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CompUSA To Close All Stores
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."
I never really liked them, personally. I don't know if it was different on other regions of the country, but in the Sacramento area the CompUSAs were always overpriced. I guess it's sad to see any store that sells computer products die on some level, but there's better stores still on the market. ;)
That being said, if CompUSA was the only brick and mortar computer store in your area, I guess this would be a sucky development. Maybe a Fry's will move in.
-Vendal Thornheart
The only thing impressive CompUSA ever did was make the idiots at Best Buy look like geniuses.
Their prices were ridiculous, the staff under-qualified. If you wanted to know what 1994 felt like, all you had to do was wander into one of their stores.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
CompUSA is the only real computer store near me (in Rochester, NY). Of course there's Best Buy and Circuit City (etc) but the selection was always a lot better at CompUSA. When I needed a hard drive or something in a hurry that was always where I went.
When is Fry's going to make it to the east coast?
Search first, ask questions later.
Glad to hear that they're shutting down. I worked there for nearly a year on the front end...awesome coworkers and general atmosphere, but store policies, managers, etc, sucked. Bad(ly?). Ripped off customers on return policies, warranties, replacement plans, etc. Restocking fees? At the manager's discretion, of course.
Thank god, is all I can say.
-- 297504 from store 354...
my first tech job was refurbishing a certain model of PC at the CompUSA tech shop - got me to where I'm at today - many a techie got his start in one of those little tech shops at a retail store.
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
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
I'm not going to miss the snooty comments made by their staff members after asking them where a part is... and then try to sell me a warranty on top of it. Give me a break. Margins usually drop in most industries over time. Poor business design is what killed this beast. While I'm sure a number of talented people work for their chain, and I truly feel for them for their upcoming layoffs, you can't say that you didn't see it coming. Rest in peace.
Quad Slim jewel cases
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.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
The local Comp*USA went out of business about six months ago. They were like the pricier, smaller, and less exciting version of Best Buy (which is the pricier, smaller, and less exciting version of Fry's - God, that's the one thing I miss most about living on the west coast). Anyway, long story short, the only good part about Comp*USA was not giving money to Best Buy when I needed something computer-related that day, right then. Fucking D.C.
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.
Back in the day, CompUSA was a decent place to buy computer parts. They had a good selection, knowledgeable sales people, and good prices. Those days have been gone for some years now. It got to where their prices were so ridiculously high without a sale, and the "sale" required a rebate to get a decent price, that it was no longer worth shopping there. Especially when Fry's opened. I haven't been in the local store in 4 or 5 years.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I purchased a computer from Computer City just before CompUSA bought them out - and it had trouble reading CDs. It was transferred from Computer City's shop to CompUSA's shop, where it languished for 13 weeks while I pleaded, cajoled and threatened. Finally liberated, I fixed it myself with a CD-ROM from Fry's (discovering in the process I didn't need some big box store to build PCs for me).
Fast forward two years. I'm building a new computer, and Fry's doesn't have the graphics card I want. In a charitable mood, I buy one from CompUSA. It doesn't work. I return it to find they've sold out, too - but insist on charging me a 15% restocking fee, even after I complain to the manager. I asked him if he would enjoy my $30 (since it was the last dollar they'd ever see from me), and he simply assured me they would. He never even apologized for the trouble they caused.
I never set foot in CompUSA again.
Perhaps I'm not the only potentially loyal customer they drove away through sheer greed and incompetence.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=compusa_sucks
We don't have CompUSA in Israel, either, but the name is as familiar to me as McDonalds or Coca Cola (both of which we do have). That may be because I spend just a bit too much time online...
I'm also surprised to see that they have but 100 branches. The fact that I am familiar with them shows how influential they are. I suppose though, that influential != [ big || successful ].
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I shop at CompUSA by default -- it's the only computer store nearby. For most common things I just go to BestBuy or one of the bigbox office supply stores, but CompUSA has items that the others don't carry.
With no CompUSA and no alternative, it looks like even more of my buying will be online.
"... actually did carry much in the way of essential hardware such as fans, heatsync compound, screws, and other misc things."
In Portland, Oregon the closing of CompUSA stores will mean that the retail Fry's store has no competition in selling the more unusual items. Since Fry's is very adversarial toward its customers, in my opinion, that will mean prices will rise.
My experience is that Com-pooza is horrible, though.
Both stores sell cables for more than $20 that cost less than $2 wholesale.
What I remember is a service manager who said he'd look into something for me, and then didn't. And then when I confronted him with the fact that he wasn't following through on a promise, he didn't care. Neither did the store manager. It was clear that in their minds the problem was with me, rather than their crappy service or in not keeping their word.
I don't much care what happens to the corporation. I want justice for those employees.
