My experience is that they have two people running a store the size of Heathrow, neither of which can tell a plug from a fridge.
PC World
- Thread starter SPG
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My experience is that they have two people running a store the size of Heathrow, neither of which can tell a plug from a fridge.
Unless you are just killing time while the other half is plundering the bank account in the next store. Then you're mobbed and followed by sales children
Soldato
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Are you shopping in a tight T-shirt with no bra?
Caporegime
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I’d be back there every week if that happens to me on a frequent basis!
In fairness so would I, but this was over the space of about 6 years. My wife really annoyed me once, we were walking out when I noticed a pallet full of tellies at the front door with a price board for a 32" Bush or Onkyo or some crap telly for £180, the boxes were for £500 1080p Samsungs (this was when 1080p was still called "full HD" and was OMG SO PURDY). I said we need to load up every single one we could fit in the car, she didn't believe me so we walked away.
Anyway, I did get suckered in once, when I bought a Monster HDMI cable for £90. No jokes, they got me hook, line & sinker
I like to think I'm wiser now, although the jury is still out.
Caporegime
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I don’t use it as a source of information and frankly I doubt anyone who is a member of an overclocking forum does. I use it like Argos, a place where I can pick up goods locally the same day.
There are however a large majority of the population who are not computer literate and they are even more clueless than those employees so let them have their fun, don’t need to get angry when they tell you some fibs, salesman will be salesman, get you bargain that you know you are getting through their incompetence and get out of there. Happy days.
There are however a large majority of the population who are not computer literate and they are even more clueless than those employees so let them have their fun, don’t need to get angry when they tell you some fibs, salesman will be salesman, get you bargain that you know you are getting through their incompetence and get out of there. Happy days.
Soldato
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I dunno.
A friend got given a sizeable purple shirts gift voucher, over £800 IIRC. Think it was a work's related award / bonus or from a work's raffle. He wanted a laptop, so we looked at some specs online, chose the model and checked whether the voucher could be used online. Apparently it was in-store usage only. So we popped over and found the lappy fairly quickly. Salesman pipped over and said can I help? I said we have chosen - can we have this Lenovo please? Then he ushered us to a side table away from the shop floor and spent the next HALF HOUR trying to sell extras that were either unnecessary for the customer or something I could facilitate myself. He was very pushy to the point that we felt uncomfortable.
- extended warranty (ok that one was fair enough)
- insurance (customer will add it to their home contents)
- MS Office (customer has a retail copy already)
- McAfee (McAfee is a resource hog, customer will install Avira free)
- cloud storage (customer is already on Dropbox paid version, 1TB)
- "free" upgrade from Win 8.1 to Win 10 (it was September 2015, so upgrading was still free)
- service charge to install Windows 10
- service charge to transfer files from previous computer (I did this for him)
- service charge to install above software (Office, AV etc, which I also did)
- 3G data plan (wtf?!)
I reminded him a few times that I worked in 1st / 2nd line support for years. Just said no to everything, kept calm, and his look of desperation became apparent as his sales pitch failed. I just don't know why he didn't comprehend the fact that I was a techie myself. It's like as if they earn commission per "successful" sale as an incentive, but the fact that we ran away with "only" an £850-odd laptop counted as an unsuccessful sale to him?
Summary for the purple shirts: price not bad, but a rather confrontational attitude on their part.
Soldato
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I think they use to get commission over 10 years ago but i think it has since been abolished as it was leading to customers being hounded. Now i believe staff are just assessed based on what extras they sell...
Basically, they took away the carrot and now they just have the stick
Basically, they took away the carrot and now they just have the stick
Caporegime
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Shut it down early by saying “I don’t have any more money.”
They're akin to a Main Dealer for most of these 'sheep' - to be trusted with your money, and only giving you honest service, and the right deal.... which anyone a bit tech savvy knows is compete ****!
Sadly, they prey on those who know no better, I've witnessed it first hand:
A few years back, the wife's laptop packed up mid-coursework (for uni), so we nipped to the nearest PCWhat - it went against all of my moral fibres but needs must.
Anyhow, whilst waiting to be serviced, I overhear the utter **** one of the sales girls was spewing, whilst trying to flog a half price extras package to a laptop sale. The deal was, for £90 (usually £180), they would get McAfee for two years, 4GB of cloud storage, and a USB recovery!
As she scampered off to get their new laptop and this pack, I took the opportunity to inform them of the waste of money - discussing the free AV and cloud options, and pointing out the recovery partition and how to make their own USB key.
Sales girl comes back and has lost the upsell, and asks why/what will they do instead... to which the could said they were going to get a free AV etc. Then came an utter classic.
Upon being told they would be getting a free AV solution, the sales girl promptly informed the couple to "be careful" and "be aware" that "when you uninstall a free AV, it will release all of the viruses it had stopped"!
Needless to say when we were offered this pack, we politely refused, and walked out with just the laptop.
They'll airways be in business, as not everyone will have the tech knowhow to go elsewhere, and/or make their own decision. I shudder to think how much they take in with their line of know how repair machines behind the counter... An ex employee once told me that their £60 (or £80) 'health check', was a quick temporary file flush, malwarebytes scan, and a defrag if there was time!
