may 2007 - some compusa's closing
Feb 25, 2008 News Flash: They're at it again. Though not as frenzied, CompUSA in Plano, off
Central Expressway is closing, and is marking stuff down. Some great buys, some not. Some items
were marked up, only to be marked down. They sticker priced the base Linksys WRT54G at a regular price of
$69.99, which is commonly available at Frys and Microcenter for $49.99, and they have a 50% discount, for
a final price of $35. But that's not 50% off. Even searching
CompUSA.com, today, Feb 25, their everyday
price was $44.99 (this document was PDF'd so you won't miss the copy) meant the routers should
have sold for $22.50. Perhaps this was a special - $5 off their normal price, the router
still should have been $25. Here's the actual item description at
CompUSA.com.
CompUSA was selling McAfee Internet Security 2007, after discounts at $35, regularly sticker priced $79.99. The original sticker price was $10 above McAfee's suggested retail price of $69.99. What's up with that?
Feb 12, 2008 News Flash: According to Dallas Morning News, CompUSA in Plano will re-open.
Jan 19, 2008 News Flash: According to the CompUSA home page, SystemMax, Inc. has acquired CompUSA. They state a Store Liquidation is in progress, but don't specifically state the future of CompUSA retail stores. Engadget.com states up to 16 stores may be hanging around.
Dec 7, 2007 News Flash: According to the Wall Street Journal On Line, all remaining CompUSA's surviving the earlier round of store closures from Spring of 2007 will shut down.
May 2007: In case you hadn't heard, CompUSA is closing dozens of stores nationwide. The DFW area is included. I walked into CompUSA Park Lane about six times in late April and early May. I saw comments on the Net that their clearance markdowns weren't the great - and they were right. A lot of markdown new items were marked down from retail price, and were no less of a bargain than if you were to buy the same item from an Internet retailer, such as NewEgg.com. Also, I saw price differences between the Park Lane Store, and Compusa.com. Sticker prices for some items were higher in the store than on the web. 30%, 40%, and 50% markdowns were taken from the higher sticker price.
The better bargains were the store fixtures - shelves - utility and retail, office chairs, desks, computer workstations, and computer peripherals used internally in the business and their training facilities. At the store on Park Lane, I found several extra laptop power adapter for my Dell - what a price for $5, out of the dozens and dozens of lose power bricks. They had used SystemMax Desktop PC's - 2.8 Ghz P4, with 40 Gig hard drive, 1 gig ram, DVD-Reader, keyboard mouse, and a Norcent 17" Flat Screen, BUT NO OPERATING SYSTEM for $400 - which isn't that great, but on Friday April 25, they had all Fixtures 50% off so that made it $200, plus a 10% buyer's premium. That's a better deal, though you do have to purchase an Operating System - the lowest price Windows XP Professional can be found on the Net between $119 to $140. That makes it a good - but not a great deal. However, after a few days observation, the tags were corrected - the PC's had only 512 megs ram. Sometimes, you can peruse Craigslist and find people in DFW selling PC's with Flat Screens WITH Windows XP for less than this. Microcenter sells an Hp/Compaq refurbished desktop system, with P4/2.8 Ghz Processor, with 512 megs ram, with a Licensed version of Windows XP Pro for $319.99.
CompUSA had a few Mitsubishi LCD projectors. They seemed like a good deal at first - the Mitsubishi xl5u was initially $1,000, and it was 50% off, plus a 10% buyers premium, rounding out the LCD to $595 with taxes. What's the wild card - the Projector Lamp - specifically the remaining runtime life. At a discount, a projector lamp for this model sells for nearly $400, which would bring the projector up to nearly $1,000. If you're going to spend that much, why not get an HD 1080p/720p capable Optima EP770, for $1299 suggested retail, 3000 Lumens versus Mitsubishi's 1700, DLP versus LCD technology, and a factory warranty. In a training environment (I've been to Mac training classes at CompUSA), Projectors get a lot of use and they generally aren't run in the energy saving mode. A PC World blogger had similar findings. This author underscored something else I found - that when you had a question about pricing for an item, nobody really knew what was going on.
CompUSA was selling McAfee Internet Security 2007, after discounts at $35, regularly sticker priced $79.99. The original sticker price was $10 above McAfee's suggested retail price of $69.99. What's up with that?
Feb 12, 2008 News Flash: According to Dallas Morning News, CompUSA in Plano will re-open.
Jan 19, 2008 News Flash: According to the CompUSA home page, SystemMax, Inc. has acquired CompUSA. They state a Store Liquidation is in progress, but don't specifically state the future of CompUSA retail stores. Engadget.com states up to 16 stores may be hanging around.
Dec 7, 2007 News Flash: According to the Wall Street Journal On Line, all remaining CompUSA's surviving the earlier round of store closures from Spring of 2007 will shut down.
May 2007: In case you hadn't heard, CompUSA is closing dozens of stores nationwide. The DFW area is included. I walked into CompUSA Park Lane about six times in late April and early May. I saw comments on the Net that their clearance markdowns weren't the great - and they were right. A lot of markdown new items were marked down from retail price, and were no less of a bargain than if you were to buy the same item from an Internet retailer, such as NewEgg.com. Also, I saw price differences between the Park Lane Store, and Compusa.com. Sticker prices for some items were higher in the store than on the web. 30%, 40%, and 50% markdowns were taken from the higher sticker price.
The better bargains were the store fixtures - shelves - utility and retail, office chairs, desks, computer workstations, and computer peripherals used internally in the business and their training facilities. At the store on Park Lane, I found several extra laptop power adapter for my Dell - what a price for $5, out of the dozens and dozens of lose power bricks. They had used SystemMax Desktop PC's - 2.8 Ghz P4, with 40 Gig hard drive, 1 gig ram, DVD-Reader, keyboard mouse, and a Norcent 17" Flat Screen, BUT NO OPERATING SYSTEM for $400 - which isn't that great, but on Friday April 25, they had all Fixtures 50% off so that made it $200, plus a 10% buyer's premium. That's a better deal, though you do have to purchase an Operating System - the lowest price Windows XP Professional can be found on the Net between $119 to $140. That makes it a good - but not a great deal. However, after a few days observation, the tags were corrected - the PC's had only 512 megs ram. Sometimes, you can peruse Craigslist and find people in DFW selling PC's with Flat Screens WITH Windows XP for less than this. Microcenter sells an Hp/Compaq refurbished desktop system, with P4/2.8 Ghz Processor, with 512 megs ram, with a Licensed version of Windows XP Pro for $319.99.
CompUSA had a few Mitsubishi LCD projectors. They seemed like a good deal at first - the Mitsubishi xl5u was initially $1,000, and it was 50% off, plus a 10% buyers premium, rounding out the LCD to $595 with taxes. What's the wild card - the Projector Lamp - specifically the remaining runtime life. At a discount, a projector lamp for this model sells for nearly $400, which would bring the projector up to nearly $1,000. If you're going to spend that much, why not get an HD 1080p/720p capable Optima EP770, for $1299 suggested retail, 3000 Lumens versus Mitsubishi's 1700, DLP versus LCD technology, and a factory warranty. In a training environment (I've been to Mac training classes at CompUSA), Projectors get a lot of use and they generally aren't run in the energy saving mode. A PC World blogger had similar findings. This author underscored something else I found - that when you had a question about pricing for an item, nobody really knew what was going on.