duh....
The pay consistently sucked. Good employees where like finding needles in a haystack. Even then, they never respected them if they were good. The management was always overworked. What did they expect? It's like the entire chain suddenly lost vision with the real world.
as someone (Score:5, Interesting)
what i've not seen mentioned is that this was done on purpose, at least at the store where i worked at (indianapolis) i worked at the parts counter selling harddrives/ram/whatever and they would put out massive ads for ram that was like half retail price but they would only stock maybe 5 or 6 sticks (which i often bought all of myself
on top of that they had a rampant theft problem, i worked there during high school and while i wasn't part of the group i knew about 10 people who were organized in stealing shit from the store and reselling it to their friends, that group expanded until they were eventually caught but even then they worked out a deal with some kind of minor fine and returning all the shit that they knew was missing (a fraction of the actual), that went on for at least a year that i'm aware of.
compusa has alwasy had a better selection adn lower prices than the likes of circuit city though (at least around here), so i am kind of surprised to see them closing down, they moved out of free standing buildings and into a nearby strip mall here cause the rent was too high on the land they were on (someone once told me it was like $30,000 a month or more and they supposedly owned the building)
i'm almost certain teh last nail in the coffin of the one here has to be Fry's even though its further away frys has an obscene amount of shit at far lower prices than anyone else around here (hardware specifically) and they finally made it out here, and when they did no one i knnow who builds their own machines goes anywhere else (myself included).
waspleg
Bad purchasing dept. was:Re:Meh. (Score:3, Interesting)
I was my observation that the quantity of an item purchased for sales at a store was only proportional to the markup of the item. Hence, every week we would get in several pallets of CD jewel cases, but only a dozen of the hard drive advertised on the front page. Following week, we'd still have half a pallet of jewel cases left over, and we're out of hard drives - yet two more pallets of jewel cases came in and even fewer hard drives than the previous week. It of course took very little time before the store was swamped with jewel cases and out of hard drives.
And to further screw up the situation, there was no way for us to communicate with the people in charge of purchasing, and they never visited the stores in person. As an example, we asked for years for the store to carry case fans - which was an item that was listed with a very nice markup percentage in the special order inventory - yet it wasn't until years after I left that they finally did. But yet during that time interval, they tried selling (MIDI) keyboards, remote controlled cars, camcorders, cell phones, and television sets.
I was just glad that the last time I stopped by my old place of employment, none of the capable co-workers that slugged it out there with me were still stuck there. They had all taken better jobs - primarily at best buy, circuit city, or microcenter. And of course the best of us finished our college degrees and got out of retail altogether...
Re:They Screwed Radio Shack (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My experience is that Com-pooza is horrible. (Score:2, Interesting)
And...if they bought it, what did I get? Nothing, nada, zilch. Motivation to keep busting your balls? None.
I don't know if the *other* departments in the store operate on a commission scale, but computer sales, music equipment, and music sales certainly did not, so you'll find the employees sales enthusiasm on par with the sub-standard compensation.
That's my
Re:11 years since last visit to Fry's... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, jeez, I wish you'd posted that in 2006. We were having Thanksgiving with our daughter in Vegas where they have a Fry's, I'd heard of their super loss leaders, and I decided to check it out.
There were at least a dozen employees directing parking traffic in their lot and an adjoining patch of desert. The checkout line stretched through the entire store -- up one aisle, down the next, end to end. You couldn't wheel a cart to the department you wanted; you had to just "mow the lawn" with everybody else, picking up stuff as you passed it. Never again.
rj
I sure wouldn't want to be in their business (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember being amazed at the dramatic changes that the fairs and the computer stores had to make to stay alive. At first it was pretty much desktop PC hardware and accessories that was their bread and butter. Later, most of the shelf space for hardware was turned over to boxed software. Then, as people started buying software online, the boxed software offerings disappeared. Then, they had to turn to selling media, and finally, things like TV and audio systems to stay alive.
Today, there's little action in desktop machines. Everyone wants laptops and the laptop era seems about to roll over to the mobile device era.
