CompUSA Closing More Than 50 Percent of Stores

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. "

Comments

It's about time... and only the beginning.

[dada21]

Disclosure: I worked for CompUSA about 18 years ago during a court-mandated stint forcing me to have a "real" job. It was a 6 month stint at which time I was the top performing sales person month after month, even though I was only 16. I learned a lot of corporate retail problems, which continue to this day.

I have 2 CompUSAs in my area, close to clients that my company still maintains. They're both depressing -- too many workers, but no one with knowledge. I hear a lot of lies, get pushed on extended warranties that don't work, and have to deal with waiting and waiting when I need to find something that their website shows as in-stock. The company is inept because the company is trying to compete in the wrong market.

I honestly see a lot of retail collapsing because the time is getting close that the manufacturers can sell products cheaper, and at a higher profit for themselves, directly or through direct-partners. I can't imagine a Luddite like my father trying to buy something at CompUSA when the typical sales person there is no different than Best Buy's brilliant teen workers. But that's the end problem: CompUSA is still trying to be a consumer store rather than business-oriented.

CompUSA has a much wider inventory than Best Buy or Circuit City, but they obviously can't compete with those power houses who have more stores and also have a lot of value-added items they can sell to make up for what they don't make on popular laptops and LCD monitors. Yet the typical business that I deal with still prefers solid advice over bottom-line price. Consumers want it cheap, and they tend not to have long-term relationships with a particular sales person or a store. CompUSA dropped the ball when they started to lose to CDW and MacWarehouse -- the corporate clients of mine haven't used CompUSA in years because of their change from business-focused to consumer-oriented and cheap.

Even on price CompUSA doesn't compete -- often times when I need something I am shocked at the prices. Sure, we're all familiar with the $6-USB-cable-that-sells-for-$39, but even basics such as a stand IEC power cord are overpriced. Their selection is decent, but they are trying to compete in a market that they can not penetrate, especially with Amazon and eBay destroying the price competitiveness of the big box PC store.

This is a good thing for CompUSA, but I don't see them lasting. Every CompUSA near me has both Best Buy and Circuit City nearby, and I admit that I've had more intelligent sales staff at the big box store than at CompUSA. If they want to save their business, they have to focus on local businesses rather than trying to be the answer man for people who want cheap prices and sales. Without the business customer (who tends to accept a higher cost in exchange for GOOD advice and support), their business is heading to the toilet.

Re:It's about time... and only the beginning.

[morgan_greywolf]

It's unfortunate, too, because CompUSA used to be the place for business customers. They had a corporate sales desk (which they no longer have), good in-house service and support (which they no longer), CompUSA-branded in-store built PCs (which they no longer have), and the level of knowledge used to be much, much better.

Then one day CompUSA decided that their main competition wasn't the local computer shops (which are a much better resource for the SOHO buyer) or CDW or MacWarehouse, but Best Buy, Circuit City and OfficeMax. For crying out loud, I shouldn't get more knowledgeable sales staff out of a freaking office supply story than I do out of a store whose main goal is to sell computers and accessories!

I don't think retail will entirely go away: Office Depot and OfficeMax make quite a hefty sum selling routers, network adapters and notebook computers. Especially in the SOHO market, where people like the convenience of walking into a store and walking out with a computer. And in the SMB market, CDW and MacWarehouse will continue to reign supreme. Dell works for the larger corporates who have in-house IT, and while some SOHO and SMB people get their PCs from Dell, many are finding Dell support to be too poor to be useful. Many SOHO and SMB folks are turning to outside services to handle IT issues, and Geek Squad, 1-800-905-GEEK and other companies are making money hand-over-fist selling services to them.

Re:It's about time... and only the beginning.

[Xabraxas]

I admit that I've had more intelligent sales staff at the big box store than at CompUSA.

That statement scares me.

Believe it or not not all big box sales people are idiots. Some of them are actually computer geeks in college getting their computer science degrees, or programmers that want a part time job. I think the stereotype of the idiot salesmen is a huge over-generalization. In fact I worked retail while I was in college and I often ran into assholes who thought they were so much smarter than me because they had "real" tech jobs, not knowing that I was just paying my way to a computer science degree. I've found that a lot of customers who claimed to be techies were actually not that intelligent at all. So it works both ways. You have some extremely intelligent sales people and some clueless ones. It's just as common in the tech world. Some of my colleagues are on the same intellectual level as the generalized sales people you speak of.

