Compustore

Gillo

Is this the right place to have this but Conmpustore have appearently gone into liquidation.

anyone else hear anything about it??

Staff appeared for work today and were told to go home.

K!LL!@N

Well it wouldn't surprise me but is this a country wide thing?
Or are all the stores run as franchises?
I had heard the shop in sandyford industrial estate was in a bit of bother.
Apparently they'd run out of credit with their suppliers and weren't able to purchase new stock til they'd sold what they had or gotten the money from somewhere.
The above is hearsay from a friend that works in compustore, so can't be 100%.
I guess i'll find out later when he goes to work though.

Killian

BadCharlie

Well they closed down in waterford around january

K!LL!@N

It seems to be true.
My mate said that the shop in sandyford has been closed.

Killian

Creamy Goodness

finally people have found the cheapest of buying online

Fusion251

Yeah went to work today and to my surprise the doors were bolted and there was a sign saying. Call this Number 087********. Of course it was an answering machine. The manager was there, he got a call at 8.15 telling him that Compustore had gone into liquidation. Nice way to handle it really. But then again, Compustore as a company didn't really know how to handle anything, what a mess...I'm only a part timer so it didn't bother me too much, but for some of the full timers it was really a bad way to be told....tut tut

D

heggie

yeh i work with fusion251, rotten way to handle things, says a lot about the top management there. A lot of the people that worked there have given years to that company, and to not even hear it from the management face to face is a insult, and a cowardly action. It's no surprise the company failed as it treated its staff, suppliers and customers with disregard.

tribble

I work with fusion and heggie

Yeah - arrived in work at 0920 this morning and was told the the company went into liquidation last night.

Dirty big chains on the doors so no one has access incl managers.

Anybody whose got a PC in with tech is up the creek 'till next month.

tribble

delly

Sorry to hear that lads.

I have a mate who works in a similar type store, who always said that if the chain went bust, he'd try and grap what he could before he went out the door for the last time. Guess that can't happen in your circumstance tho'.

palance

I used to work part time in Galway, luckily I left 6 weeks ago. The whole company was a mess really, problems with stock all the time. The people in head office didn't have a clue how to run a company.

Pity anyone who bought an extended warranty...

tribble

palance wrote:

I used to work part time in Galway, luckily I left 6 weeks ago.

Should have held out for your redundancy (sp?) mate

dazberry

Sorry for you guys out of work. Only last week(ish) I remember seeing them advertise for staff <somewhere>.

[Aside]
I remember in the early 90s going for a part-time job while in college (Sandyford was just about to open), and there were so many people all queuing up to do the technical interviews (Nass Rd) - it was incredible. I got called back to the second round - but because we didn't have a phone (couldn't afford one at the time) I was actually the last person to be interviewed. By that stage they'd obviously picked all their staff, and so it was the worst (most disgraceful) experience of an interview I've ever had to suffer. Hated them with a vengence ever since and only darkened their doors if I had to. Still sorry though for you guys.

D.

Mutant_Fruit

Reminds me of the time (in my youthful days) when they tried to sell me a "top of the range" PCI graphics card, with 4mb of vram (upgradable for extra cash) for 180pounds! At the time it was probably worth about 35pounds at best. The latest graphics card drivers for it had been released about 3 years before i got the card...

tribble

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

Reminds me of the time (in my youthful days) when they tried to sell me a "top of the range" PCI graphics card, with 4mb of vram (upgradable for extra cash) for 180pounds! At the time it was probably worth about 35pounds at best. The latest graphics card drivers for it had been released about 3 years before i got the card...

We (sandyford) still have ( :rolleyes: HAD) geforce 1's/2's for €100-€200.

Though none of the staff would even think about selling them to anybody.

tribble

Fenster

Well damm. They had this really nice little all-metal memory card reader I was gonna buy today.

LegacyUser

HAH! That surprises me. the majority of Irish people are too stupid to buy online. I am surprised they closed down.

neokenzo

If they go into liquidation, surely their stock will be auction off?

tribble

neokenzo wrote:

If they go into liquidation, surely their stock will be auction off?

A distinct possibility with some of their stock.

A lot of the most current stock was never owned by Compustore but remained the property of the suppliers.

tribble

MackQ

I was at Sandyford last night looking at this beautiful Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo notebook. Went back today to buy it and when I pulled up outside the shutters were down!!! I was soooooooo upset!!!