Sadly, they prey on those who know no better, I've witnessed it first hand:
A few years back, the wife's laptop packed up mid-coursework (for uni), so we nipped to the nearest PCWhat - it went against all of my moral fibres but needs must.
Anyhow, whilst waiting to be serviced, I overhear the utter **** one of the sales girls was spewing, whilst trying to flog a half price extras package to a laptop sale. The deal was, for £90 (usually £180), they would get McAfee for two years, 4GB of cloud storage, and a USB recovery!
As she scampered off to get their new laptop and this pack, I took the opportunity to inform them of the waste of money - discussing the free AV and cloud options, and pointing out the recovery partition and how to make their own USB key.
Sales girl comes back and has lost the upsell, and asks why/what will they do instead... to which the could said they were going to get a free AV etc. Then came an utter classic.
Upon being told they would be getting a free AV solution, the sales girl promptly informed the couple to "be careful" and "be aware" that "when you uninstall a free AV, it will release all of the viruses it had stopped"!
Needless to say when we were offered this pack, we politely refused, and walked out with just the laptop.
They'll airways be in business, as not everyone will have the tech knowhow to go elsewhere, and/or make their own decision. I shudder to think how much they take in with their line of know how repair machines behind the counter... An ex employee once told me that their £60 (or £80) 'health check', was a quick temporary file flush, malwarebytes scan, and a defrag if there was time!
Soldato
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They've never done a 4Gb cloud.
Their job is primarily to talk you into buying something. That's why you get approached a lot. It's not over-staffing if it works. It's over-staffing for helping customers, but not necessarily over-staffing for selling at customers.
Soldato
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In fairness to the salesman, you're exactly right in your assumption. That's absolutely an unsuccessful sale to him - their profit on the laptop itself is honestly buttons. Margin on all those add-ons is far better. The laptop is literally just an excuse to sell you extra stuff, the sale of the laptop itself makes them very very little.
I used to manage a store selling Apple stuff and we were super lucky in that Macs carry about a 10-12% margin. I gather your average PC from a big retailer gets them literally 1-2%.
If we wanted to turn a decent profit on a machine we'd still make an effort to up sell and cross sell, but it was more along the lines of accessories and AppleCare which I could (and still would) sell without feeling guilty because they're actually useful. If I worked somewhere like PC world and was expected to go through a laundry list of add-ons like that, and could expect a talking to if I didn't manage to sell any... well honestly I wouldn't last long. Horrible way to do business and not the fault of the staff. He probably hated it. People who are really good sellers and don't feel bad do well in retail stores like that, but if you're not naturally good at it, or have trouble selling products you don't believe in, you just spend the whole time getting 'managed' about it.
Up selling is getting out of control.
I can’t even buy a simple toy for my child without being pushed to buy batteries, a drink and a carrier bag upgrade.
On the rare occasion I need to go into a bank to pay some money in I’m asked if I want to re-mortgage, buy travel insurance or upgrade my account.
It just gets so tiring
I can’t even buy a simple toy for my child without being pushed to buy batteries, a drink and a carrier bag upgrade.
On the rare occasion I need to go into a bank to pay some money in I’m asked if I want to re-mortgage, buy travel insurance or upgrade my account.
It just gets so tiring
It's likely that he will be judged on how often he upsells specific things to people. Large businesses often focus on specific easily quantifiable things with complete disregard for anything else. If the target is to upsell a specific over-priced thing to x% of customers, that's what he'll be judged on. It won't matter if he sold an £850 laptop. It won't matter if he sold a dozen £850 laptops. If the target is to manipulate x% of customers into paying for a specific over-priced thing, that is what he will be judged on. That forces a confrontational attitude because his job requires it, but too many businesses are run that way.
A long time ago I worked in PC retail for Time Group.
The margins on the hardware were such that the company only counted sales with extended warranties. Without the warranty we were told plain and simple don't sell the hardware if you can't get a warranty with it.
The money is/was (for us) 100% in selling the extras and the warranty. So yes, customers like you and I are basically a pain in the ass for them.
That was true when i worked there in the late 90s. This was pre-minimum wage so sales drones got a low basic wage, but 0.4% commission on hardware sales and 0.8% on software/peripherals. Extra's like warranty, interest bearing credit agreements and other services and options that were incentivised would earn them a straight kickback of say £5. Plus they were targeted on conversions. If they didn't sell enough extended warranties as a percentage of computer sales then they got a ticking off from the sales manager, and "training". The managers were incentivised with a bonus for hitting those targets.
Also keep in mind that the company made more margin (profit) on accessories than the PC it came with. The margins on things like printer cables were hilarious.
Tech staff had the luxury of avoiding the sales ******** and got a better basic wage.
Then there were the upselling methods...
DSG is a sales led organisation, pure and simple. I can't imagine for a second the ethos has changed much.
Bought an internal 2.5" hard drive from PC World about 4 or 5 years ago. It was a Sunday and I needed it there and then for a laptop repair. If I recall the price wasn't much different than all the online places especially if you factor in the P&P charges. Small price for convenience.