CompUSA and the dodo wed in afterlife

Robert Hallock 10 Dec, 2007 at 2:53am ET Article published in Tech

CompUSA has been on the skids for some time. Locked in an epic struggle against their mortal nemesis, Best Buy, 2006’s Yule-time price war sent CompUSA into a dire tailspin. In spite of a higher gross income than BBY throughout the 2006 Christmas season, CompUSA operated in the red on their margin.

In early 2007, CompUSA shuttered numerous stores in an effort to restructure their company. Unfortunately, it looks like CompUSA’s efforts were unsuccessful, as the company has promised to close all 103 of its remaining stores after the Christmas season.

Comments

10 Dec 2007 ~ 2:57am primesuspect bye.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 3:37am NiGHTS Just let me know when they start liquidating.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 3:45am Linc

NiGHTS wrote:

Just let me know when they start liquidating.

They are now... all the stores will be gone early in '08.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 12:08pm NiGHTS Fair enough. I should have said: let me know when they start offloading decent technology for ridiculous prices.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 12:30pm BlackHawk Makes me wonder if they'll close here in PR since they just opened their latest stores a few months ago. Retail here is completely different to the US since we can be flat out broke and stores are still jam packed. Hell, CompUSA is full most of the days and you see everybody and their grandmother walking out with Macs and HDTVs.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 12:42pm Leonardo This really, really bad news for us in Alaska. There is no other retailer with a wide variety of computer parts in the entire state. Sure there's BestBuy, Sam's Club, and the department stores, but they cater to consumer electronics consumers, not computer enthusiasts. Of course, we can order from the big online vendors just like anyone else, but that is very expensive due to shipping unless you order multiple items at one time. Essentially, if you need a critical part fast, like a motherboard or PSU, Best Buy's poor selection and not-so-good prices will now be the only stopgap. Motherboards? Best Buy? Oh, that's very funny.

There are no Fry's or Microcenters in Alaska.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 12:45pm GHoosdum I guess it's the tradeoff you make for the beautiful vistas.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 1:47pm Leonardo No argument on your point about vistas. It's also very clean and natural here with a very small population density. (I chose to move back up here for those reasons, amongst others.)

Newegg orders are not too bad for shipping costs if it's a multi-item order. For instance, I could order a medium sized part, such as a motherboard, and the shipping charges would be about $20. Add two or three other items and the shipping cost will rise only about another $5. That's fairly economical, especially considering I don't have to expend time and gasoline driving to a store. That's also actually quite reasonable for such long distance shipping, by any standard. But let's say I just need $10 fan and a tube of thermal paste. The shipping will be as much as the value of the items purchased. To continue the discussion, let's say a power supply fails. I can order online and pay a hefty shipping charge (heavy item). If I need that PSU 'right now,' the local purchase choice will be Best Buy - very poor selection, local small computer shops - junk, or outrageous prices, or a department store - high prices and pathetic selection. Needless to say, the Alaska CompUSA (Anchorage) always has plenty of customers making many purchases, and not just sale and rebate items. The store is clean, the sales clerks are generally knowledgeable, and service center has a very good reputation in town. Also, I've picked up many sales and rebate items for much less than I could purchased through Newegg. The problems reported for many other CompUSA stores are really not at ours.

No, none of this is a show stopper. But in some markets, CompUSA is great asset for computer enthusiasts. You know, come to think of, for Mac users, I believe in the Anchorage area that CompUSA is the only authorized service facility.

I've seen this before at other places I've lived: chain stores with the majority of their stores in large, metropolitan areas become insolvent due to competition, resulting in the chains closing even though many of stores in smaller markets are performing very well. Maybe we'll get lucky up here in Alaska and the CompUSA store will be bought out, remain open, but just with a different name. Fry's? Oh my oh my. They could make a killing up here! For serious computer shoppers, Fry's or Microcenter would have NO competition here.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 2:34pm RADA So Leo, lets all pool our resources and call Fry's about opening a store!
10 Dec 2007 ~ 4:14pm Leonardo Oh, I forget about the other tech options here: Office Depot, Staples, and Office Max. They actually aren't too bad when they sometimes wake up and realize there is such a thing as competition. Sales prices aren't bad, but everyday prices are horrible and computer parts selection is pretty bad. But then, businesses seem to like the office stores regardless of price.

Hey, I'm really not complaining about this. I'm actually thankful for the infrastructure and local retail that we do have; it's just sad to see CompUSA go, as they are the only computer-dedicated retailer of note in the state.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 4:40pm CB Something will move in to fill the vacuum left behind.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 8:02pm yagga sad is true.