To be honest though there were so few desktops there last night that it was obvious that something wasn't right.

tribble

MackQ wrote:

I was at Sandyford last night looking at this beautiful Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo notebook. Went back today to buy it and when I pulled up outside the shutters were down!!! I was soooooooo upset!!!

To be honest though there were so few desktops there last night that it was obvious that something wasn't right.

The black v2000?

At €1099 it was very good value for money given the spec and weight.
Last time i checked (last sunday) it was out of stock though.
Mind you the last delivery we took (of what i'll never know) was less than 24 hour ago :rolleyes:

_113

Hobbes

Has the whole thing shut down in Ireland? or just the stores? If it is everything I guess the forum should put a warning up not to buy from the online site just in case.

A friend of mine got burned that way. They took his cash despite having gone into liquidation a few days before (I forget the company).

Mad Mike

Sorry for those who have lost your jobs. Indeed I am sorry to see an Irish company bite the dust but Compustore was clearly badly managed. Their business model involved charging higher margins than the competition in order to make up for inefficencies in basic operations, particularly stock control. You just can't get away with that anymore, even in Ireland and particularly in the computer business where stock loses between 10% and 20% of its value every month. That sort of behaviour belongs to Ireland of the past pre EU, pre-free trade and pre-internet.

The most embarrasing thing about this was Compustore's attempt to position the company as the "idiots Friend" in their advertising. Sure you can fool a new computer user into paying over the odds for stuff but a company should never presume on the stupidity of their customers. People learn fast and someone who was ripped off is unlikely to come back for more.

Unfortunately Compustore isn't the only Irish retailer using this "idiots friend" sales line. A well known shop on Parnell Street is plying a very similar line - not a good sign for the long term future of that venerable institution.

MackQ

tribble wrote:

The black v2000?
_113

Nah, the D1845 with the 3.2GHz proccessor, 1GB ram, 80GB HD, etc.

I see their online shop still appears to be taking orders. Hopefully no-one gets stung.

FruitLover

Sorry to hear about it for the sake of the staff involved, but from what I've heard about the place, it was only a matter of time.

tribble

Mad Mike wrote:

The most embarrasing thing about this was Compustore's attempt to position the company as the "idiots Friend" in their advertising. Sure you can fool a new computer user into paying over the odds for stuff but a company should never presume on the stupidity of their customers. People learn fast and someone who was ripped off is unlikely to come back for more.

You would be VERY surprised. Both at the sheer number of idiots and of those who just don't care.

Compustore was a based on a sound model - it was it's top level management that failed to understand the finer points of INTER BUSINESS etiquette (sp?).

tribble

unkel

sorry for all you guys losing your jobs, don't worry though, you'll find a better one!

But compustore closing down...

good riddance tbh

Jammer

pc world in blanch are looking for people.

Zaph

Is/was Compustore actually an Irish company?

The only reason I ask is that I was in the States recently where there was CompUSA, and the logo was exactly the same (apart from the store/USA bit, obviously).

Stephen

Compustore in Kilkenny was open today. What gives?

Fenster

Stephen wrote:

Compustore in Kilkenny was open today. What gives?

Its Kilkenny, they generally need a day or so to catch up with the rest of Ireland.

In seriousness though, I've no idea. If they closed the chain, they'd normally close all the stores at once to stop wholesale liberation of stock by soon-to-be-ex-staff. Probably the staff in Kilkenny made off with a fair whack of stock at the end of the day.

tribble

Compustore is Irish.
Owned by Kevin Buckley.

Most of the stores around outside Dublin are franchises and I don't know the situation with them. Some of them have their own supliers.
All Buckley owned ones are gone.

Killers

I used to also work in compustore in galway,but i finished 3 weeks ago,i worked there part time.
Its a terrible thing that happened,but to be honest I could see something like this happening for months. The stock levels were crazy,there was never any stock and to me it was a clear sign that compustore was going to the wall,terrible shame though as the staff were never informed by HQ that there was anything wrong.
I hope that all of the staff are well compensated.
Its a terrible shame to see an Irish company going into liquidation.

tribble

Yeah - a year/2 ago we had sales figures to die for but the inability to secure stock was a major issue in the recent months.

unme

Jammer wrote:

pc world in blanch are looking for people.

I wonder how long that place (pc world, blanch) will last too... I was in there last week looking for printer cartridges for an inkjet printer that uses 7 ink colours. When I asked about the colours that they had run out of, I was told that they did not know when they would have those colours back in because they don't order stock, but take whatever happens to come in a delivery... Who the hell is supplying these places - St. Vincent De Paul?????

