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Buy a Computer Anyone?
Jacob Fattal, Publisher
I went to a funeral celebration a few weeks ago. It was called a "Going Out of Business Sale", but it was really a funeral, with thousands of attendees, who came in response to an intense advertising campaign. The funeral was at Circuit City, a nationwide electronics chain that was always there as a store of last resort. It was a last resort because there was always a Best Buy nearby.

I went to the funeral hoping to find a bargain-priced item or something that I absolutely could not live without. Alas, I found nothing in either category, and that simply pointed more sharply at one of the root causes of the store's demise: the prices were always too high — even during its going-out-of-business sale.

The other day, I thought I was seeing a ghost as a new e-mail arrived from Circuit City, which had risen Phoenixlike from the ashes of bankruptcy with a new owner: Systemax. If you've ever bought a computer or an extended warranty, you know that Systemax is no small potato. Now it is offering great buys and great prices on the re-energized Circuit City website, but no more bricks and mortar stores. Circuit City is now a mail-order sister company to Tiger Direct — both owned by Systemax.

By the way, some of us may recall the very clever Systemax TV commercials of a few years ago — where the Systemax service technician was in the customer's office so often, the owner thought he was one of his own employees and wanted to give him a raise. In any event, this development seems to be a positive sign that some companies are really interested in picking up the pieces and putting the economy back to work again. Let's see. . . retail store chain Circuit City is gone, so are CompUSA and Gateway. Where does that leave you when you want to buy a new computer? Besides the specialty stores in each major metro center, many of which will build to order, there are Best Buy, Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, Sears, CostCo, Staples, Office Max, Office Depot and the Internet. Caveat emptor.  

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