Geeks.com closing???

[Lanyap]

I used to order from them a long time ago. They had new, used and refurb parts/systems. You did have to watch it sometimes when they would send you a used instead of new part. I believe it was a combination of ebay, Amazon, and Newegg that help do them in

I wonder if TigerDirect is next?

 

[Ketchup]

I could be completely wrong here, but I am reading this differently than most of you guys and gals. Don't you think it odd that somebody would be willing to keep a physical location in Cali open, yet close a website whose cost would be minimal by comparison?

I think somebody offered them a good bit of money for the name, they knew they were (nowadays) just using it to sell crap in the first place, and just decided to take the money and run.

Blaming Amazon? You mean the site that actually sells new merchandise? Last time I was at geeks.com, I had a hard time finding anything hardware-wise that was not "refurbished." They just got better at not telling you it was.

 

[bononos]

......

As for the other poster quoting me and replying, amazon is far from a monopoly, they are a reseller and storefront. I don't think you understand how amazon works at all either.

I was the other poster. Its just pointless nitpicking (and besides I did say quasi-monopoly) to avoid confronting the elephant in the room.

Amazon can save money because it doesn't pay sales taxes, has controversial tax avoidance politicies, doesn't have to carry display merchandise, doesn't have the usual overheads of a b&m store like rent and in short leeches off their b&m rivals.

 

[Jeff7]

I've never had a problem returning anything to Amazon. I went online, filled out a form saying the product was defective, printed out a label sent it back, got a refund.

At least not now...or not yet.

Why are you talking to a person?

That service experience was through a credit card company, not Amazon.
But, I've generally found online support to be far less effective than calling. Outcomes are usually:
- No response at all, other than an automated message to tell me that a minimally-trained person who has never seen a keyboard before will get back to me at some point in the future.
- Responses aren't helpful. ("Turn it off and then back on"' - that level of technical help.)
- In one case, a response showed up 4 weeks later.

In which case the consumer is getting what they want. Problem not found.

Sort of.
I can't say I'm too terribly happy with the rising prices of consumer goods, health insurance, or gasoline.
Yes, I'm getting things I want, but not at prices I like, and any comparable alternatives are priced nearly the same.
I suppose that's the market doing what it does though, for better or worse, and I can't say that there's a much better system out there.

 

[esquared]

I could be completely wrong here, but I am reading this differently than most of you guys and gals. Don't you think it odd that somebody would be willing to keep a physical location in Cali open, yet close a website whose cost would be minimal by comparison?

I think somebody offered them a good bit of money for the name, they knew they were (nowadays) just using it to sell crap in the first place, and just decided to take the money and run.

Blaming Amazon? You mean the site that actually sells new merchandise? Last time I was at geeks.com, I had a hard time finding anything hardware-wise that was not "refurbished." They just got better at not telling you it was.

I agree, to blame Amazon is just complete nonsense, (1000 lb gorilla) Really?

Their business model was to sell mainly used and refurbished computer parts. Their main competition for what they sold, was eBay. Back in the day, when eBay was smaller, there was a niche for what geeks sold, and they did pretty well. With the expansion/growth of eBay, geeks became a second thought for used/refurbished items.

I bought from them back in the 90's and early 2000's but their selection and prices became terrible.

They put themselves out of business, not Amazon.

 

[Mixolydian]

Never even heard of that site. :\

 

[VirtualLarry]

Never saw Newegg down due to traffic.

images17.newegg.com wasn't loading tonight for me.

 

[Zee]

before amazon, newegg and even zipzoomfly became big, geeks.com was always overpriced. good riddance.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I agree, to blame Amazon is just complete nonsense, (1000 lb gorilla) Really?

Their business model was to sell mainly used and refurbished computer parts. Their main competition for what they sold, was eBay. Back in the day, when eBay was smaller, there was a niche for what geeks sold, and they did pretty well. With the expansion/growth of eBay, geeks became a second thought for used/refurbished items.