I miss CompUSA here. They shut down the 5 stores in the metro here this spring.

Too much competition is what my understanding of it was. After all, this is Best Buy's corporate town, along with Circuit City, Micro Center, Office Max/Depot (if these even count, hah), Audio King/Ultimate Electronics (not computer based, but Compusa dabbed it's share into home entertainment as well), and the numerous local and chain video game stores - No Frys though, unfortunately.

I always did like CompUSA. They were FAR knowledgeable than other stores, actually had people that wanted to help you not sell more to you, and loved their jobs, without the uber geekiness, slowness, depression forming Micro Center atmosphere with a touch of retardation. They also had far better deals than online many times, and were available to stop at any time I felt like it, ...except the middle of the night of course.

Granted, Micro Center is much more of a any part you could possibly need store compared to CompUSA, but it certainly had its place.

Damn it!
10 Dec 2007 ~ 8:23pm Thrax Funny thing is, CompUSA was the only store left that sold on commission, so yes, they really did just want to sell things to you.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 8:33pm Qeldroma Sadly, my state (Arizona) also had CompUSA and must have contributed to the demise. They just couldn't compete- Circuit City and Best Buy generally had better prices and Fry's would soundly beat them across the board. Our CompUSAs were basically empty museums where you might go to put your hands on something you saw on the internet.

I really marvelled that they stayed afloat as long as they did.
10 Dec 2007 ~ 8:43pm CB MicroCenter is still on commission. At least, the one here in Cincy is.
11 Dec 2007 ~ 1:06pm mas0n Sorry to those of you who this was your only available local retailer, but this is good riddance as far as I'm concerned.
12 Dec 2007 ~ 2:07pm yagga

Thrax wrote:

Funny thing is, CompUSA was the only store left that sold on commission, so yes, they really did just want to sell things to you.

I'm not sure about that here. When I bought things I did so without sales help, or if someone did talk to me they never labeled my item I was buying, so I don't know how anyone would get credit. The Micro Center here also does not label things I purchase with stickers or numbers or anything. No escorts to the registers, either.

Also, the CompUSA here usually had several people, or was downright crowded. Much more so than any Office Type store and even Circuit City a lot. And just think about 12:00am store openings, ...you know, I still can't believe I went to one of those. It was about -5F at the time and probably 96F inside the store. Oh, yeah, I think I profited a few hundred that day.
12 Dec 2007 ~ 2:33pm Thrax CompUSA, company-wide, is/was commission.
12 Dec 2007 ~ 4:25pm BlackHawk Well, it seems CompUSA is also closing it's stores here.
12 Dec 2007 ~ 5:21pm mas0n All stores will close. On Dec. 7th all of CompUSA, Inc. was sold to to Gordon Brothers Group, which is a liquidation firm.
12 Dec 2007 ~ 7:05pm Leonardo Today was the first day of liquidation at the Anchorage store. Most items were 10 to 20% off original prices. Previous specials, in-store discounts, and rebates were all gone. Many things were actually higher in price than they were last week. There were some decent specials though, such as processors. All CPUs were 20% off. Q6600 was $240 and AMD Phenom $230 (not good, IMO). I did not pay attention to laptop prices as I'm not interested, but I did notice several people with notebooks in their shopping carts and the laptop shelves were half empty.

So, what did I get? Photo printer paper. That's it.
16 Dec 2007 ~ 7:18pm Leonardo Prices continue to be poor: 10-20% mark downs on otherwise high prices. A lot of people walking the aisles not realizing many prices were actually less before the liquidation began.
16 Dec 2007 ~ 8:13pm Qeldroma

Leonardo wrote:

Prices continue to be poor: 10-20% mark downs on otherwise high prices. A lot of people walking the aisles not realizing many prices were actually less before the liquidation began.

Yeah- they closed up their Arizona stores before they went under and what I wanted (a roll-away laptop/tech bag) was the same price at Newegg- the difference being I could get it that day. I was also surprised at how much they were asking for 6-12mo old systems/laptops.

I used to work a tire shop and the owner said to me once, "You'd be surprised at how many people will come out and look when you advertise a Sale and all you changed on the price tag was the word 'SALE'".

:P
16 Dec 2007 ~ 8:24pm Leonardo

I was also surprised at how much they were asking for 6-12mo old systems/laptops.

Yeah, unfortunately, many consumers don't do any price comparisons. Some of them are afraid to shop online.