With the announcement that TigerDirect parent Systemax is acquiring the CompUSA brand, trademarks, e-commerce business and as many as 16 stores from my least-favorite retailer. The sixteen stores are located in the Florida and Texas in the United States and in Puerto Rico, apparently a hotbed of CompUSA action. TigerDirect currently operates 11 retail stores in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Ontario (Canada) and of course their website, tigerdirect.com. The cost of the deal is about $30 million, depending on the precise locations that are acquired (I guess that hasn’t quite been decided yet).
What amazes me is that the remaining locations are worth anything at all. We have made a couple of stops by the CompUSA location on Independence Boulevard here in Charlotte, because I can almost always find something that I can use at a good price, and I am simply amazed at the lack of good pricing, even several weeks into the store closing sale. Usually when someone goes out of business, they try and actually make money from the process. It is of course possible that they are not paying rent, and are planning to stiff the leaseholder when they ask for payment, but I’d think that the cost of the cavernous building would outweigh whatever miniscule amount they might be scraping from withholding the good deals from the merchandise.
When the deals started, you could get 5-10% off most things in the store. Popular items, such as computers and portable media players, were 5% off. Most everything else was 10% off. This persisted until just before Christmas. I actually figured that it made sense, because with Christmas approaching, people are nuts for electronics, so it made sense to keep the prices high, since you can sell anything in the days leading up to that event. When I worked at Radio Shack, we would get loads of junk in before Thanksgiving, and before Christmas, would be completely wiped out, so I get how it works. But that’s not what happened.
Christmas came and went, and the prices stayed high.
I will confess that I broke down and bought a new keyboard. I actually love it. I’ll tell you more about it another time.
Since we’re right around the corner – and more importantly, our car repair shop is even closer – we stop in to see what’s happening. Though the large banners in the window have changed, and they went from 5-10% to 5-15%, then to 5-20%, and now say 15-30%, the stuff just isn’t moving. Sure, if you look closely you can see that some merchandise is going, but it’s like they don’t want to close. I picked up a USB network card today for 15% off, but we’re at least six weeks into this process. You would think it would be more than 15% off by now. And where are the 30% off deals?
Actually there are a few that are more – you can find some CompUSA training manuals (like anyone would want those) up front for $5 each. There are some Christmas CDs that you can grab for just $2.49 (50% off). You’ll find a few pieces of software that are 30% off. Someone apparently picked up all the tax software – I don’t know if they realized that someone would want it, so they sold it to another retailer, or if they decided to sell it to the folks at Systemax as part of the deal, but it’s gone. What’s left isn’t much, but the store doesn’t seem like it’s short on much of anything, and the prices still aren’t that good.
I keep hoping that we’ll stop in and find that prices have dropped to 50% off, but that just doesn’t seem to be happening. Even in the final stages of life, CompUSA doesn’t seem to get it.
Comments
5 responses to “CompUSA Can't Even Go Out of Business Correctly”
Look, CompUSA was a worthless store. They treated their workers bad and their customers worse. I worked there for 1 year on the sales floor then a few months in the tech department and it was a joke.
A lady would come up saying that I just bought this computer 2 days ago and now the power wont come on. We were told not even to test the power supply or swap the battery from a floor model. We had to write up a long ticket order and ship the thing out for repair which took 2 months!
Give me a break. The only people who defend that store are the losers who thought it would be just dandy if they could work there until it was time to retire. I worked there for a paycheck until I found something better and when I did I was gone.
All anyone who worked there would do is and whine about how they did not make any money and they never got any breaks. What do you want, how about go make something of yourself instead of working at a place that will only pay you $10 an hour for the rest of your life?
The store was a joke, the people who ran it were idiots and 90% of the people who work there will be working in retail with 18 year olds the rest of their lives.
Pathetic.
Hi Dino –
Thanks for adding your comments! Unfortunately, my wife and I stopped into the Independence store yesterday and while they are down on merchandise, the deals aren’t getting much better. The good news is that surely they can’t last much longer. 🙂
Well, I would agree that CompUSA did many things wrong both in strategy and in customer service. You can blame that and karma or just the natural law of consequences for their going out of business.
As much as it is frustrating, I don’t think the liquidator is doing things incorrectly…just different.
Normal liquidations increase the discounts in regular intervals to speed things off the shelves. They can live with selling items below original stocking price partly because they bought the inventory for a small fraction of retail, but also because they can save on rent and salaries if they sell out sooner.
With that goal in mind, it makes sense to increase discounts more quickly. People used to this practice turn into liquidator vultures, circling the stores and checking in weekly to see when they can pounce on the quickly disappearing carcass of the store inventory.
I think the liquidators are shrewd here…they know that not everyone who shops at CompUSA necessarily understands what they are buying, and they have been capitalizing on the “if it’s a liquidated price, it must be a good deal” mentality that many frantic vulture shoppers might have.
I have nothing against liquidator vulture shoppers…I am myself one and have visited the CompUSA in Charlotte at least weekly to see if they will ever increase the discounts to reasonable levels. They must be cleaning up and laughing all the way to the bank, as the store now has probably only about 10% of the inventory it used to have, and still most of the things they have left you can get for less money if you just wait for a sale at Best Buy!
Traditionally, the best discounts are right before they close the doors for the last time. One of the liquidator employees at the Charlotte store was guessing the end would be before the end of February…so here’s hoping they have made enough money and will start discounting things more heavily here soon!
Hi EK –
Thanks for dropping in!
CompUSA was poorly managed, and they are still being poorly managed – whether it is by the original company or by some liquidator is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
The big sign above the door doesn’t say Gordon Bros, it says CompUSA. I’m not going to look it up, and neither is anyone else. It’s CompUSA going out of business, and it’s CompUSA that is facing the public, not Gordon Bros.
Also, please note that I never mentioned the employees – you brought them into the equation. Also note that, even though I never liked CompUSA, I never had a problem with the employees. They were standard retail fare, never standing out in one direction or another. It’s the company I didn’t like. Still don’t.
Come on – CompUSA was bought by a liquidator – Gordon Bros. Can’t you back off your Comp hate enough to at least blame the right people for your current dissatisfaction? The company is dead, the folks who weren’t allowed to make you a happy customer are all unemployed. That ought to be enough revenge for one lifetime, don’t you think?