TigerDirect has agreed to purchase up to 16 CompUSA stores in Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico from the Dallas based company that announced liquidation plans last month. The deal includes the CompUSA brand name, trademarks and Web site. The $30 million cash deal will close in stages starting this week.

"The CompUSA brand is a huge name," said Gilbert Fiorentino, chief executive officer of TigerDirect, which will merge the CompUSA stores and website into its existing operations. "We’ve had an opportunity to look inside and get the assets that make sense."

CompUSA said in December that it was being sold to Gordon Brothers, who planned to sell as many of the remaining 103 stores as possible and close the rest. The retailer was owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and his Mexico City-based Grupo Carso.

"We’ve already had an aggressive growth strategy, but this gives us a great boost," said Fiorentino. "Part of the reason this is so attractive is that with the existing infrastructure we can absorb most of this business."
 

Terms of the deal were not released. CompUSA said it is in discussions to sell its technical services business, CompUSA TechPro, its online sales operation, CompUSA.com and stores in major markets.

The company’s 103 retail stores will stay open during the holiday season and offer discounts on computer and electronics before the stores are closed. "An orderly and expedited wind-down and asset sale process is the best option for CompUSA and its creditors at this juncture," said Bill Weinstein, a Gordon Brothers principal who will be running CompUSA as its interim president told Reuters.

Earlier, this year, CompUSA shut down more than half of its stores in an effort to streamline operations and increase profits at stores that were doing well. "We worked long and hard with Gordon Brothers Group to achieve a business solution that maximizes CompUSA’s assets," said Roman Ross, CompUSA’s current chief executive, who will continue to serve the company in an advisory capacity. 

CompUSA started as software retailer Soft Warehouse in 1984. It began selling computers and took the CompUSA name when it went public in 1991 and purchased the Tandy Computer chain. Carlos Slim began buying shares in 1999 and took the company private in 2000 with an $800 million buyout.

CompUSA has been hurt by decreasing margins on computers along with competition from electronics retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City.

Trust is such an important concept. This may be why, according to GetElastic.com, multiple pages in the checkout process converts better than a single page. Their data suggests that three pages or steps are optimal, converting at 6.2 percent.

Even seven pages or more (which is unbelievable to me, impatient jerk that I am) converts better than a one-step checkout process. Only one of the top 100 retailers use a one page checkout, and they convert the least at just 2.5 percent.

But why? Maybe it’s because one step seems too easy, just like a scam would seem too easy. Maybe it takes more steps to reassure a buyer, who is dealing with an invisible seller, that this deal is legit.

It would make sense, then, that providing the opportunity to actually converse with a human before a purchase could boost the chances of the purchase actually taking place. Conversations build trust and conversations look like they build conversions, too.

GetElastic has its own numbers on live chat in a nifty 46-page whitepaper on the entire checkout process, which can be downloaded in PDF or viewed in HTML, and includes data on shipping offers, coupons, security, et cetera.

"Live chat has the potential to bridge the customer service gap that exists between online shoppers and retailers," the authors say. "It can be the extra little push a shopper needs to get over any conversion hurdles that may exist such as purchase uncertainty, product questions, or technical and policy assistance."

But they’re still unsure about its actual efficacy, only slightly outperforming in the Apparel and High Ticket categories, and underperforming in every other. The authors attribute this "counter-intuitive" result to a potential annoyance factor, which can turn any would-be customer off.

Coremetrics and CompUSA have a different tale to tell on live chat, though. Coremetrics followed CompUSA’s implementation of InstantService’s live chat technology to make a case study of it. They found that website conversion rates went up by a factor of ten.

“By adding InstantService live chat to Compusa.com, we’ve given our customers the ability to communicate with a live agent who can help answer their questions,” said Al Hurlebaus, managing director of marketing and advertising at CompUSA. “This added value mirrors the in-store experience where customers rely on our knowledgeable salespeople to obtain assistance when they need it. "

Coremetrics’ analysis showed that 60 percent of visitors who chatted and added an item to the cart, did so from the most recently viewed category before initiating a chat session.

A keyword there might be "initiated," as in the customer initiated the chat session, cutting down on the annoyance factor mentioned by GetElastic. Nearly 54 percent of CompUSA customers ended up purchasing from the category they most recently viewed before chatting.

