Currys

vyle

sturll wrote: »

I needed a new fridge and found a nice one for £750, i decided to buy it and started to proceed with the sale (At Currys Birstall) He came at me with a total of £800 (just about) I asked what he was on about and he said £50 delivery.
I told him there was no way i was paying £750 for the fridge and then £50 to have it delivered and could he waive the delivery charge - This was met with a smug "no" I told him that i would not pay it so he either dropped it or i would walk out.
He was having none of it.
I walked out and next door there is a huge Comet, i found the same fridge (same price) and explained i wamted it and my experiencing with Currys, he knocked off 5% and gave me free delivery. So in the end i paid £712 and had it delivered free.

I went back next door and showed the Currys guy my reciept and told him i would know where to go in future. On the way out i was asked if there was a problem and i explained what had happened and how in the past year alone i had bought 2 50" Samsung LCD TV's and a Vac in that store alone. The manager looked none too impressed when i told him where id be going from now on. I did look as walking out and he was making his way to the refridgriation dept...

The thing that annoys me a little about this is how you treated the salesman like dirt after not buying. Of course it's perfectly reasonable for you to go to where the best deal is, but in a lot of cases, there's simply nothing more the salesman can do.

As has been said, firstly, the margin for profit for electronics is very small in a lot of cases. You can sell a £1000 item and make as little as £10 profit. Knocking a % off the price is all very well and good, but it'd be costing the company money.

Secondly, delivery is often dealt with by outside couriers who charge the company a flat fee for delivery. If this is the case for currys then i expect they're being charged £50 for delivery. Under your demands, they'd be losing possibly as LITTLE as £60 for selling the fridge.

If you were selling your car, and were looking to get at LEAST £500 for it (for example), would you then happily sell it for £450 then give the buyer £10 just because they wanted it?

A company is just as within their rights to refuse an unprofitable sale as you are to look elsewhere. Coming back and being borderline abusive to the staff member who was no doubt under instructions from superiors (the people who he is being paid to obey) to not lower the price isn't exactly a decent way to behave.

Somebody else commented on that currys can offer free delivery on the website, but not in store. Sometimes, website sections of a company are independent, so while a shop will ship items on van routes from a local distribution centre, the websites operate their own direct shipping from their own warehouse. I suppose cheaper running costs of the website division allow them to add some extra services.

linni wrote: »

I was looking around for the Ipod Touch. Argos dont have any left so I called in to Comet and they were happy to price match. Went into Curry's to see if they had any offers and was told, rudely, Argos don't have any in stock so won't price match! Nice attitude - wont be going there again!!

While he may not have explained it very tactfully, that's right.

If a company is saying they will sell for a price, but have nothing to sell, it's not a concern of the rival company.

If you were selling on a car boot sale store and I was opposite you and said to customers i'd sell anything you've got for half the price, despite having nothing to sell, would you willingly lower the price when you know my competition is a lie? Why take the huge financial cut for no reason?

oldone wrote: »

Was recently literally chased around a Currie's store by salesmen asking if they could help. A professional, experienced salesman would never ask this question as it allows the customer to say "No I am just looking".

What they should ask is a question that cannot be answered with a straight yes or no, such as "Are you looking for one of those in white or pink". The customer not wanting to appear rude, would then have to enter into a dialogue with said salesman allowing him to go into selling mode.

You can look at some customers and they'll just say no straight away. I personally don't like approaching a customer with the "are you looking for X or Y" because I find it quite rude to assume that they want to buy exactly what they're looking at. I tend to ask them how they are/if they're looking for anything in particular and let them know i'll be around if they need help. There's no point in trying to pressurise a customer on the spot.

That being said, my mystery shopper acknowledgement target is 2 minutes, so I have to 'pounce' so to speak even when I know a customer doesn't want to be pounced upon or I'll get in trouble.

There is, however, a difference between pouncing and acknowledgement, but a lot of customers are so ill tempered, rude, and paranoid that they explode at me even if I say hello.

Jakg wrote: »

There was no need to walk out and be such a bloody drama queen because he would only give you the price you originally saw - the salesman is human too, y'know, and even if he'd wanted to he couldn't of actually given you free delivery (without the managers say-so - which he wouldn't of got on a flat sale).

EDIT - Sorry if I seem rude but it's people like you who make me hate my job, and seem to think that as they are spending so much at the store they are allowed to treat the employee like !!!!.

It's funny, I love my job, but this is true. Customers assuming that I'm personally responsible for a shop's pricing policy is quite frustrating.

The worst ones are the ones who say "In this current economic climate...."

I feel like replying, "Yes, fine, because YOU'RE feeling the pinch, I'll cost my company £200, because THAT'S going to help us, when we're feeling the pinch just as much. A couple more sales like that and I can kiss my job goodbye. I hope you give ME a discount when I stop by where you work, seeing as you put me out of work..."