The last time I was in Compustore, I was being "assisted" by a rep who, while still answering my question, put on his jacket and walked out of the shop - apparently taking a break. Even his assistant was shocked. What professionalism!!

Fenster

unme wrote:

I wonder how long that place (pc world, blanch) will last too... I was in there last week looking for printer cartridges for an inkjet printer that uses 7 ink colours. When I asked about the colours that they had run out of, I was told that they did not know when they would have those colours back in because they don't order stock, but take whatever happens to come in a delivery... Who the hell is supplying these places - St. Vincent De Paul?????

We're having terrible stock problems right now throughout the whole chain. PC World in Galway is opening up in a month and its like a black hole for stock, so far as laptops, PCs and PC accessories go. Things will likely improve after the store opens.

jacko100

Im a full timer and I got the news from a mate that works there. Been there for years and didnt even get a phone call saying dont come to work. Would have been going to work not knowing any better. We still dont know what we're supposed to do about anything. A crappy way to be laid off.

unme

Fenster wrote:

We're having terrible stock problems right now throughout the whole chain. PC World in Galway is opening up in a month and its like a black hole for stock, so far as laptops, PCs and PC accessories go. Things will likely improve after the store opens.

As an ordinary customer, I don't understand the problems that these stores have with stock. It is one of the oldest jobs in the book - You buy, You sell, You re-stock.

* Is it that they don't have any method of checking out items that are sold, so that they can keep tabs on stock running low? (Even tiny family-run newsagents have systems these days)

* Is it that the shop doesn't source the replacement stock from reliable distributors? (Time to use the internet to find a good distributor, I would think. I can get almost anything I need from the Net, within days, and cheaper - and I am not running a business selling it for profit)

* Is it that everything in the shop gets nicked by shoplifters, and the management have no idea that it is gone? (that should be easily rectified by waking up the security man occasionally or adding effective security systems)

* Is it a problem with getting staff that are sufficiently intelligent to run a shop? (I hardly think so, but I am often puzzled by the answers I get when I ask questions in these stores about availability of items)

Enlighten me!

By the way, I'm sorry to hear about the guys who are losing their jobs. Not nice, especially in the way that Compustore is doing it. I hope the good ones get new jobs straight away, and the ignorant ones (and managers) learn the intricacies of begging on the street for a living.

RuggieBear

unme wrote:

As an ordinary customer, I don't understand the problems that these stores have with stock. It is one of the oldest jobs in the book - You buy, You sell, You re-stock......
..........
By the way, I'm sorry to hear about the guys who are losing their jobs. Not nice, especially in the way that Compustore is doing it. I hope the good ones get new jobs straight away, and the ignorant ones (and managers) learn the intricacies of begging on the street for a living.

Emmm....If only it was that simple. Slightly more complicated than ordering it something online, i'm afraid. Not really sure how to explain how these shops work....

fintan

Really sorry to hear about people being laid off, but I am surprised that compustore stayed in business for so long. I've worked in sales and was amazed at how poorly customers were treated in the store (compustore on the green). Places like beyond2000, malpins and Peats all have much better customer service in my opinion and hopefully now thats going to pay off for them.

BrookieD

Not suprised this is closed, I called the Green store last week for an DVD burner (internal /external anything would do) The person who took the call was a complete muppet on asking "Do you have any internal DVD Burners?" answer = " Ummmm NO we are out of stock!"

ME = "ok do you have internal burners at all and how much would these be"
Store Muppet "Ummmmmmmm yeah just a sec i think so........ummm yeah we do...€250"
ME "Holy God!!!1 250 you must be wrong?"
Store Muppet"ummm nope 250, if you dont want it then fair enough, is that all?"
ME "yeah cheers bye"

Went to Beyond2000 and got a internal burner and a colour cannan IP4000i photo printer. great service all round in there.

Bye bye compustore and not before time.

all you ex employees good luck on the job front.

heggie

responses like that tho are more of a symptom of the shop failure than a cause. You have no idea how tiring, and annoying saying the same bs everytime someones looking for something. Eventually, u just dont care anymore.

BrookieD

but its the Assistance job to sound as if its the first time they have had the question. a responce like that just puts people off. Even if they had the item i was after i would not have botherd due to the lack of anything on the phone.
Outcome, if he does not care if i shop there, why bother to shop there?

omb0wyn5ehpij9

BrookieD wrote:

but its the Assistance job to sound as if its the first time they have had the question. a responce like that just puts people off. Even if they had the item i was after i would not have botherd due to the lack of anything on the phone.
Outcome, if he does not care if i shop there, why bother to shop there?

well said. i work in a music shop, and you have no idea how often i get asked the same questions over and over, but if i didnt seem interested my manager would kill me! i have the same people come back to me to get things cos if you dont help your customers than they wont come back again......simple law of business.

sorry to hear some of you lads lost your jobs. was gonna buy myself a wireless mouse and keyboard from compustore this week and all!