Re:It's about time... and only the beginning.

[soft_guy]

If you are down at CompUSA trying to show off your "intelligence", it is probably because you have none.

I work maybe a block from a CompUSA and once in a while I go in there to buy something that I need right now and can't buy elsewhere (like dual layer DVD-Rs), but I never go there to have discussions with the employees. Why the hell would I do that?

Re:It's about time... and only the beginning.

[AJWM]

Yep, and if you're going to order, might as well go somewhere like Microbarn:

14 foot patch cable, $1.99

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 they pulled a few years ago where their routers would periodically hijack HTTP requests.)

Count yourself lucky you have a retail store.

[jimicus]

Here in the UK, there is 1 (yes one) company which pretty much has a stranglehold on about 90% of the bricks & mortar large computer stores. While smaller ones exist, I'm only talking about the large places with a reasonable selection that tend to be located in out of town industrial areas, since that's the fairest comparison with CompUSA and BestBuy.

It's the closest thing we have to Best Buy or CompUSA.

It's called PC World, and it's run by a company called the Dixons Stores Group.

Let's just say: £80 network cards (that was apparently the cheapest), £20 USB cables (again, the cheapest), £1,200 PCs. They stock cheaper ones but I've never met anyone who ever bought one - I suspect those who are savvy enough don't go there in the first place, and those who aren't are generally told "You want to send email? Well, in that case you'll need this...". 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.

Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store.

[aslate]

Okay, PC World is not a lovely company that's nice and whatever, but i'd buy from them any day over Dell. I've been working in a store for 1 and a half years (Student job, nice pay for retail) and i know where they're dodgy and where they're not. Yes, you can get a lot of stuff really cheap online, but like Amazon, they don't have the overhead of real stores. The PC margin is small, often no more than 10% which may not even cover the time paid to the guy helping you, the profit does come from stuff like cables, inks and peripherals, but that's how the PC market has worked and still works.

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.

Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store.

[kd5ujz]

In the US, we call that store Radio Shack. You have questions? We have blank stares!

Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store.

[dgatwood]

Depends on whether it's a corporate store or not. It used to be that you could tell the difference pretty easily because the non-corporate stores looked pretty different. Now, it's hard to tell except by the service. With the corporate stores, you get some random manager who has training as a manager. With the non-corporate (franchise) stores, you often have a manager who is a hobbyist him/herself.

My home town RS back in Martin, TN has a manager who knows the stuff cold. "I'm looking for something to do X," usually gets an "I'm not sure. Let me ask Jeff." I wish he were managing a store here in the Silicon Valley; most of the stores here seem to exemplify the "We have blank stares" problem in my experience. The point is that it varies a lot from store to store.

At least it isn't Fry's, though. I went in to buy potentiometers. They only had long shaft pots, so I had to saw the shaft, which was obnoxious.... Then, I asked where the knobs are. "Knobs?" "Yes. Knobs for pots." "Aisle 3." "I just looked there." "I saw pots, but no knobs." "Oh, knobs. We don't sell those." "What!?! If I have to go to Radio shack for something as basic as knobs, why the *&^%^& am I wasting my time coming here at all?" Yes, this was a real exchange, minus the last line, which was my muttering as I walked out to the car.

Fry's seems to be good at carrying the really obscure stuff, but they seem to have a complete lack of common, basic parts... like I couldn't find a 555 timer IC. Had to buy it at the Rat Shack. Knobs for pots. Rat Shack. Decent soldering gun that wasn't obscenely priced. Rat Shack. Copper shielding tape... the garden section of Orchard Supply Hardware. Yeah. That one was weird.... CD markers? Fry's was out of stock. Grocery store. Dr. Pepper? Albertson's was out of stock. Fry's.

Clearly, we live in a world where stores can't be bothered to give a rat's ass about customer satisfaction, sensible stocking, or generally knowing anything at all about the products that they carry. Were it not for the shipping, I'd even order my groceries online---not because it's cheaper, but because it would save me from having to deal with incompetent people. :-)

Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store.

[indian_rediff]

To help the people that are not from the US, Radio Shack's tag line is 'You have questions? We have answers'. Hope that makes the parent post appear funnier.

Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store.

[Richard_at_work]

I saw this post and thought it didnt ring well, so I popped down the road to check at my local PC World -

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.