It is still unclear, though, whether CompUSA’s recent change in customer focus, from business-to-consumer to business-to-business had an impact on the results.

Jane Paolucci, VP of marketing for Coremetrics, shares some more numbers in an interview with WebProNews. She said that 68.5 percent of CompUSA customers chatted while browsing the site and that 32 percent chatted while in the shopping cart during the late stages of the buying process.

"Out of that," she said, "over 10 percent of those sessions convert to a sale, 10 times the average website conversion rate." Paolucci says that only 28 percent of ecommerce sites are currently offering live chat.

But they are "increasingly spending more money on technologies that are bringing them closer to their clients."   

Not to endorse one chat product over the other, here’s a Google search for "live chat widgets for ecommerce" to speed you along the chat discovery process should you think that’s right for your site.

The company will work with online merchants to integrate its ratings and reviews solution into a Web 2.0 store based on IBM’s WebSphere Commerce, offering them a way to turn customers into advocates. A number of IBM WebSphere customers are currently using the Bazaarvoice solution.

“Word of mouth marketing is the most valuable asset available to retailers today, which is why we are seeing tremendous growth for online ratings and reviews,” said Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO, Bazaarvoice. “Our partnership with IBM will bring this strategic functionality to even more retailers as they deliver a more relevant and rewarding shopping experience.”

Bazaarvoice’s on demand ratings and reviews allows retailers to build a community of their most loyal customers and use the customer voice to aid shoppers in making more informed purchasing decisions. Bazaarvoice and IBM hope to allow retailers to quickly create a customer focused shopping experience that will increase loyalty among customers as well as increase sales.

Some of Bazaarvoice’s clients include Bass Pro Shops, CompUSA, Overstock.com and PETCO.

“Succeeding in today’s online retailing world requires you to put the customer at the center of your strategy," said Jim Caldwell, Director, WebSphere Application Infrastructure Product Management. "WebSphere Commerce provides a rich lifestyle-driven shopping experience that is enhanced by the consumer-generated content available through Bazaarvoice. We’re pleased to work with Bazaarvoice in our mission to revolutionize the customer experience."
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First off, they are offering an early bird discount for installs of Vista. No, you won’t get Vista itself for cheaper, but a thirty dollar discount on installation of Vista. While Vista is the easiest operating system for consumers to install in Microsoft’s history, some are certainly too wary to do it themselves, and CompUSA will let you bring in your computer for a sleepover party.

Drop off your computer in-store before 3 pm on January 29, and you will be able to pick it up anytime after midnight that night with Vista installed and ready for you. The cost of installation: $20, a small price for those who need this installed for them. After January 30, installation will cost $50 ($150 if you make them come to your house). No doubt, all those computers spending the night at CompUSA are just going to get drunk and do something they’ll regret in the morning.

They are also trying to guarantee peace of mind through customer service. Customers who pay CompUSA to install Vista and are dissatisfied with their experience with the new operating system can have CompUSA uninstall Vista and reinstall the old operating system, as well as receiving a full refund. The guarantee also applies to Office 2007, and I doubt the refund gives back the price of the installation.

The last bit is the most intriguing: From Tuesday on, bring in your laptop (or check it out on this website) and you can trade it in towards the purchase of a brand-new computer with Windows Vista. “The notebook’s value is based on the condition, specifications, and age and will be assessed by a web-based tool provided by a certified technology recycling company to determine its fair market value.” The program will not be available in California.

So, lets see: I have an 18-month old Dell laptop, with a 15.4-inch widescreen, 1.6 GHz Pentium M, 1.5 gigs of RAM, a DVD burner, two batteries, a brand-new technician replaced motherboard, two years left on the warranty, without a single scratch or ding, and a Windows Experience Index rating of 3.4. I paid $1000 for it, after a $600 off coupon, and an additional $300 for the extended warranty six months ago.

I’m going to take my computer to CompUSA next week to find out what they think it’s worth. If I can get $700 of trade-in value, I might just go for it. What do you think it’s worth?

(via CRN > Neowin)

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Sony is releasing the PlayStation 3 in three days, but they’ve announced problems with a major selling point: Backward compatibility. Turns out there are a bunch of PlayStation and PS2 games that just won’t work on the PS3, including Gran Turismo and the Final Fantasy series, at least 200 games in all. While this is the opposite of the Xbox 360, where few games are backwards compatible at all, it is once again a case of Sony underdelivering to its customers.