Gillo

The Kilkenny store (and most stores outside Dublin) were franchises. To be honest the people who bought a franchise will be at a big lose. When I worked there I was told the price of a franchise €40 K if I remember correctly (might of even been higher).

I left first because we couldn't get any stock in and I just got pi$$ed off constantly lying to customers about why I didn't have any stock for them. Also the GM had me effectively doing a sales managers job after my manager left, and kept telling me he was going to discuss it with me next week (the actual promation and pay rise), he actually a great sales guy and was quite convinceing, just a pity he's a crap manager. To be honest from Kevin and Sean's point of view I think it's a pity they didn't run the company better, because it definetly had teh potential in the right hands.

As for people on this thread moaning about the bad service, I worked for them for a while and ok the service wasn't always the best (in the majority of times I thought it was good) and to have people complaining it now when aload of people get to spent the bank holiday weekend looking for a job is just abit sick.

the_syco

heggie wrote:

yeh i work with fusion251, rotten way to handle things, says a lot about the top management there. A lot of the people that worked there have given years to that company, and to not even hear it from the management face to face is a insult, and a cowardly action. It's no surprise the company failed as it treated its staff, suppliers and customers with disregard.

I think they did this to prevent them "taking stuff home". Seemingly they had this problem in one of the stores a while back. they let the people know in advance, and stuff went "missing".

Still, tho, sh|t way to go. Used to work in Compustore in Stephens Green, as an Epson rep. Nice people. Most knew their sh|t.

As for stock control; they usually kept a stock of stuff that they knew would go. Saying that, if something was going sweetly, it'd take a bit to get more of that stock in.

Mad Mike wrote:

You just can't get away with that anymore, even in Ireland and particularly in the computer business where stock loses between 10% and 20% of its value every month. That sort of behaviour belongs to Ireland of the past pre EU, pre-free trade and pre-internet.

I agree with this. Computer shops are going to die, sooner or later. Shops like Peats, or ITDirect will proberly go on, as they sell parts, and not entire PC's which are outdated when they hit the shelves. You have to sell the PC for X price, but with parts, you buy a small amount, sell them off, and bu newer parts. Dell has been taking the piss out of every single company that does this for a while by saying they don't build a few hundred PC's, and leave them in that spec untill they all go; they upgrade them (not often, but faster than the pre-built ones).

unme wrote:

The last time I was in Compustore, I was being "assisted" by a rep who, while still answering my question, put on his jacket and walked out of the shop - apparently taking a break. Even his assistant was shocked. What professionalism!!

Some of the reps arn't employed by Compustore, but rather by outside agencies, for HP and Epson. I know, as I was one of them.

unme wrote:

Is it that they don't have any method of checking out items that are sold, so that they can keep tabs on stock running low? (Even tiny family-run newsagents have systems these days)

They had a system that would tell you if there was stuff in stock or not, and if not, where there was. A few times, I'd send the customer to Sandyford, as they'd have the printer, but my store didn't.

unme wrote:

Is it that the shop doesn't source the replacement stock from reliable distributors? (Time to use the internet to find a good distributor, I would think. I can get almost anything I need from the Net, within days, and cheaper - and I am not running a business selling it for profit)

When I was there, every Thursday or Saturday stock would come in.

unme wrote:

Is it that everything in the shop gets nicked by shoplifters, and the management have no idea that it is gone? (that should be easily rectified by waking up the security man occasionally or adding effective security systems)

Everything was tagged, and there was video cameras all over the place.

unme wrote:

Is it a problem with getting staff that are sufficiently intelligent to run a shop? (I hardly think so, but I am often puzzled by the answers I get when I ask questions in these stores about availability of items)

Usually you'd have two who knew their sh|t, and a few who only knew about their section. Ask them about anything else, and they may not know that much (for example; if someone asked me about sound sytems @ the time, I wouldn't know, etc).

jacko100

We all know the shop was ran badly. We all know that people want what they r lookin 4 immediately and if they dont get it then the staff member that says we dont have it is the idiot or doesnt know what he's talking about. The fact is that we cant order stock, we arent told when its coming in and we can only take a number or send them away to someone else. Do any of u know how many complete idiots we met on an hourly basis. They walk in looking for something nice for the missus or the worse ones were someone that got it wrong and called you stupid. Deal with that every day and you have an idea of why @ the end the sales staff were pi*sed off. There were so many things that we needed but had no control over. Online is great but the monkeys that came to the shop couldnt change a battery in a mouse let alone get good online prices.

