• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Rumor Has It

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
2FA
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
58,239
An industry friend of mine just sent me an email that PC Club / Club IT might be going out of business.

I just heard the latest word around Industry that PC Club/ Club IT might be out of business. Things are certainly heating up now that they own lots of people lots of $$$$.
Click to expand...

We will follow up when we have word. But the guys at Club IT have gone for months now without answering my emails.


Full update here.

DIGG TO SHARE SO WE ALL KNOW!
 
That's too bad. I ordered a few thins from ClubIT, and I had a very good experience in both cases. Good deals, quick shipping etc...
 
Too bad, I also ordered a bunch of stuff from ClubIT and had 100% excellent service.
Good prices as well.
 
I know it's a quote.. however it's a typo.. "...own lots of people lots of $$$$." Should be Owe ?

Let's hope for close out sales !!
 
Man, i love clubit, although some of their sections are lacking, they are a great company.
 
SudburyOntario said:
I know it's a quote.. however it's a typo.. "...own lots of people lots of $$$$." Should be Owe ?

Let's hope for close out sales !!
Click to expand...

Sorry for not properly designating their mistake. Taken care of.
 
I've only made a couple of purchases from them and both were great experiences.
 
darn hate places i've bought from going out of business. hopefully it will be ok
 
This is not good for the industry and I hope they can pull it together. I had a good experience with them, well except for rebates, but that usually sucks.

Newegg has losts of good stuff, but Clubit usually undercuts their prices if they have the item. ;)
 
Hope this doesn't turn into the Monarch going out of business sales...Remember those?!?!

But, this is unfortunate if it does turn out to be true. Hopefully they can pull through this.
 
Damn, if pc club goes under, there won't be anyplace to buy stuff here locally. Since CompUSA closed shop, pc club was all we had left. I don't buy much from them, but it's still nice to be able to run down the street and pick up a part if I need it in a hurry.
 
Monarch deserved it though, ClubIt doesnt... they're good, cheap and fast. Nobody has complained about them and their reseller ratings is very good. Unlike the fall of monarch.
 
RussianHAXOR said:
Monarch deserved it though, ClubIt doesnt... they're good, cheap and fast. Nobody has complained about them and their reseller ratings is very good. Unlike the fall of monarch.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you. But I'm just saying...
 
I was kind of wondering yesterday when I was looking at video card prices. Newegg has 20+ versions of both the 9800 GTX and 9800 GX2 whereas ClubIt only had a couple of each. Less today.

I thought it was kind of strange but this news puts it into a new light.

I will miss ClubIt if this it rue. They had some good prices, decent Fedex shipping prices and excellent customer service.
 
B2BigAl said:
Damn, if pc club goes under, there won't be anyplace to buy stuff here locally. Since CompUSA closed shop, pc club was all we had left. I don't buy much from them, but it's still nice to be able to run down the street and pick up a part if I need it in a hurry.
Click to expand...
I am in FL and the CompUSA is open here. Its owned by tigerdirect now I think. Anyway they seem to have ok deals when I don't wanna wait for shipping.
 
ClubIT must owe retailers money, not customers. They have some of the best CS I have ever dealt with. And they have great prices on top of that. They will be missed.
 
Russ said:
Usually [sic] is used not (sp) right?

Anyway, sad news. First Monarch, now these guys. Soon there'll be no one but Newegg left! :O
Click to expand...

Sometimes, I think both are right. Please though let's focus on minor spelling errors and how to denote them instead of the topic at hand or actually using the PM system to keep threads on track.
 
Sounds alot like when Monarch Computer went out of business.... they stol peoples money never answered emails and then were siezed by the IRS.... stick with new egg
 
Modred189 said:
That's too bad. I ordered a few thins from ClubIT, and I had a very good experience in both cases. Good deals, quick shipping etc...
Click to expand...

x2.. Plus I never had a problem with rebates through them. I hope they pull it together since they were a couple dollars cheaper in almost all the components for my last gaming rig versus the egg.
 
for those hoping for "go out of business sale" I'd only do it if you're local and can hand them the money as they are handing you the goods. Kinda rolling the dice online unless you're protected by credit card company that backs you up. No way I'd pay pal or money order them anything :eek:

PS, who says there's still no recession?
 
