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COMP USA to Close Half Its Stores

Looking back over the last couple of decades, it should be obvious that high tech has become the ‘in thing’ and surely most folks got rich investing there, right?  Well wrong, IT is a lot tougher than most folks think.  The latest example is COMP USA headquartered right here in Dallas.  This company has been taken private by its Mexican owners.  Now COMP is going to close half its stores.  Seems we need to focus on core customer concerns and not be everything to everyone.  Gee, Radio Shack just closed several hundred stores for about the same reason.  It is tough out there competing with Best Buy BBY and Circuit City CCY.

My point here is that we study a curriculum in business.  Getting it right is a combination of marketing and managerial accounting. As RSH and COMP work to find that just right product mix, there can be significant upheavals.  Consider that COMP is closing over one hundred stores. On the blog we continue to emphasize the rate of change of today’s business world, swirl if you will.  One must be monitoring change or become part of it, just ask Gateway or Packard Bell or, gulp, Dell.

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2 responses to “COMP USA to Close Half Its Stores”

  1. Jeffrey Burkholder Avatar
    Jeffrey Burkholder

    I wouldn’t count Dell out just yet Dr. Elam. Mr. Dell is an incredibly sharp business man and I think (Hope!) that Dell will be able to turn things around in the near future. As for Radio Shack…are you kidding me? That store has been obsolete for nearly ten years! How they stay in business year after year puzzles me. They just seem to offer an incredible amount of cheap electronic junk mixed in with a couple of useful products. They should just liquidate the whole business and distribute the money to all the shareholders. As for COMP USA, they are just another flash in the pan…. kinda like JUST FOR FEET.

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  2. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Dell stock was cut in half from 42 to 20 in eighteen months. Notably the financial statement analysis text I used in the fall literally gushed about DELL suggesting it was THE model. This is the sort of naivety you get from college professors that never actually were stock tratders much students of the market. After losing half its value,something those professors or Mike certainly could not imagine, DELL has retraced the fall back to the top of its previous fourth wave down, a classic Elliott wave pattern. But that is not a winning pattern, it just sets the stock up for another fall. DELL continues to make money but it is doubtful it will re gain such universal admiration. HPQ DOUBLED in the same tme period that Dell lost half its value, that is the market talking there Jeff, not Dennis Elam.
    Consider the high end restaurant where you work. You mentioned in class that loss of a highly regarded wine steward hurt wine sales. But the owners scrambled to replace him and sales have rebounded. That is the sort of vigilance I refer to .
    Meanwhile, my average price in Radio Shack RSH is 25 and it closed yesterdat at 33.41. I originally bought at about 21 and added later. I doubt it will go back to 70 but I think I will sell the July 35 calls agains the position for a buck or two. RSH is the neighborhood electronic convenience store. Just like WAG is both a drug and convenience store. As their ads say, we sell thingamajigs, watchyamacallits and whirlygigs, and successfully so. They are not competing with Best Buy or Circuit City. I buy batteries at RSH but my big screen at Best Buy.

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