Compustore

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...

vinnyfitz

4 days later....

From RTE this afternoon:

Four Compustore shops cease trading

October 26, 2004 16:41

Four Compustore shops in Dublin and Galway have ceased trading.

The shops, which specialised in computer and software products, failed to open for trading on Saturday.

A statement from the company's registered office says notice of a creditors meeting will be advertised in the press tomorrow.

RTE understands that up to 60 jobs may have been lost.

Compustores in other parts of the country are not affected and remain in business.

People who left computer equipment with Compustore's repair service have been asked to leave their details on a mobile phone number. The message says they will be contacted in due course.

Fusion251

Yeah they took their time with that. Was supposed to get a phone call today off the head office to be given details of how to claim when I'm gettin my p45 etc, no call. There's an envelope in the shop with my comission and name on it, don't reckon i'll be gettin that ethir!

I worked with Dell for 3 years, their business model was very sound and I rarely had any problems with delays or lack of parts for pc's we were building. When I moved to Compustore initially it was fine, there was stock to sell, it was easy to sell customers were easy to help for the most part,but, as soon as the stock levels began to go downhill it wasn't good at all. I mean an employee that has essentially 5 pc/laptops of the same spec can't really give you that many options? The problem for us when we're there was, that we weren't given a forecast of what stock may come in, therefore, if we were to tell a customer they needed a different spec then the one we could supply it wasn't really what they wanted to hear. Most people in the market that compustore aimed towards wanted to hear "This is exactly what you need sir, easy to set up and will provide for all your home computing needs, and look!!! :eek: only €999!!!" man that never happened up there...oh dear, seems I've been rambling for quite a while...I wan't my money!!!

GerardKeating

Well the the web store is stilll open fofr business, or maybe someone forgot to shut it down.

gerard

Fusion251

Yeah I know I saw that....not really a good idea to try buy anything there.

I wouldn't reckon there are any staff left to process any web orders so it's not really a problem... or is it? :eek:

the_syco

GerardKeating wrote:

Well the the web store is stilll open fofr business, or maybe someone forgot to shut it down.

gerard

It may be the way they plan on doing things?

tribble

the_syco wrote:

It may be the way they plan on doing things?

Not a chance, in the immediate future anyway.

Fusion251

One thing my lack of job has given me was time for my old friend Photoshop...... he he he

Fenster

Fusion251 wrote:

One thing my lack of job has given me was time for my old friend Photoshop...... he he he

While brushing up on your Photoshop skillz, you might want to brush up on your spellchecker ones also.

Fusion251

Fenster wrote:

While brushing up on your Photoshop skillz, you might want to brush up on your spellchecker ones also.

You too man!

Matfinn

sorry for everyone who worked there and lost their jobs, but the simple fact is whoever was working in the upper echelons of the company making the decisions simply didnt know what they were doing, and thats why the company went under.