In a piece that will likely have reverberations in Monday's trading session, this week's Barron's raises questions (subscription required) about Systemax's (NYSE: SYX) accounting for rebates and possible disclosures at the computer maker that recently agreed to acquire CompUSA.

Consumers have been complaining loudly about TigerDirect, which is owned by Systemax, and its failure to pay the rebates on products it sells. TigerDirect accounts for more than 90% of the company's revenue.

Systemax declined to speak with the weekly, but according to the article, "The complaints fill Internet discussion forums, customer lawsuits and now, an active investigation by Florida's attorney general. Port Washington, N.Y.-based Systemax, however, has told investors nothing of this rebate ruckus. That's a shame, given that those disputed rebates might partly account for the unusually fat gross-profit margins shown by the company: At 16%, the gross margins are four or five percentage points higher than those of peers."

Barron's wonders whether the company should be disclosing the rebate mess in its SEC filings. It's hard to know what to make of Systemax's unwillingness to speak with Barron's -- perhaps they'll respond publicly if their stock gets knocked down on Monday.

Definitely a very interesting piece of reporting from Barron's, one of the few media outlets that still bothers to cover stuff like this.

When it was announced just over a week ago that CompUSA had sold out to a buyout firm and that all its stores in the U.S. would close for good early next year, many consumers probably saw visions of holiday fire sales in their heads. The only problem is that the "all products must go!" prices that should have been rolled out with the chain's liquidation announcement are not much of a bargain.

After visiting a CompUSA location this past week to judge prices for myself, the "up to 20% off" sign which adorned the entrance was found only in a few select product categories within the store. In the categories that mattered to many -- flat-screen TVs, laptop computers and GPS devices (among others) -- discounts ranges from 5% to 10%. That is not going to be enough to liquidate inventory, Gordon Brothers.

To really prepare a national electronics chain to shut down, inventory has to be marked down from 20% to 40%, and even more in the case of high-margin products like accessories and other products already marked up 300% or more. Although I wasn't impressed with the discount levels displayed at the local CompUSA location I visited, the marketing of these bargains was fantastic at the door and within the store. Too bad the reality did not match the hype. We'll see how much inventory is sitting on store shelves come the first of the year, CompUSA. Best Buy's (NYSE: BBY) and Circuit City's (NYSE: CC) sale prices are, in many cases, lower than the "clearance" prices at CompUSA (yes, I did some comparisons).

After Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim said Friday afternoon that he was looking to unload all he could from his investment in U.S. computer and electronics retailer CompUSA, the chain announced late Friday evening that it would sell itself to a private firm who would then shut down the entire chain by the new year.

It's been a rocky road for CompUSA this year. The chain announced that it would close half its stores earlier this year on failing performance and heavy competition from Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and online computer retailers. CompUSA will apparently be selling all inventory in all stores at fire-sale prices until the first of the year, so if you're looking for a computer or flat-screen TV bargain, better suit up.

Carlos Slim, currently the world's richest person, may be looking to get rid of even more computer stores from the U.S.-based retailer he owns, CompUSA.

Back in the first quarter of 2007, the struggling retailer announced plans to close half its stores as it was losing business to larger retailers like Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and Circuit City Stores (NYSE: CC). With CompUSA down to about 100 stores in the U.S., competitors have already been approached about buying existing stores, according to reports.

Slim took his first equity position in the computer and consumer electronics retailer back in 1999, pouring in $2 billion in investment money. Since then, it's hard to see if Slim has made money on that investment or has become frustrated at the company's financial performance and wants to get out completely. The first large sign was in March when the retailer said it would be closing the doors on half its stores.

CompUSA responded to competitive threats in recent years by expanding beyond PCs and into home electronics and flat-panel televisions. In perfect timing, the prices for flat-panel televisions went south and the margin CompUSA was looking for evaporated. With CompUSA's annual revenue shrinking from 2006's $4+ billion to this year's $1.5 billion, the chain most likely has limited days in front of it.

Once again, one of the hotter items during the holiday season will be computer products. Specifically, laptop computers will probably make the mark as one of the most popular gift items this season, right along with HDTVs and gaming consoles. Consumers continue to replace clunky desktop computer systems with portable and light laptops, and retailers are more than happy to oblige with loss-leader priced laptops to lure shoppers into stores.

Big box giants Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY), Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) are expected to join the fray, and these retailers will most likely spill the beans today and tomorrow (Thanksgiving Day) to whet the appetites of computer bargain hunters come this Friday morning -- also known, of course, as Black Friday.

As I previewed a few days ago, consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) released quarterly results yesterday to very decent fanfare. BBY shares are up over 1% today but they dropped 2.5% yesterday in response to the earnings. This is despite the quarterly results showing the retailer to be in very good shape, all things considered, posting an 18% jump in fourth-quarter profit. The Street, meanwhile, yawned. Apparently, a good impression takes more -- much more -- than that.