BrookieD

Jacko100
Nothing against you at all there but I have done your job and have been a manager of a retail outlet and know that know matter how many monkeys come into a shop they believe they are the first to ask the question on that day! as a mamber of the sales staff it is your job to treat each question as if it was the first time you have heard it.

Simple as that. The customer is the most importent part of the job get that wrong anf all else will fail no matter how good the product.

again this is not directed at you and is not an attack on you personally

tribble

As I said above Compustores model of selling to PC illiterate (read : majority of population) was a sound one. They didn't know their 800Mhz FSB from their elbow so if I told them that this PC knocked the socks off the Dell spec they had with them, then that was all they needed to hear*. They didn't care and weren't interested in learning, they just wanted to be told.

Compustore didn't fold due to lack of sales, bad sales staff or poor store preformance but rather, poor high level management.
I spent the last couple of months turning people away for basic, high profit items such as ink.

/me shrugs - wonder who'll move into their premises...


*and given Dells overpriced underspeced range over the last few years (P4 with 128MB SDRAM anyone?) I usually right.

unme

jacko100 wrote:

We all know the shop was ran badly. We all know that people want what they r lookin 4 immediately and if they dont get it then the staff member that says we dont have it is the idiot or doesnt know what he's talking about. The fact is that we cant order stock, we arent told when its coming in and we can only take a number or send them away to someone else. Do any of u know how many complete idiots we met on an hourly basis. They walk in looking for something nice for the missus or the worse ones were someone that got it wrong and called you stupid. Deal with that every day and you have an idea of why @ the end the sales staff were pi*sed off. There were so many things that we needed but had no control over. Online is great but the monkeys that came to the shop couldnt change a battery in a mouse let alone get good online prices.

Well some would say that customers are just customers. Not idiots nor monkeys. Sure some may be irritating, some may be new to computing, some may have unreasonable expectations; but that is business.

At the end of the day, shop assistants are paid money to deal with these "problems" rather than to ridicule customers. I know from working in a shop some years ago that other staff members just didn't like working there, so they exhibited this as intolerance for customers. Although, the concept of professionalism is lost on many shop assistants, you do come across people who still know what they are being paid to do. And if you are not paid enough in your opinion - then quit. No point in making everyone suffer.

Having been on the other side of the counter myself, I make a conscious effort to be reasonable and polite to shop assistants. However, I know that the assistant will probably call me an idiot (behind my back) for asking a question he/she should be able answer, or for looking for a product they really should have re-stocked. I can spot an attitude a mile off, and I think that is the same for most customers.

If we customers were really such idiots and monkeys, then Compustore would still be there taking our hard-earned money.

As I said earlier, I do feel sorry for the good guys who have lost their jobs out of this.

jacko100

tribble wrote:

As I said above Compustores model of selling to PC illiterate (read : majority of population) was a sound one. They didn't know their 800Mhz FSB from their elbow so if I told them that this PC knocked the socks off the Dell spec they had with them, then that was all they needed to hear*. They didn't care and weren't interested in learning, they just wanted to be told.

Compustore didn't fold due to lack of sales, bad sales staff or poor store preformance but rather, poor high level management.
I spent the last couple of months turning people away for basic, high profit items such as ink.

/me shrugs - wonder who'll move into their premises...


*and given Dells overpriced underspeced range over the last few years (P4 with 128MB SDRAM anyone?) I usually right.

People in Ireland really do believe that Dell r the way to go. They have been brain washed for 20 years. Compustore was a good company 3 years ago but their hiring policy changed and they took unqualified people. there is no other reason a company fails so badly. What other company lets their employees find out they have no jobs to go to by text message from a mate who is standing at the locked door.

TacT

Good luck to all the past employees seeking a new postion somewhere, that's got to be the worst possible way to get laid off especially if you were there full-time for a few years.

On another note I must say, "good riddance to bad rubbish." I'd go to the one in Sandyford industrial estate once in a blue moon if I needed some cabling or something else sharpish and it always pained me to see 3-5yr old gfx cards at the same prices they were 3-5yrs ago...