Why did compusa go out of business

Users can surf the internet, check their Facebook or even Twitter if they want, says Fiorentino. It may sound like a small change but it is quite different from how Best Buy, Office Depot or other brick-and-mortar stores display information to their customers, says Doug Fleener, president of retail consulting firm Dynamic Experiences and former director of retail for Bose. Systemax's Tiger Direct online shopping site has benefited first hand from the online shopping trend.

But Fiorentino says customers still want to go stores to buy electronics. And Fiorentino says CompUSA can keep its prices low despite the additional overhead costs associated with a physical store.

CompUSA's inventory now ties into Tiger Direct and the company offers the same prices whether consumers buy a product online or in a store.

At one point, it operated more than stores across the US and Puerto Rico. As online commerce picked up and sales of computers slowed due to the changing technological landscape, CompUSA was forced to close more than half of its stores. Yishai Grossman, founder of DealCentral, said acquiring the asset simply made sense for them on so many levels.

Then, come the holiday shopping season, we will host all of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday ads, break down the massive sales and keep everyone up to date about the hottest deals. The upside, if there is one, is that we will see some great deals at the remaining stores, just as we did in February during the closure of stores. Gordon Brothers Group promises that consumers will be able to find "attractive holiday bargains" as part of the sale process—I know a good number of geeks who will be making a mass exodus to the soon-to-be-extinct stores over the weekend to get some holiday shopping for themselves done, for sure.

Although the store has all but lost its relevancy in today's market, the news still strikes me as the end of an era. In , it started downsizing, closing 15 stores. In , it closed stores.

Most of the remaining stores closed in , except for 16 locations that Systemax purchased. But they never carried parts so you could build you own, like some stores. The other problem was the help. This is a common problem in retail, as most people who can be really good salespeople at computer stores can make more money working in an IT department somewhere.

It helped that the store was about three blocks from where I worked. And admittedly, for some things, I had no other local option without driving a lot further.

But most of the time, I went there because something was on sale.