There's getting a good deal, and there's taking the mickey.

finbow wrote: »

I find if your honest with customers and explain WHY you can't discount it, most of them understand. Seems to work for me the amount of tips I get pays a hell of a lot more than WEH.

Where I work, explaining why we can't discount gets a roll of the eyes and comments to the effect of 'salesman rubbish.'

Also despite other companys selling a product cheaper doesn't mean we are making more money than them.

Exactly. It's down to the store/company's buyers and the deals they get.

sturll wrote: »

Actually yes i did expect the guy to care about the sale of my freezer. Isn't that supposed to be part and parcel of his job? To 'want' to sell something for the company? To 'want' to please the customer so they come back?

There's caring about a sale, then knowing that there's nothing you can do to make the sale. You demanded something that was impossible, and he had to cut his losses and refuse the sale under those terms. As said before, the sale would have hurt the company more than help it.

There was every need to walk out - since i walked out to go to Comet next door, where as already explained did i not only get the free delivery but i also got the fridge cheaper

That's fine.

But i can completely understand why people like me make you hate your job, after all you clearly dont care about a slae and would obviously much rather the person walks in machine like and listens to your bull **** story about how you have one of these at home, its the best on the market blah blah blah and then willingly bends over and pays every penny including the 5 year warranty.

That's pretty unfair to everybody who works in sales. Some companies are worse for others (trying to force warranties, extras onto customers), but you don't seem to realise that as bad as they can be for the customer, they are WORSE for the people working there. Lots of places force targets onto staff to sell these extras and they risk severe repercussions for missing their targets.

To say that staff don't care about sales and just want to have customers who listen to our 'bull****' is pretty insulting. I personally see no benefit in selling something to a customer that they don't want just because it costs more. There's a fine line between selling a customer what they want (so they go home, happy in the recommendation, and happy to come back) and selling something they don't want just to make a bigger profit, in which case the customer will know they've been poorly informed.

For instance, where I work, a sony DVD recorder costs more than a panasonic one, but the sony is horrible to use and complicated. I tend to recommend the panasonic because it's a better machine. That's not bull ****, that's the truth.

I would, however, like to have customers who are understanding that there are limits to discounts, and just because they decided to walk into a shop, they're not entitled to endless discounts. A price is a price for a reason, and if a 'special deal' is not possible, then take it or leave it. Don't storm off in a huff then come back and try to rub it in the face of somebody who doesn't have any say in the matter.

You've got a degree in law, so I presume you know the law. The law's been set and everyone has to obey it. Would you be happy for somebody to abuse you because you won't break the law? I doubt it, but staff's rules bind them much the same way as the law and to break them would be to be unemployed and in this climate, few people can afford that.

Poppy9 wrote: »

The current economic crisis is the enviroment that businesses are trading in. This is not a short lived blip but is a regular cycle of bust and boom that lasts years. No retail business owner takes the view there is always another buyer/customer.

By the same token, however, making an unprofitable sale will hurt all the more. I don't know why people assume businesses aren't being affected the same as consumers.

By all means try to find better deals, because there are a lot of great deals out there, but don't abuse and bully staff when their hands are tied, because it's just plain rude.

Idiophreak

vyle wrote: »

Lots of places force targets onto staff to sell these extras and they risk severe repercussions for missing their targets.
...
For instance, where I work, a sony DVD recorder costs more than a panasonic one, but the sony is horrible to use and complicated. I tend to recommend the panasonic because it's a better machine. That's not bull ****, that's the truth.

Until, of course, your boss decides he wants to push the Sony ones and makes your target to sell X units of that. Not your fault, just the way it is.

Your job, as the salesman, is to try and impose the will of the company on me. My job, as a (mainly) sensible consumer is to try and ignore everything you say and make my decisions based on my own research

sturll

A very thorough post there, ill try and address the points specifically for me:

The thing that annoys me a little about this is how you treated the salesman like dirt after not buying. Of course it's perfectly reasonable for you to go to where the best deal is, but in a lot of cases, there's simply nothing more the salesman can do.

So you suggest the salesman simply throws the towel in? Also, its was more his attitude and refusal to do anything. Had he spoken to me a little better and perhaps explained he would love to do something but his orders are that he cant - would that not be better?

As has been said, firstly, the margin for profit for electronics is very small in a lot of cases. You can sell a £1000 item and make as little as £10 profit. Knocking a % off the price is all very well and good, but it'd be costing the company money.

I doubt that it is so little, especially since one week a TV is £800 then a month later it's £500

Secondly, delivery is often dealt with by outside couriers who charge the company a flat fee for delivery. If this is the case for currys then i expect they're being charged £50 for delivery. Under your demands, they'd be losing possibly as LITTLE as £60 for selling the fridge.

I just do not believe that Curry's would be charged £50 for delivery.