I guess its back to Radio Shack
All I can say is..."good riddance". I've been on a self-imposed boycott of CompUSA for about 2 and a half years now, after the dickhead of a manager at the CompUSA in Spokane, WA, wouldn't sell me the AppleCare package for my iPod and fed me so many lines of BS that I just wanted to jump over the counter and punch the guy after I was done talking to him.
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*
15 years ago I can understand why the might need an imprint of your card - but their refusal to give up the process was one of the reasons I hated going in there. A few years ago the store here got swipe readers and I thought... great! An then the cashier asked for my card - to imprint it on the reciept! WTF! Just plain stupid!
How can they re stock a defective product?
... and throw it back on the shelf for the next sucker that comes along. Best Buy did that to me several times, so now I don't go to Best Buy. I'd rather order online and wait a few days than give those bloodsuckers another penny of my money. The last time I went there I bought a cordless phone system with three handsets: when I got it home and cracked the shrinkwrap and opened it up, I found that the handsets were all scuffed up like they'd been through a war, only one of them worked and it rattled when I shook it. Took it back and got a hard time. After talking to the store manager, they finally took it back, and I have no doubt it was out for sale again within the hour. I had similar experiences at CompUSA, and stopped going there some years ago as well. So far as I'm concerned, the big retailers have no cause for complaint when their sales drop: they've cut the quality of their operations to the point where you're safer buying online.
... and found another destroyed device. Scuffed, scratched, case cracked, springs broken and yes, it rattled. I was back at Computer City's service desk within fifteen minutes, and was told that they couldn't take it back, because it was in "unsaleable condition". "Why is that a problem" I asked "I mean, you just sold it to me in that condition not half an hour ago." Guy refused to take it back. After a few more minutes of this, I'm starting to get upset, other customers are starting to take notice, an the store manager comes over. "What's the problem here?" I told him "I want to return this piece of junk I just bought." He also refused, and he said, "You must have done that to it." I said (rather loudly) "I JUST BOUGHT THE THING HALF AN HOUR AGO!" to which he replied, "Well, sometimes they come from the factory like that." Well, at that point I get very angry and all the checkout lanes have come to a halt as people are watching this byplay. This idiot looked around and saw that people were putting their purchases down and heading for the doors, and decided to give me my refund. Wanted to make it a store credit, and I said, "No way, I'm not coming back." So I got my cash, but I really had to work for it.
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.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm from Europe, so I don't really get it... but please, help me. Why is it that the majority of Americans (and many Europeans to be fair) seem to think that only "Big Name" chain stores can provide these essential services to them? As far as I can see this model seems to cater only for corporate greed mongers, and the crappy service you recieve seems directly related to this. What's was flaunted as capitalism has emerged as an oligopoly of one or two market leaders at best. I read here that people have only 2 stores to choose from in their town, or not even that many. Wow, there's choice in action. Might as well sell only two brands of cola and be done with it. You say "but hey, it's cheaper this way..." and sure, the chain stores might save you a few cents due to their vast economy of scale, but what about everything you loose to tighten the purse strings?
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.
I personally will miss CompUSA. In our area they are in the same shopping center as Best Buy, and it was very common for me to park midway between them and get prices from both stores before buying. And contrary to most folks' comments, our local CompUSA was always very well-stocked. If both Best Buy and CompUSA had a good sale, we would be almost guaranteed of getting it at CompUSA, and almost guaranteed of NOT getting it at Best Buy. Of course you had to pick-and-choose what you bought there, like any store. Their cable prices were ridiculous (I buy all my cables from newegg), but they often had really good deals on hard drives, memory, video boards, keyboards, mice and such. And they always had a much broader selection of computer stuff than Best Buy.
Anyhow, where I think they went wrong was getting into consumer electronics like big screen TVs. Their prices were outrageous and their store displays were woeful. And the thing that drove me the most crazy was they never even bothered to properly set up the TVs. They would always be running noisy content with maladjusted displays in the wrong aspect ratio, in a bright environment. I was actually embarrassed for them. In all my years of going there I never, ever saw anyone in a checkout line or leaving their store with a TV in their cart, as contrasted with Best Buy, where it was commonplace.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
When I last visited a Fry's, it was in Fountain Valley, CA. One parking lot entrance - always constant in/out traffic. You would go in and it's "Where do I START??" They had anything you possibly would want for a weekend hackingfest. I could get raw IC's, resistors, caps, honest aluminum heat sinks, asides from the obligatory wide layout of almost every motherboard made out there - plus SCSI adapter cards!. Don't try and get there on Black Friday. Even though the store was on a side street, people would park on main road and hike in. I really miss that store and I would be pleasantly shocked to hear if it has not changed.
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."
Yeah, I used to think that Tower Records had a great selection of alternative music, dozens of listening stations so I could sample the music (in the days before iTunes and Amazon made that easy online), and a not-too-corporate-and-homogeneous atmosphere.
But then I went to Argentina for a weekend and the Tower Records there was a total mess. I'd never heard of half the bands in their inventory and the clerks couldn't even speak English! I was so disappointed that I never went to another Tower back in the USA.