[Idarubicin]

'You have blank stares? The parent post has answers!'

Re:Count yourself lucky you have a retail store.

[XO]

Packard Bell's brand name has changed hands a few times, gone under a few times, been brought back a few times. From what I hear, they aren't the absolutely abyssmal garbage they were pushing back in the early 90's...

Probably not far from it though

kinda sad.

[TinBromide]

Here on the east coast, we don't have fry's electronics. Where i'm at, the nearest circuit city is in the next city, the best buy usually has like 3 video cards, 1 sub-par motherboard, and approximately 23 hojillion music cd's, dvd's, and washing machines.

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.

Re:kinda sad.

[jackb_guppy]

There is a Fry's on East Coast!! Atlanta... 8hrs away for me.

I am lucky, I live between 3 Fry's, Chicago, Atlanta and Dallas. They are only a day away!

Small Business Rejoice.

[jellomizer]

CompUSA is a major competitive threat to small buisness. First the take potentional Customers away. Next they sell them Crap that makes people in general hate PC. Then when they break They take the buisness and because they have under trained people fixing the systems they do a halfassed job and charge 2/3 the price a Pro will do it right. CompUSA was much like the Walmart of Computers. It really hurt the sales of companies who pay more for skilled labor.

Not the end of retail -- just economic Darwinism

[Alfthemack]

It's just bad management! Fry's is doing relatively well in most of their locations. Best Buy is doing okay. Circuit City is limping along. Shipping costs negate the whole buying direct thing. Who wants to spend $3 on shipping for a $5 cable? Radio Shack is having similar issues. There are way too many non-Slashdot consumers that like their hands held when purchasing computers and other electronics. Yes, computers are electronics with semi-conductors. Wal-Mart and Target carry common USB cables, blank CD's, etc. IKEA carries powerstrips.

15-20 years ago, the big box discounters were putting the smaller mom and pop retailers out of business. Now, the better managed (Wal-Mart, Target, Fry's, OfficeMax, IKEA, BestBuy) big box stores are putting the lesser managed (K-mart, Toys'R'Us, Circuit City, CompUSA) stores out of business. Retail is obviously still strong for even the smaller players. Apple and HP are doing well with consumers via retail. Dell and Gateway? They are both in a small funk right now.

CompUSA would be better off emulating Fry's. K-mart is one retailer that as proven that one can't shrink it's way back into the hearts of consumers. (Note to those in the Bay Area: The Fry's in Austin, TX actually has competent employees!)

The End of the Customer Appreciation Bat?

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

Somehow, I don't think Gabe and Tycho are heartbroken.

Crow T. Trollbot

Oh, no!

[saintlupus]

Wherever will I find gold-plated $30 USB cables?

Oh, okay, Best Buy will still be open.

--saint

Source of the cash

[DigitAl56K]

...would receive a $440 million cash capital infusion, but it was not specific as to the source of the cash

Someone finally paid for the retail version of Windows Vista Ultimate.

Re:Source of the cash

[Rude Turnip]

The $440 million came from its parent company. My friend works in a CompUSA and received a memo about the cash infusion a couple weeks ago. He asked me if that meant there was anything to worry about and I said "no, don't worry, that means they're investing more the expand the business, it happens all the time." So, this morning I got a phone call..."hey, remember when you said not to worry?!"

Here is some hot news for you...almost all of the inventory is going up on eBay for pennies on the dollar.

Re:Source of the cash

[DigitAl56K]

Here is some hot news for you...almost all of the inventory is going up on eBay for pennies on the dollar.*

* After rebates

Re:Source of the cash

[Theolojin]

...would receive a $440 million cash capital infusion, but it was not specific as to the source of the cash
--
Someone finally paid for the retail version of Windows Vista Ultimate.

If I said it once, I said it a billion times: Dude, don't exaggerate. $440 million is way more than a single install of Windows Vista Ultimate. This is for a *site* license.

Sheesh. You people on /. *never* stop exaggerating. Not for one single femtosecond of the day.