Its not surprising given the cuthroat and low profit nature of the computer hardware business.

As a worker bee in an enthusiest oriented shop in the Atlanta area over the course of nearly 5 years (early 2002- late 2006) where I was also in charge of products carried, pricing, and purchasing, it became very frustrating for a multitude of reasons (noted below) and the shop eventually shut down towards the end of 2006, as I had moved onto a post-college job that actually paid a livable wage in the beginning of 2005.

1. People shopping for computer parts tend to be a penny pinching bunch, and hold your prices to the gold standard of the bottom dollar pricewatch price. They don't care if its an equivilant part (i.e. Deer vs FSP PSU's), just the fact that the price is lower. They also don't care if you paid your distributor more than they can buy it on the internet for it. They are so focused on the bottom line for each individual part, that they don't factor in the value of having a sales rep that A. Cares B. knows what he/she is talking about and C. Reads [H] multiple times each day
2. Back to the bottom line. In order to be competitive with the other shops in the area (Monarch at the time, also Ginstar, GIM and Prime for those who know the Atlanta market), prices on a good day for the mainstay parts (i.e. CPU's, motherboards, memory, HDD's, just about everything) seemed to be at about a 10% premium over what we paid to distributors. Take out overhead costs as well as credit card processing fees (as we didn't do that cash "discount" crap), for most parts we'd be making maybe a buck or two at the end of the day. Pricing at distributors for a small shop (lets say we were between 500k-1000k in our prime in gross sales) is generally on par with the NewEgg/ZZF retail price before shipping (shipping was never factored into the "cost" of an item referenced by the customer type described in #1). Its frustrating when you buy say, an Athlon XP 1700 T-Bred for $50 from your distributor, try to charge $60 for it, then get shamed because the internet price for the same thing is $55. I remember one time when we actually opened a vendor account with Monarch because they were cheaper than the local distributors (and they bought from the same local distributors, often taking the entire allocation of a new product before we could even buy one (i.e. a GF4 Ti4600). We ultimatly didn't use them as a supplier because their sales reps didn't care to treat us civally).
3.Distributors are aweful creatures. Unless you're in the multi-10's of millions sales range, you don't see any sort of volume discount, which really drives #2 home. They also sell to anyone with a business license (or fake business license), so many of the roaming consultants bypass computer shops to do direct business with the distributor - meaning a few hundred bucks a week, tops. Any other industry's distributors would have nothing to do with you if you tried to do a couple hundred bucks of business with them in a week. Distributors also don't do returns. Once you buy something from them, its yours, whether you like it or not, whether the price drops 50% on it the next day, or whether it was DOA. For DOA stuff, they take 3 months int he RMA process, and assuming you don't forget about it, you get a refurbed replacement after its market cost has dropped considerably.
4. Can't find good help. This is true of any retail environment, and a small shop simply can't afford a single decent salaired worker with benefits.
5. Consumer dollar interest is moving away from computers. People are spending their spare cash on HDTV's which have dropped in price over the past few years, current gen video gaming systems, and treating the comptuer like a commodity. A custom built PC in many cases will be far more expensive than a similaraily equipped Dell or HP found on a decent sale.
6. Manufacturers don't care either. There are a few exceptions to the rule - Antec (who agreed to setup a direct shipment to us because our local distributor didn't stock sufficient shop at approximate distributor prices) and Soltek (who sent us market materials galore and shipped direct to us at a cost that we could actualy make money on their product (i.e. 20% below newegg price). They ultimatly shut shop because NewEgg went straight to Soltek Taiwan and screwed SoltekUSA's distributorship. Then all the capacitors popped on the golden flame boards we sold) come to mind. Thermalright, Thermaltake, Vantec and Mushkin cared and had reasonable prices before they got big, and had reasonable prices until they got big. Swiftech gave us a reasonable order on our first one from them, and jacked prices after that.