I bought from them back in the 90's and early 2000's but their selection and prices became terrible.

They put themselves out of business, not Amazon.

I'll certainly miss them. They were my go-to source for older, "obsolete" motherboards. Which I am sure were some of their best sellers. I remember going to their site, refreshing the page, seeing new motherboards on there, and refreshing the page some 15-30 minutes later and they were gone.

I know that they sold out of a batch of brand-new surplus OEM 16x IDE DVD-RW drives in a few hours. I wanted to invest in a few (since the mfgs have stopped making them in IDE) for future clients that might bring in an older system and need a new DVD-RW, but I didn't have the funds.

Edit: Huh, not sure of the meaning of this, but I searched for "Computer Surplus", and the first link, Computer Surplus Outlet, also has an out-of-business page. So it's not just geeks.com.

http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com/

Edit: PacificGeek seems to still be in operation. They were an outfit similar to Geeks.com (but not as good)
http://www.pacificgeek.com/

http://pcsurplusonline.com/
PC Surplus Online, has a page that they are now part of TechPartsWarehouse, home of hard-to-find IT parts.

I wonder if geeks.com will join that company too?

 

[Jeff7]

No it's not... they are considered to be a top tier hosting service like Rackspace now.

"No it's not..." - as in, that's not excess capacity they're renting out, they leave the excess capacity idle most of the year, or they don't have much excess capacity? Or a mix of those?

 

[ultimatebob]

"No it's not..." - as in, that's not excess capacity they're renting out, they leave the excess capacity idle most of the year, or they don't have much excess capacity? Or a mix of those?

If I was running Amazon, I would make sure to add excess amazon.com server capacity for the Christmas season every year, and then resell that capacity to my AWS customers once sales went back to normal. Rinse, repeat, profit.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I used to order from them a long time ago. They had new, used and refurb parts/systems. You did have to watch it sometimes when they would send you a used instead of new part. I believe it was a combination of ebay, Amazon, and Newegg that help do them in

I wonder if TigerDirect is next?

I won't even place much faith in Newegg, they rode the wave up with the growth of PCs and that market is dying, soon there will be nothing left to differentiate from Amazon and the latter has a far better selection of goods, international shipping and better rep for non-PC stuff.

Still, I find the thought megacorps benefiting from the sheer power of economies of scale disturbing to say the least.

 

[Ketchup]

I won't even place much faith in Newegg, they rode the wave up with the growth of PCs and that market is dying, soon there will be nothing left to differentiate from Amazon and the latter has a far better selection of goods, international shipping and better rep for non-PC stuff.

Still, I find the thought megacorps benefiting from the sheer power of economies of scale disturbing to say the least.

Amazon is a good place to buy things, not to find what you want to buy. It doesn't hold a candle to Newegg when it comes to product details, realistic customer feedback, and categorization. And usually, when I do take the time to compare the two, the difference is only a dollar or two, if that much.

I think you can buy a lot more from Newegg than you think, and I'd like to hear your explanation of Newegg continuing to open more warehouses, after your "wave" settled down.

 

[BUTCH1]

Amazon is a good place to buy things, not to find what you want to buy. It doesn't hold a candle to Newegg when it comes to product details, realistic customer feedback, and categorization. And usually, when I do take the time to compare the two, the difference is only a dollar or two, if that much.

I think you can buy a lot more from Newegg than you think, and I'd like to hear your explanation of Newegg continuing to open more warehouses, after your "wave" settled down.

Newegg's presentation is much better, better views of product, links to Mfgr's website, WAY better product details, less cluttered. I've never been disappointed by NE and I will continue to shop there, IDC if Amazon beats them by $2-3, their website sucks balls compared to NE..

 

[gorcorps]

Amazon is a good place to buy things, not to find what you want to buy. It doesn't hold a candle to Newegg when it comes to product details, realistic customer feedback, and categorization. And usually, when I do take the time to compare the two, the difference is only a dollar or two, if that much.

