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Gateway To Close All Retail Stores
John Lazzaro writes "Looks like Gateway is throwing in the towel and closing all of its remaining retail stores, according to a Reuters/Yahoo! report." The story notes: "Gateway's stores, which will be closed on April 9, have long been criticized by analysts and investors as an expensive drag on cash flow because of lease costs and the difficulty of managing inventories", and goes on to suggest: "...with [the acquisition of] eMachines, Gateway doesn't necessarily need the added distribution channel the stores gave the company. In addition to selling Gateway's wares over the phone and via the Internet, eMachines PCs are sold at major retailers such as Best Buy."
RTFpress release. This story's legit.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Although Apple seems to be doing quite well in retail, Gateway was losing money hand-over fist. (Gee, think that could have anything to do with quality?)
My prediction: Either they merge with another company or they'll be out of business within two years.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
When I asked them about Linux, or a machine without an O/S, I was told "Microsoft won't let us do that." Double Duh.
In short, it was about the most useless showroom experience I've had in a long time. Gateway will lose nothing by shutting these turkeys (cows?) down.
I actually work, well did work in a local store and while there were a lot of stores that werent profitable. Ours were extremely profitable and people liked the fact that they could bring their machine into a local service center. Profits greatly increased when they had more inventory and standard configurations.
Dell has stores in about ten states.
. as px/kiosk?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
No idea if they're profitable though.
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
i just called gateway store in Corona, CA.
Talked to some guy, and he said yea, theyre closing. Should have a big sale, but doesnt know when.
I'm gonna call back saturday and see..
hope i can score some cheap shit!
-Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
EMachines sells set configurations to retail outlets. Gateway makes machines "custom to order" Even when buying at the physical store you frequently have your PC shipped from the factory.
Micron tried to combine these markets by selling made to order machines at Best Buy but it didn't really catch on.
Maybe with this merger a there will be a Gateway retail brand too. It could be a more expensive alternative to the EMachine base system.
Actually, the roll-out trays are designed so that you can't find anything without the assistance of a salesperson... open any drawer and a salesperson is supposed to immediately ask if you need help, since more likely than not you've opened the one that doesn't contain what you're looking for.
I hear ya on the bad experiences w/ Gateway. Back around early 1995, I ran the computer systems for a college book store. We bought a Gateway 386 to run Office and a VBA based app that I wrote for the managers to input the register tapes into, which would do all the department breakdowns, and associated work, and fax a report to headquarters.
;)
Problem was, this machine couldn't run Windows 3.1 in 386 Enhanced mode. I had had a similar problem with a computer that I owned, and knew that this had to do with a faulty keyboard controller or circuits associated with it. Address Line 20 on the keyboard controller was actually used to switch between Protected and Enhanced mode on the 386. I related this information to Gateway tech support, and recieved incredulous reactions, assurances that such a thing was impossible, and no help whatsoever.
Shortly after the warrenty ran out, Gateway admitted that there was a fault in the keyboard controller that was causing our problem. They refused to make good, even though I had given them the answer months before, and insisted on charging for the motherboard swap. My boss at the time was not particularly clueful about these things, and declined to press the matter.
I, being a student at the time had to console myself with informing the manager of Gateway Customer service that "as long as I live, Gateway will never see another fucking cent from any person or company who comes to me for advice on computers. Enjoy that $200 fee, because it's going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars in lost sales" (and has).
Some grudges are worth holding
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Maybe this will help Gateway get back in the mainstream.
Opera Watch - An Opera browser blog.
Try an Apple Store. Not nearly as many as Gateway has (had), but you can spend as long as you like on their computers, and use the internet pretty much without restriction. List. You don't even have to like Macs--the whole idea is that the experience will move someone "on the fence" to purchasing one for themselves, eventually.
--
$tar -xvf
- "Oh, forget the cable, I was really looking for a laptop like that one, can I see? Oooh. Nice. Ah. Color? Neat. Hmmm. Say I could use something like that -- say how's the screen in bright light, I notice that it's rather dark in here."
What we had there was a failure to communicate.It's great -- how do you spell your mother's maiden name?
"Could we remove it from the shackle for a minute and take it near the window to get an idea?"
Sorry, we're not allowed to do that -- its against our security policy. Do you rent or own?
"No, no, I don't want to take it OUTSIDE, just over near the, er, tinted *sigh* window to get an idea how...
"Will you want a printer with your purchase?"
So, good bye Gateway Stores -- you sucked and we're better off without you.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
$3000 will also buy a brilliant 42" Samsung DLP monitor, which actually supports HDTV resolutions (the gateway display is EDTV-only), has more video inputs and doesn't burn in or ultimately leak the contents of its screen into open atmosphere.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Mainstream news is picking this story up as well. One of the news television channels my dad watches was just showing this on its ticker.
Before I saw that, I assumed this was BS as well.
Just because they didn't charge you the sale tax for your state doesn't mean you don't have to pay it.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Correction...not fired...laid off. Big difference. Being laid off means that you can collect up to about $2G's a month on unemployment. Works for me.
Intelligence is like four wheel drive, having it just means you'll get stuck in more remote places.
I worked for a software company in California, and I was asked to purchase a PC for an emergency programming job. Our usual supplier took over a week to get a PC, and I remembered seeing the Gateway store on my way to work.
Thinking the Gateway might be a cut above the HP Pavilion or something I would get at Best Buy I drove over there. There were about 3 people looking at computers -- one was getting a demo of something by a sales person -- a pretty empty store.
It took me 3 minutes to walk around and peruse the various models, and then 10 more to get a sales rep to talk to me.
I pointed at a PC and told him I wanted to get one and asked for a price. When he told me it would take a week to get the PC, I was floored.
"You don't have any computers to sell here???"
"No."
"What's in all these cow-boxes you have along the windows?"
"They're empty."
"So what do you sell here?"
"Well, you can order one here. The store is so that customers can come in and try the machines out and match their needs to the PC."
"But I can order one from home with a couple of mouse-clicks!"
He didn't have much of an answer for that. I drove on to Best Buy and got the Pavilion.
I remember thinking that GW was crazy to open all these stores just so people could look and touch (but not take!) the machines. Expensive real-estate too -- all the stores I saw were in very high-rent areas.
Maybe Inouye can keep Waitt's expensive schemes in check and keep the company afloat....
Come again? What inventory? The only thing you could do at Gateway Stores was ordering your PC anyway. They only had some sample PCs to show off. Then again: Since when do have analysts the slightest clue about what they are talking ...