Best Buy earned $763 million ($1.55 EPS) for the fourth quarter, up from $644 million ($1.29 EPS) for the year-ago period, while beating consensus estimates by 3 cents per share. Revenue topped out for the quarter at $12.9 billion while same-store sales crept up steadily to 5.9%.

Best Buy seems to be making all the right moves recently as it entrenches itself as the largest and most profitable consumer electronics chain in the U.S. (and outside of it), by entering the services market in a much larger way than it has in the past with the Speakeasy purchase. Meanwhile, competitors Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC) and CompUSA are floundering pretty badly. It's not too easy to see who the winner is here, yes?

Looks like consumer electronics retailer Circuit City Store Inc. (NYSE: CC) will be cutting costs in a pretty significant way by slashing over 3,400 store workers. Then, it will hire lower-paid employees to replace them. Nice, eh? In addition, the retailer stated that it will cut about 130 corporate jobs.

This is a move that will probably send Circuit City employees running for the exits once they hear that their "high-paid jobs" will be replaced by lower-paid workers. Circuit City officials went so far as to say that the store employees being let go had pay levels "well above the market-based salary range for their role." Sounds like Circuit City HR and compensation personnel are not doing their jobs if that was the case. I wonder how many of them will be let go?

In other news, Circuit City will be outsourcing its entire IT operations to International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) to further cut technology-related expenses by an estimated 16%. So far, these layoffs come on the heels of Circuit City's announced plans to close quite a few U.S. and Canadian stores as the retailer struggles to get its cost controls in line with reduced sales and plummeting margins -- especially in the white-hot flat-panel TV market. Competitor CompUSA is also closing quite a few stores. Will Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) be next?

It's been widely reported that PC sales are transitioning fast from the standard desktop PC to the laptop PC, and retailers from Best Buy(NYSE:BBY) to Circuit City (NYSE:CC)have said the same thing -- as has operating system leader Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)and PC maker Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ). All things considered, PC shipments are not really going down in a large way. But don't tell that that national computer retailer CompUSA, who said recently that it will be closing more than half of its U.S. retail locations over the next two to three months. Wow.

It's pretty easy to see from many angles. CompUSA has added many other product categories in the last 18 to 24 months or so to bolster those slim margins made from many PCs (and even with laptop PCs being lower margin now). It's added plasma TV sets and more home entertainment gear to offset those PC margin declines. In fact, on a recent research trip to the retailer, it seemed more like a Best Buy than a CompUSA.

But, the margins for flat-panel TVs have deteriorated to a point where margins are now slim in that category as well, which CompUSA probably did not predict. You can't run a profitable, national consumer electronics chain with product categories that have razor-thin margins, so CompUSA --- having taken quite a while to notice this --- will slash its store count to the bone so that it can focus on top-performing stores only.

With the Super Bowl just about here, are you rushing out to buy a new flat-panel television set like the "millions" of customers and bowl watchers are? If so, you are not alone. It's estimated that over 2 million new TV sets are being sold (some right now) to prepare for the upcoming Bears-Colts game in a few days.

I'm really not sure who specifically goes out to buy a television for a single sporting event, but I'm quite sure that the Super Bowl itself becomes the end of procrastination for millions. All those new TVs are sold across the country in retailers like Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), Circuit City Stores (NYSE:CC), CompUSA, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT), Tweeter, The Good Guys and Ultimate Electronics.

While there are reports of millions buying a new big screen for the big game, as we constantly see in ads from these retailers, I have a different theory. My theory is that all these new TV sales are not transacted due to a single football game; they are sold because a single event -- heightened by relentless "big game" marketing -- prompts the TV-buying procrastinator in us all to finally plunk down the cash to get that screen we've always wanted.

Just when we thought the Black Friday rumors were not going any further in terms of Blockbuster-ish frenzy, Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE:CC) will have a reported $99 laptop computer available on Black Friday. Actually, the system will be $299 after rebates -- possibly matching an offer by competitor Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) but priced above a rumored $199 laptop from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT). The Circuit City laptop, however, will be just $99 after a customer signs up with Internet phone provider Vonage.

Circuit City's featured notebook will be a rather bland but functional Compaq system that features a Celeron processor from Intel rather than processors from Advanced Micro Devices, and it will also come with an optical drive that burns both DVDs and CDs -- not just CDs like the rumored Wal-Mart laptop (and that's a huge upgrade). The circuit City laptop will also come with 512MB of memory, a 15.4-inch screen and a 60GB hard drive.

Is Circuit City poised to have the "official" lowest Black Friday holiday price on a new laptop computer? The retailer currently sells the Compaq notebook for $499 as of today, and says that the computer ordinarily lists for $680. In order to get to the $299 price, Circuit City gives consumers a $280 instant rebate at the store and a coupon for a $100 mail-in rebate ($680-$380=$299). Sign up for Vonage in two weeks and get another $200 off. Where will you shop?