News that CompUSA will shut its remaining 100 stores and sell off its assets offers some insight for distributors and manufacturers feeling the pressures of consolidation. The downturn of the electronics retailer was not for lack of investment, but likely poor positioning.

Investing in the business in the late 1990s, Mexican telecom and retail store magnate Carlos Slim (now the richest man in the world) took CompUSA private, and the company grew its consumer electronics business through acquisition, including The Good Guys, a California chain.

The Wall Street Journal estimates annual sales last year at $4 billion, but likely to come in at $1.5 billion this year. Early in 2007, it said it would close 126 stores, more than half of its total then.

Anyone who …