Starting with one brick-and-mortar store in 1986 under the name Soft Warehouse, by the 1990s CompUSA had grown into a nationwide big box chain.

[1] Crushed by competition from other brick-and-mortar retailers, corporate oversight which was out of touch with evolving market realities, and a failure to make a strong transition to online sales, CompUSA began closing what they classified as "low performing" locations in 2006.

On December 7, 2007, an affiliate of the restructuring and disposition firm Gordon Brothers Group, Specialty Equity, bought the company.

On or immediately before February 28, 2007, CompUSA retained the services of Gordon Brothers, a company that specializes in asset recovery and restructuring, for the purposes of closing 126 stores nationwide.

[22] The closing locations were chosen based upon their overall performance, profitability, and proximity to competitors such as Best Buy, Fry's Electronics, Micro Center, and Circuit City.

Systemax also had announced that the eleven existing and three TigerDirect-branded retail stores that were under construction would be converted to the CompUSA brand over the spring of 2008.