Possible [H]ot Deals: CompUSA store closings (Part 2)

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beowulf7

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It was first announced in this thread by saintrobyn that CompUSA was closing down about half of their stores. The other shoe has dropped and CompUSA announced they're closing all of their stores. If you have a CompUSA near you, you may be able to score some decent close-out/liquidation deals (although they'll be pretty bad initially). Please report back on what you find.

CompUSA to close all of its 103 stores
The consumer electronics store will run store-closing sales during the holidays to get rid of inventory.
December 7 2007: 7:18 PM EST

DALLAS (AP) -- Consumer electronics retailer CompUSA said Friday it will close its stores after the holidays following sale of the company to an affiliate of Gordon Brothers Group, a restructuring firm.

CompUSA operates 103 stores, which plan to run store-closing sales during the holidays.

Privately held CompUSA, controlled by Mexican financier Carlos Slim Helu's Grupo Carso SA, said discussions were under way to sell certain stores in key markets. Stores that can't be sold will be closed.

Gordon Brothers will also try to sell the company's technical services business, CompUSA TechPro, and online business, CompUSA.com.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Dallas-based CompUSA has struggled for nearly a decade with falling prices on personal computers, its most important product, and competition from big-box retailers such as Best Buy (Charts, Fortune 500).

Helu took the company private in 2000. The chain went through several CEOs and tried different turnaround strategies, such as a move this year to focus on core customers such as gadget users and small-business owners.

CompUSA closed more than half its stores this spring and got a cash infusion of $440 million to restructure.

During the wind-down, Weinstein and Stephen Gray, managing partner at CRG Partners, will run the company. The chain's current chief executive, Roman Ross, will serve in an advisory role, CompUSA said.

DJM Realty, a Gordon Brothers Group affiliate, will review leases of CompUSA's store locations.
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what pisses me off about this is that last fall I bought 2 laptops with extended warrenties from compusa. The primary reason was so I could take them back to the store if they needed repairs.

Now I gotta deal with some 3rd party warrenty company and ship them somewhere. If I had any inkling that they were gonna go belly up, I would have bought them from newegg. I trust newegg.
 
Oh crap. Does CompUSA.com honor gift certs?

EDIT: they're still selling them on their site ... I suspect there will be some very unhappy customers shortly. :bleh:
 
beowulf7 said:
It was first announced in this thread by saintrobyn that CompUSA was closing down about half of their stores. The other shoe has dropped and CompUSA announced they're closing all of their stores. If you have a CompUSA near you, you may be able to score some decent close-out/liquidation deals (although they'll be pretty bad initially). Please report back on what you find.
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Damn, beat me to the punch. And you linked my old post no less. :D
 
It was inevitable. Any time I used to go into my local store in Ft. Worth, there were very few people there. Their sales were never very good, and they relied too much on rebates.
 
Last time I went to one and it was still expensive. Glad Microcenter replace it at Rockville Pike
 
Any word on what kinds of sales/discounts will be offered upon closing? Would be interesting to see how low the price go, seeing as the company needs to sell off its inventory.

There's a CompUSA not too far from here, but I'm too lazy to go.
 
I don't have any CompUSA's left near me so no sales for me but at the last round of store closure's, I got some absolutely fantastic deals. They did it by percentage off and it took some waiting and plenty of luck but after all was said and done, here are some of the deals I got out of it:

Windows Vista Home Premium Retail for ~$70
74GB WD Raptor for ~$60
TT Big Typhoon for ~$25
2.5G Arctic Silver 5 for ~$3
Antec P180 (box was messed up but they let me inspect it before buying, it was fine) for ~$55

So if you guys have any stores nearby, I highly suggest stopping by and seeing if there is anything worthwhile.
 
Here we go again, I guess. I missed out on round 1's closings, but I'm damned sure gonna get in on round 2, the final count, and get some schtuffz this time around.
 
gchanjam said:
I don't have any CompUSA's left near me so no sales for me but at the last round of store closure's, I got some absolutely fantastic deals. They did it by percentage off and it took some waiting and plenty of luck but after all was said and done, here are some of the deals I got out of it:

Windows Vista Home Premium Retail for ~$70
74GB WD Raptor for ~$60
TT Big Typhoon for ~$25
2.5G Arctic Silver 5 for ~$3
Antec P180 (box was messed up but they let me inspect it before buying, it was fine) for ~$55

So if you guys have any stores nearby, I highly suggest stopping by and seeing if there is anything worthwhile.
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Yea I hope some of the people I know at the one near me stay around long enough to help me get some good deals.

