CompUSA reinvents itself with a Web-driven store experience

After an extraordinarily bad couple of years that saw its network of 200-plus stores reduced to a few dozen, CompUSA is attempting to remake itself with a high-tech customer experience it calls, simply, "Retail 2.0."

The troubled brand was acquired in 2008 by Systemax, largely as a vehicle for the growth of its direct-sales subsidiary Tiger Direct. "Frankly, the reception by the customers was underwhelming, and the results were nowhere near what we expected them to be," said Gilbert Fiorentino, chief executive of Systemax's technology products business, which includes CompUSA. "We had a problem with the retail piece of our business."

And so Retail 2.0 was born, and launched in December at the Miami location. The high-tech concept brings interactivity to virtually every device in the house, and in the process opens a fire hose of product information at the point of purchase.

"We want to out-geek the Geek Squad," Fiorentino said.

Bringing the e-commerce site into the store

The typical CompUSA store has a few hundred computers, monitors and televisions on the shelves and on the wall. Typically, the televisions show looped content, the monitors are driven by hidden PCs that are split 40 ways, and the desktops and laptops more often than not are running Minesweeper and Solitaire.

At the Miami location, though, each monitor has its own computer and keyboard; each television set has a keyboard in front of it with a sign that says "Push any key for more information"; and all of them are hooked up to the Internet — specifically, to the massive e-commerce sites that are the Systemax stock in trade.

"We had all these computers in the stores, doing nothing," Fiorentino said. "What occurred to me was, I've spent all this time developing this great Web site, and none of it was available to the customer."

Also new to the store are "product configurators," dedicated end-cap devices that walk shoppers through the sometimes arcane process of finding the right cable or ink cartridge.

"We've taken everything that's great about the Web, and put it in the store," Fiorentino said.

Slide show: Take a look inside the new CompUSA store

Tech-savvy customers are welcome to use the interactive tools on their own, but store employees still roam the aisles looking for people that need help. And the massive influx of information is making life better for them, too.

"As a salesperson, it's hard to keep up sometimes with technology," said longtime CompUSA sales associate Leo Sorzano, who works at the Miami store. "(But now), all the information is a click away and has really taught me so much, like the difference between 120 and 60 hertz televisions, for example."

Fiorentino said the new store concept is coming to the rest of the locations in the CompUSA chain, roughly half in the first quarter of the year, the other half in the second.

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Too much information?

The CompUSA Retail 2.0 initiative is certainly an impressive achievement from a technology and execution standpoint, but it remains to be seen whether or not it can rescue the brand. One very big question: Was lack of product information the CompUSA problem?

"If you think about how most of us buy electronics, we do our research online," said Doug Flener, president of retail consultancy Dynamic Experiences Group and former director of retail for electronics giant Bose. "I think most people today have done some sort of research before going into a store. So will this offer different information in a way that creates an incentive to buy? And that I don't know."

Lack of information is definitely not the problem, according to Andrew Moser, co-founder of retail investment fund Kairos Capital Partners. Rather, it's a lack of new ideas.

"The industry in general is lacking new product innovation," he said. "Many products have simply become a commodity. Much of the interactive enjoyment offered (in the new CompUSA store) can be found in the comfort of one's home or on campus. Several music retailers tried to adopt this approach in recent years and few were successful, if at all, and significant working capital was required."

No doubt, the new approach requires much more capital. Fiorentino said the biggest expense for the new store is bandwidth, a figure he would not disclose; he would say, however, that the store design itself costs about $100,000 more than a typical CompUSA.

Ultimately, in order for that to be money well spent, it will have to result in shoppers that are eager to spend more of their own in the store.

"You still have to be able to make a connection to engage with the product and make the sale," Fleener said. "Who was king of getting people into the store and using the product? Sharper Image. But it didn't always translate into making sales."