What an amazing series of sea changes in the public buying preferences within a time span of 15 years or less. Each one of those changes would have seemed astounding in any other field. In high tech consumer digital stuff, it just keeps coming and coming.
Most businesses never survive even a single cycle of having to reinvent their business model. In the case of consumer electronics, it seems that if you can't reinvent yourself over and over again, you're toast. Like I said, I sure wouldn't want to be in their business.
Re:My experience is that Com-pooza is horrible. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Meh. (Score:2, Interesting)
What I wonder is, what happens if you bought an actual computer or other serviceable item from them? (I don't know why you would, but whatever). If you bought a $2000 laptop at CompUSA last week, are you screwed now? Even if you paid the $300 or whatever for the extended warranty BS? Or are those warranties and product services provided through third party contracts?
Re:Good riddance (Score:2, Interesting)
Home Depot has been investigated for this - http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5401128?f=search [cfo.com]
Re:A Question.... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is an indy shop that has been around for a few years which I will continue to support, except for ram. Ram is one of those things i'll always mail order.
They're all the same (Score:3, Interesting)
Computer City was good for the little things and gadgets: cables, CDs, accessories, books, etc. It was not a place from which anyone with any intelligence would purchase a computer. Good prices and decent customer service. When CompUSA bought them, it changed drastically. It still was not a place from which to buy a computer, but with CompUSA at the helm prices went up and service went down.
Best Buy, the running joke of technology stores. Poor choice of brands to sell, jacked up prices, the most ignorant computer salespeople I've ever encountered, close to the worst customer service I've ever experienced and protection plans for generating more income everywhere you turn. Let's not even talk about the useless-before-they-were-exposed-for-collecting-porn-and-personal-information Geek Squad.
Circuit City is less of a computer store than Office Depot. They carry a small variety of name brand computers which they buy straight from the manufacturer in bulk and then jack up the price. Besides being as ignorant as Best Buy salespeople, Circuit City people work on commission last I heard, so you get attacked as soon as you look at any high dollar item.
CompUSA used to be reliable and would provide good customer service... if you worked at a business that could afford it. Home users were SoL. As someone else posted if you were unfortunate enough to relinquish your PC to this store, when you got it back not only had two successor computers been released but the amount you paid for the repair could have bought you a brand new computer. They definitely fell behind the curve of every technology they tried to sell. As with most brick and mortar stores, they're structure doesn't allow them to stay ahead of the availability or price curve.
Microcenter makes CompUSA look affordable and friendly. Unless the item you want is on sale then you'll likely pay 25-50% more for it than you would if you bought it online. The only item I've found Microcenter to be useful for is books. They have an extensive selection of technology books and thankfully, they don't mark them up from the cover price.
Fry's, the current darling of geeks everywhere, is showing some of the worst practices of any of these stores mentioned above. Fry's must keep their shrinkwrap machines running at full speed. This mainly centers on computer components. It is rare to see the always-long return line populated by people carrying TVs or small appliances; they almost always have a computer component in their hands. I know that's what put me in that line three times last year until I finally learned my lesson. I suspect that since Fry's has its own computer service department that this group has free will over the components that come into the store. They "borrow" from inventory to troubleshoot and then package the item back up and put it on the shelf. Ever notice how *every* motherboard box on the shelf is only sealed by strapping? How easy is that to re-package? Aside from creating/allowing product defects, Fry's also has poor customer service. Good luck finding someone to help you in any department except printers and TVs where they obviously get commission. Read the fine print on the back of the receipt carefully and ignore it, because if you show any signs of frustration from your experience with them, they'll likely refuse your exchange/return and blow you off. I also feel Fry's deliberately causes store rushes by offering irresistable sales on items and only carrying a limited number per store. (I recall going to Fry's at lunch to check on a sale item. When I asked about it, the employee laughed and said, "Oh, you have to get here before we open for those items.") I strongly suspect that Fry's has a great many underhanded dealings going on as well, and I predict within the next five years they will be exposed.
What choice does that leave anyone who only has a choice of purchasing computers or components