I think you can buy a lot more from Newegg than you think, and I'd like to hear your explanation of Newegg continuing to open more warehouses, after your "wave" settled down.

I laughed at that part. Newegg's reviews are god awful, and I rarely make a decision based on what their userbase has to say.

 

[ultimatebob]

I wonder if TigerDirect is next?

TigerDirect deserves to fail. Those bastards are infamous for saying that something is "In Stock", only to find out that it was backordered after you order it.

 

[zerocool84]

In addition to awesome prices and shipping, Amazon has great customer service. It's the whole service that Amazon does better than others at.

 

[Gillbot]

TigerDirect deserves to fail. Those bastards are infamous for saying that something is "In Stock", only to find out that it was backordered after you order it.

After charging your credit card, and if you wait for it to come back in stock they "adjust" the charge to reflect a new higher price. Then after fighting with them and getting the order cancelled, you have to file a complaint with your CC company to get the charge released. At least, that's what happened to me. TD can rot in hell for all I care. i don't care how good the deal is, i'll never buy anything from them.

 

[gorcorps]

Of course it's easy for people who have never tried to do anything in their lives to love everything Amazon.

I do IT support work for many small businesses and they all are struggling, it amazes me how they are even able to stay in business. These are some of the nicest, hardest working, customer service oriented owners you'll find, and they do care a lot that their employees have stable paychecks to provide for their families.

But, that is dying very fast thanks to attitudes like jaqie's. At least you can rest assured that millions of other shoppers are like you too, your individual shopping habits do not make or break any business.

Why should I feel sorry for the small stores that can't figure out how to survive? Amazon didn't always exist, but now it's enormous because they knew what they were doing. Any small shop can turn into a big dog if they play their cards right, so at what point does a shop get too big and you turn your back on them?

Jeff Bezos saw an opportunity and ran with it. For fuck's sake it didn't even see a profit in its first several years. But he stuck to his guns and believed that the popularity of e-commerce was progressing as he hoped, and it was only a matter of time before they were profitable. Now Amazon is the largest e-retailer out there, and you have the stones to bitch about it after what it took to get out on top.

They succeeded the way every entrepreneur dreams: to start and see through a successful business. It's the same dream that all of your small business owners have. It started with an idea in a garage and is now a multi-billion dollar corporation. Why do so many people root for the small business until they succeed, and then stab them in the back when they get too big? It involved people working hard and actually succeeding at the american dream, and you go online and bitch about it.

 

[jaqie]

no kidding gocorps. I really never understood that attitude, and tried to point the same thing you did out, but didn't do it nearly as well as you did. good post.

 

[Gillbot]

Things happen in cycles. People complain that the big stores are forcing small shops to close, and we'll pay when the big stores jack up their prices... What happens when the big stores jack up their prices? People open up small shops! I KNO RITE!

 

[Elixer]

They succeeded the way every entrepreneur dreams: to start and see through a successful business. It's the same dream that all of your small business owners have. It started with an idea in a garage and is now a multi-billion dollar corporation. Why do so many people root for the small business until they succeed, and then stab them in the back when they get too big? It involved people working hard and actually succeeding at the american dream, and you go online and bitch about it.

The problem is, they always want to tear down the people at the top. It doesn't matter that they had nothing, and now are worth billions, they are just evil since they dared to make it, while everyone else is waiting for handouts.

 

[gorcorps]

Things happen in cycles. People complain that the big stores are forcing small shops to close, and we'll pay when the big stores jack up their prices... What happens when the big stores jack up their prices? People open up small shops! I KNO RITE!

It's almost like the market will take care of itself or something

 

[dave_the_nerd]

So... who's next in the death pool:

Directron.com?
svc.com?

 

[marvdmartian]

I used them, from time to time, when they'd have a great price on something I needed at that time, but I could usually find new items for not much more than their "refurbished" items.

I wonder, too, how much effect Newegg had on their sales? I can't really see where Amazon competed much with them.

Farewell, Compgeek! You've gone the way of ZipZoomFly (aka Googlegear).