Comments on: Gateway to shutter stores, cut staff

The company says it will close its retail stores next week and lay off about 2,500 employees associated with the stores, or nearly 40 percent of its work force.

[attisb]

Didn't they just updated there stores.

Didn't they just update there stores a couple of months ago? What a waste of money.

[attisb]

Didn't they just updated there stores.

Didn't they just update there stores a couple of months ago? What a waste of money.

[Razzl]

Some businesses only learn about the customers the hard way...

An anecdote can be worth a thousand words. About 3 Christmases ago a computer- and consumer-savvy friend of mine went to the Gateway store in West Hartford, Conn. to buy a computer. The bill for the options he chose was very competitive and fair except that Gateway had tacked on a couple of hundred dollars for "shipping". My friend looked around the store and asked whether the computers in the store had cost that much for "shipping", or why couldn't he pick up the computer at the store? No satisfactory answer, so he walked. The TV commercials showing hard-working honest gnomes in some midwestern factory didn't jive with the used-car lot business model the customer encountered in the store...

[Razzl]

Some businesses only learn about the customers the hard way...

An anecdote can be worth a thousand words. About 3 Christmases ago a computer- and consumer-savvy friend of mine went to the Gateway store in West Hartford, Conn. to buy a computer. The bill for the options he chose was very competitive and fair except that Gateway had tacked on a couple of hundred dollars for "shipping". My friend looked around the store and asked whether the computers in the store had cost that much for "shipping", or why couldn't he pick up the computer at the store? No satisfactory answer, so he walked. The TV commercials showing hard-working honest gnomes in some midwestern factory didn't jive with the used-car lot business model the customer encountered in the store...