Seriously, the Internet killed record stores, whether through piracy, ease of use, or changes in listening habits. Music retail seems to consist only of bland, mass-market selections in book stores and electronic stores nowadays. Tower was my favorite of the non-independent stores, but I'm not surprised that the market changes killed them.
Actually, Newegg and Egghead had nothing to do with one another. Amazon bought what was left of Egghead back in (I think) 1999 or so when their online-only strategy failed. Newegg was a separate startup that was started down in California (Egghead was based in the Seattle area).
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
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. 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.
--
make install -not war
The first thing that built them up as a company. Good salespeople who were paid good commissions. It was typical for people to make 40-50k a year in sales. Even those in software did well.
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.
who used to work there (10 years ago) i can tell you that this has been along time coming, yes they were somewhat overpriced on a lot of items but the worst thing was pissing people of with being out of the advertised specials as many people have pointed out
;P) and it was bsaically just used as a device to get people in the store.
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
From my experience working at CompUSA back around 1997-1999 (Store #787, Minnetonka, MN), I can tell you that the problem you noted was system-wide for the chain. And IMHO, the problem's source was with the people who did purchasing for the company. As far as I could ever tell, the purchasing was exactly the same for the entire chain - hence if one store was out of product X, there wouldn't be any to be found anywhere else, either. This was particularly problematic with advertised items.
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...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Have you tried looking for a computer store that isn't part of a big chain? I generaly prefer small stores because there you find people who know what they're selling and who can give you decent advice on what to buy, decent hardware at usually decent prices and service that the big guys just can't match.
Example: I needed some thermal grease for an emergency repair. I drove to a small local store and asked for some; what gets handed to me is a small tube that they just happened to have lying around, free of charge. They didn't need it and couldn't sell it, so I could have it.
Example: Another time, my graphics card became screwy and I didn't have a second PCIe card to replace it with. It was 17:40, twenty minutes before the store closes. I call them and ask them if they can close a bit later as I need to make an emergency purchase. No problem at all, they tell me. 18:05 I walk into the store and buy "the cheapest NVidia PCIe card you have".
You don't get that kind of service with the big chains. Sure, they might have a bigger selection, but the independent/small-chain stores generally have everything you might need in a hurry and can back-order stuff they don't have. And even if they can't always match the big players' prices, the service is in an entirely different league.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Remember those computer fairs that used to come around? They suffered from the same problem that eventually got Comp-USA but they dropped out earlier.
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.
Maybe it's because, for some reason, returning certain defective items to the vendor is more costly (in all ways: money, time, relationship with vendor) than re-shrinkwrapping a product that performs its function acceptably. Some managers inevitably stretch this a bit and put unacceptable products back in the box. And if this was a perfect world, there would be a discount gondola with product boxes marked as previously used and of acceptable quality, with a proportional discount. I believe that MicroCenter still has a discount counter in their stores. BestBuy and CompUSA would sometimes just reshrinkwrap the box to make it look like a new product.
First guideline when purchasing tech stuff at a physical store: LOOK AT THE BOX. Has it been damaged in any way, particularly in the locations that would see wear upon opening? Any sticker tears from the box being opened? If the box's surface (not counting the shrinkwrap) looks in pristine condition, then chances are you're safe. One advantage to those annoying clamshell cases that require a 5 watt laser to open is that you can obviously tell if it has been previously opened.
One thing that any retail store needs to learn in order to succeed is to be able to fall on their own sword for the customer. If it's a $50 joystick, eat the cost, make the customer happy. If it's a $300 videocard, this guy probably posts on some gaming forums and could have a devastating regional or national effect on your sales; eat the cost, make the customer happy. $1799 laptop? Okay, that's going to be a bit painful, but the manufacturer's warranty department is responsible here, unless they bought a replacement plan, in which case that department can assist the customer. But you don't make a customer so angry that they vow to never let you serve them again, and that they tell their friends locally or nationwide to never frequent your establishment.
Unfortunately, "make the customer happy" is becoming a victim to the rampant cost cutting that has been going on in the business world in the past 10 years or so. Anything that costs the company money is irrationally labeled "a bad thing" and verboten. Even "make the customer happy" costs the company money, so it MUST be a bad thing.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I ordered a video card from Tiger Direct. Later on I started receiving emails from them with subject lines like "Important info about your recent order" but the emails were just advertising and had nothing to do with my order. To me that is dishonest and underhanded. I will never buy from Tiger Direct after that.
You are correct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egghead_Software
"Egghead was hurt by a December of 2000 revelation that hackers had accessed its systems and potentially compromised customer credit card data. The company filed for bankruptcy in August of 2001. After a deal to sell the company to Fry's Electronics for $10 million fell through, its assets were acquired by Amazon.com for $6.1 million."
Home Depot has been investigated for this - http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5401128?f=search
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