Miffed by the offer of a free coupon book stuffed with deals on non-iMac-compatible equipment? Irked by the lack of reasonable space for the iMac in the Sunday newspaper circulars? Following massive customer dissatisfaction over the nature of CompUSA's half-assed iMac promotions thus far, representatives of that superstore chain are clarifying things to the good folks over at MacCentral.

First, the coupon book: seemingly none of the CompUSA reps are denying that it's lame city to provide coupons for such iMac-unfriendly items as PowerBook Zip drives and floppy disks. That's a semi-positive sign. As for the lack of advertising in CompUSA's Sunday circulars, that's supposed to change over the next few weeks, as the iMac gets increasing coverage, finally culminating with a full-splash feature on the front page on the 16th of August. (But given CompUSA's less-than-wonderful track record regarding Apple advertising, don't expect it to stay there.) In addition, CompUSA stores are receiving other marketing materials to help generate interest in the iMac, such as large "iMac is Coming" banners, iMac fold-outs, etc. that should really raise awareness of the product. The best news, however, is that the higher-ups expect the iMac to be "the best-selling computer in CompUSA's history," and are actually offering bonuses to every store that books 45 pre-orders before the iMac is actually released. It's about time that salespeople got incentives to sell Apple equipment.

And finally, it sounds as though the iMacs are selling (or pre-selling) well, despite the lack of decent advertising on CompUSA's part thus far. According to the Bloomberg News, only two days after the (albeit lame) coupon book promotion started, CompUSA has reported a "stronger than expected" number of pre-orders. There are no details provided on just how strong a response there's actually been, but as professional Apple-watcher Lou Mazzuchelli notes, CompUSA expected a lot of pre-orders, so the fact that they're seeing even more than expected is a "good thing." At this rate, we at AtAT are indeed expecting a shortage of iMacs when the systems are initially released, so if you want one soon, it's definitely a good time to but your name on a pre-order list. C'mon, there's probably something in that coupon book that tickles your fancy...