This reminds me that I need to return my monitors under tap and get 2 new ones before they will not let me(both tend to lock up everyonce in a while)
 
This spring when they closed about half thier stores, they closed the one near me. I waited about 2 weeks into the runoff and went to look for deals. At that time I found most of the stuff was still overpriced and didn't buy anything, so don't expect too much. I was still able to find better prices at the Tiger Direct B&M.
 
Caltone said:
This spring when they closed about half thier stores, they closed the one near me. I waited about 2 weeks into the runoff and went to look for deals. At that time I found most of the stuff was still overpriced and didn't buy anything, so don't expect too much. I was still able to find better prices at the Tiger Direct B&M.
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Thing is that time they had other stores to ship some of their inventory to - it's much different when you are closing everything

I bet the few days after Xmas there will be ridiculous deals of 70% off on nice items even (if they even wait that long )

Think they will start clearing out some this weekend or likely another week or two before the big reductions start ?

Also I wonder if I stop by tomorrow if half the clueless folks my local one has working will even have heard of this ?
 
They are just way to high in price on everything , I buy most of my stuff else where.
 
I don't know how this works, but what happens if you have gift card(s) for CompUSA (or any business for that matter) and they go out of business? I would assume that it would be hard to get a refund, but what if I don't want anything. Probably just buy something apple and resell it if need be (unless I can get some sort of good clearance deal on something).

What about TAP too? I've looked around a bit and these are handled by a 3rd party, but jeez, this is bad news as Comp is the only tech store within 50 miles of UCSB.
 
I went into CompUSA once and turned right back around after I saw the prices. It was one of the stores that got closed earlier this year, and really it didn't stand a chance as there is a Fry's and Microcenter within five miles of the now closed CompUSA store.
 
This is bad bad news for me :mad: I live in a city with a Compusa, 3 freakin best buys, 2 local shops with shit for inventory and thats it within 200 miles. The little selection i had is about to get smaller.

Seems strange though just recently the compusa in town used to only have a selection of about 4 motherboards and only carried PNY, BFG, visiontek and "house brand" video cards (and even of the ones they had it was very few current mid or high end) and a small handfull of cases. Just recently i went in there and they had tons of motherboards from a few different manufacturers, EVGA, XFX video cards and tons of cases and the prices where not too terrible.

The wierd thing is alot of the stuff they had there is not even listed anywhere on thier site.
 
CompUSA has alwas sucked, so they won't be missed. Terrible prices, and they suck the life out of their employees, turning them into mindless TAP drones. I've set foot in there only a few times in the past few years, and I always feel smarter when I walk out the door. There is one about two miles down the road, so I may brave the throngs of clearance seekers over the next month and go check them out.
 
NiViK said:
what pisses me off about this is that last fall I bought 2 laptops with extended warrenties from compusa. The primary reason was so I could take them back to the store if they needed repairs.

Now I gotta deal with some 3rd party warrenty company and ship them somewhere. If I had any inkling that they were gonna go belly up, I would have bought them from newegg. I trust newegg.
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FYI, those warranties are widely regarded as a complete and total rip off. Just google it. best buy, CompUSA, CircuitCity, etc. They all rip you off when you buy it.
 
i think the big competitor will eat the compusa product first if they sell it really cheap, to get rid off the store.
like CC, FRYS, all others.
they also want to take this advantage too right?
 
f cc they fired all their employes who have been there for over 12 years bc of benifits n thats why they have been going down hill
 
I just came back from COMPUSA, nothing is on sale right now. Probably next week.
 
Back in the late 80's early 90's Stores like CompUSA and ComputerCity were awesome because they carried a wide variety of hardware and software wayyy before their were computer stores on every corner and retailers like Bestbuy were prevelent in the industry.

However, as much as I appreciated them back in the day I cannot remember the last time I bought anything from them.

For the record, computer city was much better and they went out of business 10 years ago!
 