I could keep going, but basically, towards the end, the rapid rise of spyware and adware on people's machines kept the shop afloat for a few years after it was financially viable through service revenues, but at the end of the day, it was a futile effort and a business that I've learned I never want to be in from the perspective of trying to make money, even though I really enjoyed my years at the shop and working in the industry (I enjoyed it so much I worked at the shop on weekends when I had a full time job that paid plenty for the weekdays).
 
I've never done business with ClubIt, but good riddance to PC Club. Every week their mailer has deals with a ridiculous amount of rebate crap. No thanks. I'll go to the local shop, pay $5 more if anything, and not have to jump through hoops trying to get the rebate back.
 
That's too bad. I've done my last two PC builds through PC Club and I'd sure be bummed if they went under. Ever since I got tired of putting my rigs together myself (and spare time got extremely scarce/valuable), I've had them do it and I was very happy with the service. I'd just buy some parts there combined with some parts from Newegg, come back in a day or two and everything is stress tested with the OS ready to go. If something like the RAM or PSU didn't pass, they would just swap it right there for me before I was even there. It is way better than crossing my fingers that one of my parts happened to be faulty, and then troubleshooting if there was an issue.

Ah well, hope they get to stick around, we'll see.
 
That said, this doesn't surprise me. PCs and PC parts have become so commoditized and the profit margins on them are razor thin. Keeping a business like that afloat has to be extremely difficult, even if you are providing other technical services where you can beef up the profit margins slightly more.
 
BrinNutz said:
Hope this doesn't turn into the Monarch going out of business sales...Remember those?!?!

But, this is unfortunate if it does turn out to be true. Hopefully they can pull through this.
Click to expand...

Oh don't remind Me, I tried buying 3 PC cases from them just before Monarch went out of business, I lost nearly $500 on those 3 cases(I've lost money elsewhere too, But that was a 1st for Me). Now days I try to limit My purchases to 3 places, actually two really(Newegg and eWiz(eWiz changed their name recently too)) , But whose counting as the 3rd really is like a collection of places, But thats ebay, I just bought an Aquarium, Stand & 3 glass lids from an ebay store in CA and Yeah I'm going to pick It up & pay in person. :D
 
for every good store that closes we get another frys and best buy. i don't like it :(
 
For the difference of a few dollars, I am glad that I avoided any problems in this situation by using Newegg for the majority of my component purchases. I have spend a few extra bucks for some things, but Newegg is still here - and a great supplier.

Maybe by spending more of our dollars with fewer vendors, the ones left standing will be stronger? Long live Newegg!
 
snakeeyes said:
Maybe by spending more of our dollars with fewer vendors, the ones left standing will be stronger? Long live Newegg!
Click to expand...

I prefer competition to lack thereof, even though Newegg does provide great service and prices.
 
I started wondering when I kept seeing less and less popular items being restocked. A shame if true.
 
matrix563 said:
for every good store that closes we get another frys and best buy. i don't like it :(
Click to expand...

why the hate for fry's?:confused: It's a wonderful place......as long as you know what you want. God help anyone that's not computer savy and ask "what kind of _______ should I get?" to anybody there. But it's wonderful for sales and for the small esoteric parts that best buy never even heard of.
 
I also worked at a small shop w/ an online component. We were the only real solution aside from COMPUSA and Microcenter up in Chicago, but that was a drive. The shop eventually went out of business and I moved to an area w/ more opportunity, but my times there were filled w/ good times. Being able to surround yourself w/ so much cool tech in one place and then PAID to put this stuff into a usable gaming rig?! If the $ wasn't so terrible, I'd be all over it again. :D
 
topcat989 said:
why the hate for fry's?:confused: It's a wonderful place......as long as you know what you want. God help anyone that's not computer savy and ask "what kind of _______ should I get?" to anybody there. But it's wonderful for sales and for the small esoteric parts that best buy never even heard of.
Click to expand...
you don't really want to know ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top