Windows Vista will actually go on sale this month, at least at CompUSA, and only for the Business edition. On November 30, they will begin selling Windows Vista Business, as well as Office 2007 Small Business Edition. This is a smart move, as big businesses were already going to be able to get Vista Business (and Enterprise), so Microsoft is just leveling the playing field.

While talking up Vista’s RTM with reporters, Jim Allchin said that his son uses Vista without antivirus, and does just fine. Naturally, the reporters misinterpreted that as him saying Vista doesn’t need an antivirus. Jim had to issue a mea culpa, explaining that his son runs with a lot of reduced priveleges and parental controls, making the system a lot safer.

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This is a phone that works with the Skype internet phone service which you use to make and receive phone calls via Skype as you would make and receive calls with a normal cordless phone. The contact list in the phone replicates the contact list in the Skype application that runs on your computer. So, as with a normal phone, you select a contact, hit the call’ button and make your call. Dead easy.

Not only that:

[] The Handset supports SkypeOut dialing as well as your Skype contact list. It rings when you have a Skype or SkypeIn call coming in, and shows the caller’s ID on the screen. The Handset also supports call waiting and Skype’s optional Voicemail service. When you’re on a call, you can hit the Mute button for privacy, or use the speakerphone function to let everyone join in. You can even use the phone as an intercom – each Base Station supports up to four Handsets.

This phone is also sold here in The Netherlands, but the price is quite a bit more than in the US – for instance, Dixons has it on sale for 140 ($167) versus $130 in the US ($140 including California sales tax).

The only negative was that, after buying it, I discovered that the power supply for the charging unit was US voltage only. You would have thought that it would have been universal to work in any country. But a $10 purchase at Fry’s got me a step-down voltage converter which works fine. Adding that purchase, the total cost is still less than if I had bought the phone here.

Very neat.

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This also includes the officers of computer peripherals manufacturer Q.P.S. Inc., whose products were marketed and sold by CompUSA, for allegedly failing to pay, in a timely manner, thousands of rebates for products sold under the CompUSA and QPS brands. Under the terms of the settlement with the superstore, CompUSA will pay consumers who purchased QPS products at CompUSA their due or past-due rebates, which ranged from $15 to $100 each.

This is the first time the FTC has charged a nationwide retailer over its rebate advertising practices, including its advertising of manufacturer mail-in rebates. The administrative consent agreements announced today settle all charges against CompUSA and QPS’s principals Priti Sharma and Rajeev Sharma.

“When it comes to rebates, retailers must deliver on their promises,” said Lydia Parnes, Acting Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The message to retailers is clear – the FTC is on the beat and will take action if you advertise manufacturers’ rebates when you know they aren’t honoring their promises.”

In its complaint against the superstore, the FTC alleges that CompUSA engaged in deceptive and unfair practices relating to rebate offers made for both its own branded products, as well as QPS products that it marketed and sold. Specifically, according to the FTC, CompUSA was involved with the creation of the rebate program for QPS-funded mail-in rebates for products sold at CompUSA. The complaint also alleges that in marketing QPS’s rebates, it falsely represented that QPS-funded rebate checks would be mailed to buyers of QPS products within six to eight weeks, or within a reasonable period of time. Between September and December 2001, however, many consumers experienced delays of between one and six months before receiving their rebates, and some never received the promised rebates at all. Similarly, between January and July 2002, many consumers experienced delays and thousands never received their rebates from QPS. Despite knowing about these problems, the FTC contends, CompUSA continually advertised QPS’s rebates until shortly before the company filed for bankruptcy in August 2002.

With regard to marketing CompUSA’s own branded products, the FTC’s complaint alleges that CompUSA promised that it would deliver its rebates, ranging from $3 to $100 in value, within six to eight weeks, or within a reasonable period of time. Between September 2001 and June 2002, however, many consumers experienced delays ranging from a week to more than three months before getting their money. Finally, the complaint against CompUSA alleges that in many cases, after receiving valid rebate requests for CompUSA-branded products, the company unfairly unilaterally extended the time period in which it would deliver the rebates, without consumers agreeing to the time extension.

The complaint against QPS principals Priti and Rajeev Sharma also challenges their rebate-related conduct as deceptive and unfair. The company is now in bankruptcy and is not currently operating.

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