CompUSA closing more than 50% of their stores nationwide!
According to this article CompUSA is planning to close more than half of their stores in the next 60-90 days. They’re citing increasingly shrinking margins on flat panel TV’s and monitors as one of the various reasons why their stores have been losing money.
Personally, I haven’t set foot in a CompUSA in over 2 years, even though there is one only 1.5 miles from my house. 10 years ago, I was a CompUSA addict, in there all the time, spending money, browsing nearly weekly. It was part of my Sunday morning ritual to get up and hit CompUSA, Circuit City and Best Buy and see what they had on sale that week. Over the past 4 years though, with the opening of a MicroCenter and (more importantly) a Fry’s Electronics, and my increasing use of Newegg for online purchases I haven’t seen much of a need to go to CompUSA. (All of those stores are within 4 miles of my home.)
No, what doomed CompUSA was the ever increasing reliance upon Mail in Rebates (MIR) as their “sale” mechanism. Their product selection was so-so, their salespeople were rarely knowledgeable (although better than Best Buy usually) and I got tired of the MIRs. So I stopped shopping there…. And apparently so have a lot of other people. I heard that they started to move away from that policy and started having more of a normal sale item structure but I guess it was too late. The last time I did set foot in the local CompUSA it was loaded with a LCD+Plasma TV section (sorry, but I don’t think I’d be buying home entertainment electronics there of all places), and most of the products I found were insanely overpriced. The one thing I did see that I found interesting was that they were starting to stock more PC modding parts, exotic cooling systems, that sort of thing. Even then, they didn’t carry the more high-end parts.
As far as I’m concerned, good riddance! I’m much happier shopping at Fry’s (fantastic selection and pretty good prices on most stuff) or Best Buy, and I occationally hit MicroCenter when they have something good on sale.
Rule #1 - Don’t screw your customers and nickel and dime them to death to turn a profit if you want them to come back and keep shopping with you!
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I differ slightly in opinion on this. While I do agree to several points, ( prices too high, selection somewhat limited ) I will miss my local CompUSA.
It is the only place that I could find emergency parts for system repairs. Now I’ll have no place to go for a spare power supply 3 hours before a gaming session except for Best Buy. So I’m left in a lurch since I’m in a small market area. The closings are probably leaving them in the larger markets only where they still make the $$. But we few in rural areas will be SOL.
My personal feelings.. I hated their TV area.. It was huge and they started carrying fewer laptops/desktops and hardware parts. I had fewer choices each time I went there. I know they had larger profit margins on these TV’s.. but their prices were higher than Best Buy and Circuit City.. not sure why anyone would ever buy one from them. I would think if they had focused on computer related field and expanded their services ( I hear Geek Squad is making Best Buy some $$ ) they would have faired much better.
But what do I know..
Yeah! Death to CompUSA and their MIRs and overpriced products!
I must admit it does suck when you need a really hard to find computer part like… let’s say… a SATA cable for instance. Asking for that at a Best Buy or Circuit City garners blanks stares, tours through the music or video section or a salesperson’s head exploding.
Frys needs to open near me and I’d be happy.