The Last Vestiges of CompUSA

schwartzvald

schwartzvald

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So, on a hot tip from a friend of the family, I heard that the very last of the local CompUSA leftovers were being sold at a warehouse in a business park nearby. She mentioned some gamer stuff, some LCD monitors (which I knew, from experience, sell like hotcakes and would be gone quickly), and some miscellaneous office supplies. Didn't know if it was worth the gas, but I grabbed a friend and checked it out.

So, you tell me if it was worth it or not. I got:

3 wired XB360 controllers
2 wireless XB360 controllers, sans battery casings
2 20GB XB360 hard drives
4 XB360 video cables (the composite/component/optical pack-in ones)
1 Playstation 3 promotional mousepad, brand new (with pretty stitched-in logos)
And some other office stuff and USB cables (including a rather nice piece of OEM software)

All for 30 dollars.

I'm gonna play some more laptop SF3:3s on one of my rather responsive new XB360 pads. It sure beats my ol' SmartJoy/PSOne combo.
 
Very nice, they have any other big stuff for sale there? Wounder how cheap the LCD were going for.
 
All the displays are long gone, save a few busted VGA CRT monitors. No surprise there--I've been to auctions and such, and flat displays are always nabbed by bargain-hunting resellers, even if they're broken. It seems it's more profitable to them just to buy them all and sort it out later. Probably a smart move if you have the cash.

My friend said used LCD panels were going for $50 on average, with most being used 17 to 19 inch, VGA input only. I might have bit on one at that price... but just to set up as a television.

She also told me that the person that tipped her off said they had used LCD and CRT TVs at one point, but that they, of course, disappeared even faster.

The gaming stuff looked like spare parts for OEM demo kiosks... for instance, sealed PSP AC adapters bundled with a demo UMD and some OEM-style manuals. They also had sealed copies of Forza for XBOX... again, probably to run in demo units.

They had an ancient-looking Frogger cabinet that looked like it came from a breakroom, seemingly rewired to a couple of MS Sidewinder pads. And lots of other corporate office stuff... a networking engineer looking for parts would get the most out of it, in my opinion. That, or someone looking to build a home office.

I am thinking of going and really scouring the place tomorrow for goodies, now that I'm less of a stranger... but I have a wicked painful frog in my throat. -_-
 
I remember when our CompUSA closed down last year the liquidators were pretty stingy. I was in the pre-stages of building my computer and after pricing out parts after their 30% discount, it was still cheaper to go through newegg for everything (not to mention a return policy). Videogame stuff was only 10% off for the most part, so all it really did was offset our 7.75% sales tax. They also refused to mark down floor model LCD TVs. I've always wanted to just call someone out and be like, "Hey man, gimme something dirt cheap.. you're not going to be working here for very long anyway..."

I remember a K-Mart closing down around here and I asked about the display model GC, XBOX, and PS2 that were housed in kiosks. They called back and said I could only by the set of kiosks for several hundred dollars. No thanks.

I would say that yes, you got a hell of a deal considering my experience.
 
Milky, it's in Texas. If any D/FW CAG'ers are interested, drop me a PM for directions... but there's not much left that's worth it, unless you want office furnishings. I scoured the aisles again Monday... really dug in some boxes. Fun, but I didn't really find anything good.

What was funny is that I kept finding XB360 breakaway plugs all over the warehouse. There must have been a lot more XB360 stuff at some point... *sigh*. I also found another PS3 promo mouse pad, already opened. But it cleaned up okay. My friend got a XB360 power adapter, but it's missing the AC power cord, which has a little notch in it, making it non-standard. I told him just to carve up a regular one.

Man, QiG, I had such a similar experience back when the local CompUSA B&M closed. I mean, all these "markdown" and "clearance" signs... such lies. The only major thing I bought was one of these:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FastTrackPro-main.html

For $110... and I had to wait for the last day for it to be that price. It was $180 up until that last day, when finally, the stingy-ass manager went around with a magic marker to all the product... and 90% of it was STILL overpriced.

And they were selling the demo kiosks for stupid prices. $800 for a PS2 one, et cetera.

The worst thing was that people were biting on those prices... I overheard those classic discussions--"Is this a good price? I guess so, it IS on sale... $1200 seems cheap for a laptop, and I heard Celerons are very good!"

:p
 
Gotta love the rubes who pick up stuff because the words 'sale', 'clearance' or '% off' are marked around the store. Most of the store closings I've been to were pretty lackluster, aside from the one Sam Goody in Paramus, NJ which I should've bought out everything from. They had tons of older games, guides and other goodies for super cheap in their last week open.

Sadly though, I live about an hour and a half or so away from there, so going back on one of the final days was NOT an option.
 
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