Too bad

[LaughingCoder]

First Computer City, now CompUSA. We have 2 CompUSA stores within a half hour so hopefully one will survive. I find CompUSA has always had a much wider selection of computer parts like video boards, drives, networking gear, etc. And their sale prices are often excellent. For example their hard drive sale prices are usually very competitive with the best mail order prices. Ditto for memory and video boards. I think their downfall was getting into home theatre gear like flat screen TVs and such. Every time I have checked out their TV offerings I have found them sorely lacking. They are over-priced and, worse, their displays are not properly configured. Most of their display TVs have poor picture adjustments and they almost always have incorrect aspect ratios. They are a tech store; they should know how to set these things up. It's pathetic. Hopefully they will get back to their roots, which is computers, computer accessories and software, and leave the home theatre, cell phones and digital camera gear to others.

money from mexico-based bank

[mikesd81]

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

From this article: 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.

There was a middle ground, and they were it.

[Kadin2048]

It's better than paying $29.95 for a cable worth $5 at a big box store. Cables seem to be right behind extended warranties and printer ink in the retail cash cow category.

I think the point was that CompUSA was one of the few retail stores that didn't gouge like that. Sure, they weren't as cheap as mail-order, but they didn't try to screw you the same way that Best Buy, Staples, and the rest of them do.

I have a very nice CompUSA down the street from me, and I tend to go there whenever I need something that I either don't want to wait for, or don't want to pay the shipping on. I've gotten some great bargains off of their clearance table over the years, too. I'll really miss them if the store closes.

For me, if I want a cable, going down to CompUSA and paying $8 and having it in my hand immediately is a no-brainer, compared to having to order it online, pay perhaps a dollar or two less when you factor in shipping, and waiting three days, or going to Best Buy, being assaulted by the noise and idiot salesdroids there, and paying $30 for a sub-$1 part.

If they go under, at least I still have a MicroCenter in my area, which is decent, but it's a heck of a drive.

There is a market for a store that's in between the Best Buy big-box stores, and the mail order IT supply houses, so if CompUSA fails, I think something must have been wrong with their management.

Is it a bedtime office-supply story?

[Kadin2048]

office supply story

Once upon a time, there was a brave little stapler, who was running low on staples...

Re:Is it a bedtime office-supply story?

[TubeSteak]

Once upon a time, there was a brave little stapler, who was running low on staples...

... so he said to his boss "If you don't give me more staples, I'll burn this supply closet down."

I'm not suprised at all

[xted]

I worked for Compusa in Chandler, AZ (Store 249) for two summers and it was almost too much to bare. The sales people on the floor are generally lazy, dishonest, and unwilling to go out of their way for customers. We were in a relatively low traffic store because of our location. The managers were generally 23 year old kids in there to make their $35k a year until they got fired.

The thing I always was frustrated with was we were threatened into selling warranties that would not cover anything other than factory defect. For each warranty we sold we got anywhere from $1-$4 on cameras, peripherals and $5-$10 on computer warranties.

We almost never had anything in stock. Probably 50% of the questions we got we sent to other nearby stores.

The other problem I had was the amount of time it took for people to be able to buy laptops. Somebody would pick out a laptop, then I would need to check the stock on the item, then go back up to the front of the store grab a UPC sheet for that laptop for the person to get checked out, and we could only ring the person out through the tech shop, so I would need to page a manager to unlock the register and check them out. Usually it takes at least 5 minutes for the manager to come over, then the manager would raz you for not selling warranties as we walked over to laptop lockup. We had to Find the matching UPC laptop, which generally we could not find because somebody took that one already (in which case we would have to return and re-ring the poor guy's laptop), but if we do find it, we fill out a checkout form. walk out and hand it to the guy. This process usually takes 30 minutes if the store is at all busy.

The other thing was the stores stocked so much shit in them. Paper.. landscaping software.. desk gadgets..lame PC mod stuff & lame cases... off brand overpriced external drives.. offbrand networking devices.. Video Games.. Books.. We spent more time moving old shit around than we actually spent on the sales floor. They should should have less selection.. more stock. They needed to go through with a fine tooth comb and fix that.

It was a great job in the summer because it was indoors, pretty easy, the hours were flexible, the people were okay, but I have seen a big decline in the last few years.

That's what they get

[CptChipJew]

Their biggest mistake was not letting Belkin build the entire store. Their lack of gold-plating around the buildings led to low performance.

