And There Was Rejoicing
By Mitch Berg
Foot brings the word; CompUSA is circling the drain:
Consumer electronics retailer CompUSA said Friday it will close its store operations after the holidays following sale of the company to Gordon Brothers Group, a restructuring firm. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
The reason?
Dallas-based CompUSA has struggled for nearly a decade with falling prices on personal computers, its most important product, and competition from big-box retailers such as Best Buy.
Also surly, hostile service, unimaginative and stodgy marketing, a terrible website, stores with downright off-putting phone autoattendants that rarely found a human destination, and being a rotten, cold, irritating place to shop. Sort of like the K-Mart of electronics.
The silver lining – besides the chain’s forthcoming extinction itself?
CompUSA operates 103 stores, which plan to run store-closing sales during the holidays.
I think I could salvage just a tad of goodwill…
It would be up to the buyers whether to continue the CompUSA name.
Note to buyers: no.
December 10th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
My two favorite CompUSA decisions:
1) Reducing the shelf space given to software so they could sell TVs
2) Deciding not to abandon price stickers for inscrutable codes that required you to take the item to a clerk and beg him to find out how much it cost
The local store did have a good Mac-savvy guy, though. He was the best clerk in the shop.
He runs the Mac section at Best Buy now.
December 10th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Sometimes justice takes a while… and even after all this time, it feels great!
December 10th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
I still wonder at Mitch rejoicing over the collapse of a business. Smug satisfaction I understand, but joy?
December 10th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
“Defective Return” experiences (by friends) made me extremely reluctant to buy things there. MicroCenter and Best Buy have been pretty good to me. *shrug*
December 10th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Does that mean i can stop paying my COMPUSA credit card? i still have $700 to pay on a computer i bought from there 2 years ago…
December 11th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Ah, I wouldn’t have my hopes set too high for the store clearance. The Roseville store closed last year and sat on whopping 5 percent discounts for several weeks.
December 11th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Kerm,
Nah, I’m sorry for the ones that are losing their jobs.
Well, at least I’m sorry for the ones that still talked with you if you didn’t whip out a credit card in the first 20 seconds. And the one that gave me an accurate service estimate, or returned my calls. One, as in singular.
For the store itself? Buh-bye. Sorry to say, but I’ve hated Comp for almost a decade.
Pianomomsicle,
Oooof, sorry about that. Your debt to the store is one of the assets that’ll get sold first. A zillion credit servicing companies will be right there waiting for it to go on the market.
I know I was looking forward to Montgomery Ward going out of business, years ago; my ex and I owed them $1400. No such luck. The payment address changed – twice, I think – but the debt stayed put.
Sorry.
December 11th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Well I guess you did your part in making the Free Market work. By rejecting inferior businesses do we encourage excellent ones?
December 11th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
By rejecting inferior businesses do we encourage excellent ones?
General Nanosystems seems to be thriving; I’ve bought desktop computers noplace else in the past eight years. I encourage everyone to patronize them; they are local, the prices and quality (for desktops) rock, and the service is the kind of thing you just don’t find in the tech-toy world; you bring the computer in, they put it on the bench and tear it apart and start working on it.
If they fail, I don’t want to know what will succeed.
December 11th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Hmm. This poor old laptop could use an upgrade…
December 12th, 2007 at 8:23 am
I go to General Nanosystems and get systems and parts when I want a local supplier. They warranty systems they assemble (even if you choose the parts) for one year. This is a very nice service to have where mainboard and memory problems are concerned.
The only down side for me are their sometimes surly service folks. 😉
When I don’t mind shipping costs (and waiting), or when I want to see how other customers have rated a part I am considering buying (at GN or anywhere), I have a look at the NewEgg website.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:50 am
The only down side for me are their sometimes surly service folks.
It’s a room full of hardware geeks. I’m surprised they even talk to us at all.
But the work they do just rocks.
December 12th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Indeed it does. Also, I stopped by there just yesterday and had service that was both friendly and excellent (and I do most of the time).
Today, just down the street a block or so, I stopped by what was “Tran Micro” and found “Max Computers” in its place. It didn’t look all that different though. *shrug*