I remember when the CompUSA in Roswell opened and it was the only one nearby. It was next to a Lionel Toy store and I went there with my dad to get a mouse for our Packard Bell 8088 (4.77mhz, baby!). The mouse plugged into the serial port, had two buttons and a ball, and I believe it only worked in GEOS. But we paid a hundred bucks for that sucker, so you’d better believe we used it.
Of course, their poor customer service was legendary. CompUSA couldn’t have offered worse customer service if their entire staff were made up of rabid badgers, but when they started to hit it big in the early 90s, they didn’t need to because they were the only game in (many a) town. Babbage’s and Egghead were smaller storefront operations already on the decline and your more general consumer electronics stores hadn’t quite figured out how to sell software in the first place.
Later in the decade, the retailer became famous for their $400 rebates, which sounded like great deals until you realized they came with a 3-year MSN ISP contract. Since then, I don’t think I’ve been in a CompUSA store except to take advantage of an unbelievable loss leader of a deal or to score some computer parts that I absolutely couldn’t wait for in the mail.
Wired raises the question on everyone’s mind–when will the deals start? I’d pay close attention to your Fatwallets and your SlickDeals if you don’t have a store convenient to your evening commute. Because once the prices get crazy, you’ll only have maybe a day or two to snap up the great deals.