I am not going to be missing out on anything. CompUSA sold everything that had to do with shit.
 
saintrobyn said:
Damn, beat me to the punch. And you linked my old post no less. :D
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:cool:

For some reason, a search didn't bring up your thread. Perhaps [H] doesn't search dead threads? So I wound up going through my subscribed threads and finally found it. :eek:

Good luck to all on getting some good CompUSA close-out deals. My local CU closed down earlier this year, so I'll just follow this thread for curiosity's sake. :)
 
gokdog said:
Back in the late 80's early 90's Stores like CompUSA and ComputerCity were awesome because they carried a wide variety of hardware and software wayyy before their were computer stores on every corner and retailers like Bestbuy were prevelent in the industry.

However, as much as I appreciated them back in the day I cannot remember the last time I bought anything from them.

For the record, computer city was much better and they went out of business 10 years ago!
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I remember Computer City! I thought it was somehow related to Circuit City. (Then again, I thought Home Depot and Office Depot had the same parent company.) :eek:

While I agree CompUSA is mostly a rip-off now, I'll pay tribute to them b/c it's what got me excited about computers in the early '90s. Back then, I had just received my driver's license and I was more excited about driver to CU than the local mall. :eek:
 
ohvrolla said:
I went into CompUSA once and turned right back around after I saw the prices. It was one of the stores that got closed earlier this year, and really it didn't stand a chance as there is a Fry's and Microcenter within five miles of the now closed CompUSA store.
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That the one on 75?
 
i just got back from compusa in san francisco. and.... drumroll please....

IT STILL SUCKS!! not a single thing on sale that was deserving of a purchase. maybe when they are a week or two from closing the doors will we find good deals.
 
A friend of mine who works at Compusa USA says the sale will start on Jan 6th. Actually I know 4 people who went to my high school that works there.
 
I just got back from CompUSA. I did a TAP replacement of my 360 since I was getting the occasional dirty disc error and I did not have an HDMI port. While I was doing the replacement I talked to the customer service rep and asked if it was true that the company was going under, even though I knew the answer. He let me know that it was indeed true and that the higher ups just told the staff this morning. Craziest part was that right after he told me that, he asked me if I wanted TAP on my new 360. I respectfully declined.

Now, I will say it before since it has not been said yet. When the sales do start, don't beat up on the employees because of the high prices. They can not change them at all. Gordon Brothers will come in and take the ability to change prices away from the cashiers. Gordon Brothers will set the discount pricing and the store employees will have no say in the matter. I only bring this up because I helped close one of the Columbus, OH stores and I ran into these issues.
 
Good riddance old nag! I better get my e-rebate back from black friday and they better let me cancel my service plan I bought with my monitor on BF. Either way i got it for less than I was supposed to after rebate due to a huge pricing error.
 
locketart said:
A friend of mine who works at Compusa USA says the sale will start on Jan 6th. Actually I know 4 people who went to my high school that works there.
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Thanks for the heads up for Jan 6th.
I'll definately be watching and waiting! :cool:

I wonder if the discounts will mostly be for the CompUSA branded stuff or if they will also discount nice name brand hardware, laptops, and game consoles??
I'd like to snag a PS3 for a nice discount or a good laptop cheap for the wifey.
 
himmy said:
FYI, those warranties are widely regarded as a complete and total rip off. Just google it. best buy, CompUSA, CircuitCity, etc. They all rip you off when you buy it.
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This is not true in all case, I know for a fact that I did not get rip off my warranty when I bought one for a digi cam as gift. 2 weeks later the camera broke due to accidental damage. the insurance company gave me what I paid for the camera and didn't even ask for it back. Now if it wasn't for the broken lcd screen, I would of got a great deal on the insurance. however I can use the broken camera as parts for the new one because we got the same one.

Waranty for the most case are a rip off. The one's I find worth getting are the accidental plans for digi cam, laptops, and other costly electronics.

I'll keep a look out for my local compusa for close out deals. Funny thing was I even mention this to my uncle during black friday that sooner or later compusa will go out of business.
 
I'll have to go against the common thought here and say that I will miss Compusa. I always shopped the good deals, usually either special sales or great after rebate deals. I was never burned by a Compusa rebate and I've had plenty. I also never bought something there I could find cheaper online. I got my Sansa 8GB for 60.00 less than ANYONE had it when it was on manager's special at Compusa. I've gotten several good hard drives, PS's, etc over the years. the loss of them in the area means that BestBuy and Circuit City will have one less retailer driving their prices down so in the end, I think the consumer loses. Now if only they'd put a Fry's in Tampa . . .
 
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