From a Compusa employee

[NovaEona]

Last I heard from the management, only four of the stores were closing down so far, the rest was up in the air. That could just be a calm-the-sheep lie though, so I'm not arguing. I do know that the last six or seven American execs just got canned and replaced with imports (money from Mexico, execs from Mexico), and that they're doing a level-by-level layoff scan. With any luck this might be a good thing though; my store is one of the better performing ones, with a few actually honest people. I'm one of the repair techs, and an honest one at that; they don't pay me enough to lie for them, and I've told the managers that. My little badge of honor is that no customer has ever asked me about Vista and then went on to purchase it. The stores are desperately understaffed though, so maybe we'll actually get some funds to fill out the staff (right now if anyone in the tech department calls out, a manager has to take his place, and the sales floor isn't doing much better). On the other hand, if my store was one of the closers, that'd be okay too.

Re:How many locations does Fry's have?

[Qzukk]

It started out as a small western chain, but it grew.

Why shop there?

[ivan256]

CompUSA seems to be going through the same type of identity crisis that is common amongst retail stores that are soon to be out of business. What do they sell? Computers, and accessories? Software? Video games? Consumer electronics? Cell Phones? They do a dozen things and none of them stand out. There is nothing that people want to buy where they think "CompUSA" when they are deciding where to go to get it.

Since they've lost their focus, things that they used to do well have suffered. They used to have a wide variety of computer parts and accessories. Now it seems they've opted for the "thousand types of the same item" style over the "thousands of options". If you want a wireless router or a video card, sure, you've got a huge selection. Otherwise, sorry... Best to shop online. In the new areas they've pushed into, they are only making a token effort. Why would you go to CompUSA to look for video games? Sure, they sell Video Games, but they only have a few titles, and low stock levels, so chances are you're not going to find what you're looking for. Same goes for TVs, or Cell Phones.

They should pick something and do it well, or they should go out of business.

The comments here surprise me

[bill_kress]

I don't go to CompUSA much any more--It's downtown and there is a BestBuy, CircuitCity and Staples nearby, but I always thought that CompUSA tended to be a lot cheaper than BestBuy and CircuitCity.

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

I'm gonna miss the sales....weekly.

[cayenne8]

Oh man....this sucks.

One of my favorite things is to look in the Sunday paper for the CompUSA sale ads and see what I *need* to buy. Between them and Office Max, I've stocked up over the years with tons of 'free' with rebate blank CD's, $0.50 DL DVD's....250G and 300G drives for about $100...and 4-5 Haupauge PVR x50 cards for Mythtv boxes...etc.

Damn..I'm gonna miss all that cheap stuff...Best Buy simply does not have the inventory or prices you can get from CUSA.

Guess I need to stock up on what I can next few weeks.

how to tell if your local CompUSA is closing:

[supernova87a]

if it's not on this new list, it's closed:

this list

Good Freakin' Riddance

[Phoenix666]

CompUSA is the most irritating, useless waste of space. Surly, clueless employees, rebates that are never honored, over-priced crap, utter ignorance on basically every level. You're always going to run into good and bad employees everywhere, but when every time you go someplace it's always consistently bad you know it's not just you and it's not just chance, but systemic.

The location in Manhattan in 57th and Broadway is a perfect example. All the businesses and corporations in the world within 5 blocks' walk and yet the place is always empty. You ask an employee an incredibly simple question like, "where are your flash drives?" and the answer you get is a surly, "what's a flash drive?"

Contrast that with the Apple store in SoHo, which is crawling with people every second of the day they're open. After many years of dealing with CompUSA for PC parts I went to the Apple store to check into buying an iBook for my girlfriend running the spiffy new OSX OS (yes, a few years ago). I dubiously asked a salesperson, a random salesperson, how to open a terminal to work on the command line. He did so and wrote a quicky little PERL one-liner to demonstrate that, yes, the kernel really was *NIX.

I nearly wept.

An old customer

[davmoo]

I used to shop at CompUSA extensively, spent thousands a year for both myself and clients, had a CompUSA credit account, yadda yadda yadda.

I stopped shopping there mainly because of their damned rebates.

I live in a small town. To shop at CompUSA, I had to drive about 125 miles round trip. I can drive a few miles further and shop at a Fry's and get both better prices and (usually) not have to deal with a fucking rebate to get it.

When I shop at a brick and mortar store, I want the best price when I walk through the door. Not 8 to 12 weeks later. And if you want my business, then you're going to offer your best price when I walk through the door.

Re:Nothing to do with the internets...

[the eric conspiracy]

The internet may not be the reason for the demise of CompUSA, but it sure did kill Computer Shopper.