If you were selling your car, and were looking to get at LEAST £500 for it (for example), would you then happily sell it for £450 then give the buyer £10 just because they wanted it?

Irrelevant.

A company is just as within their rights to refuse an unprofitable sale as you are to look elsewhere. Coming back and being borderline abusive to the staff member who was no doubt under instructions from superiors (the people who he is being paid to obey) to not lower the price isn't exactly a decent way to behave.

I was not border;line abusive, the salesman was arrogant and obnoxious and acted as though since there was nothing in it for him he did not care. As explained the manager took a completely different stance on the matter - probably why he is a manager and the salesman is a salesman.

Somebody else commented on that currys can offer free delivery on the website, but not in store. Sometimes, website sections of a company are independent, so while a shop will ship items on van routes from a local distribution centre, the websites operate their own direct shipping from their own warehouse. I suppose cheaper running costs of the website division allow them to add some extra services.
That's pretty unfair to everybody who works in sales. Some companies are worse for others (trying to force warranties, extras onto customers), but you don't seem to realise that as bad as they can be for the customer, they are WORSE for the people working there. Lots of places force targets onto staff to sell these extras and they risk severe repercussions for missing their targets.

To say that staff don't care about sales and just want to have customers who listen to our 'bull****' is pretty insulting. I personally see no benefit in selling something to a customer that they don't want just because it costs more. There's a fine line between selling a customer what they want (so they go home, happy in the recommendation, and happy to come back) and selling something they don't want just to make a bigger profit, in which case the customer will know they've been poorly informed.

For instance, where I work, a sony DVD recorder costs more than a panasonic one, but the sony is horrible to use and complicated. I tend to recommend the panasonic because it's a better machine. That's not bull ****, that's the truth.

I would, however, like to have customers who are understanding that there are limits to discounts, and just because they decided to walk into a shop, they're not entitled to endless discounts. A price is a price for a reason, and if a 'special deal' is not possible, then take it or leave it. Don't storm off in a huff then come back and try to rub it in the face of somebody who doesn't have any say in the matter.

You've got a degree in law, so I presume you know the law. The law's been set and everyone has to obey it. Would you be happy for somebody to abuse you because you won't break the law? I doubt it, but staff's rules bind them much the same way as the law and to break them would be to be unemployed and in this climate, few people can afford that.

I respect your views and appreciate that you are in a position to offer advice based on experience. However your whole posts tends to rest on the fact Currys make very little from electronics which i just do not believe. I dont think they make a fortune but i know they make enough to be able to offer free delievery. Also you are treating me as a customer as someone who will buy something for only one day in their lives.
The next time i need something my first port of call will be comet. Not currys Comet. If i see something in Currys i will always see if Comet can finalise the sale by matching Currys so they will be the ones who recieve my money.

And to be fair, if you are as honest as you say you are then you are a minority. You wouldn't believe some of the gash i have heard come from salesmens mouths in a futile attempt to sell me something i dont want or even need.

vyle

Idiophreak wrote: »

Until, of course, your boss decides he wants to push the Sony ones and makes your target to sell X units of that. Not your fault, just the way it is.

Your job, as the salesman, is to try and impose the will of the company on me. My job, as a (mainly) sensible consumer is to try and ignore everything you say and make my decisions based on my own research

Luckily where I work, I don't have such stupid targets. That's why I made the decision to work there and not somewhere else. The horror stories I've heard from people who worked at PC world are enough to make me stay away from ever thinking about getting a job with any of their group.

sturll wrote: »

A very thorough post there, ill try and address the points specifically for me:

The thing that annoys me a little about this is how you treated the salesman like dirt after not buying. Of course it's perfectly reasonable for you to go to where the best deal is, but in a lot of cases, there's simply nothing more the salesman can do.

So you suggest the salesman simply throws the towel in? Also, its was more his attitude and refusal to do anything. Had he spoken to me a little better and perhaps explained he would love to do something but his orders are that he cant - would that not be better?

It is always better to explain, yes, but sometimes it's wasted breath because a lot of customers don't care why, they just demand any discount and will try to threaten me with martin lewis or dom lol. It's like they think I've been brainwashed to try and get out of giving money off.

I doubt that it is so little, especially since one week a TV is £800 then a month later it's £500

You'd be surprised. The margin is usually about 10% but when you take into account undersales, deals, delivery and the rest (which my company employer does for free) the margins lower significantly.

I once commented to a senior colleague that I was concerned that I'd be getting in trouble for recommending the sale of a tv that was on an undersale down to £400 from 699 because it was currently the cheapest TV so we must be losing a tonne of money on sales, and he just laughed and replied that with the undersale policy we don't make any money on TV sales anyway, so don't worry about it.

I just do not believe that Curry's would be charged £50 for delivery.

If the deliverers set up the machine as well, then it's likely. For TV installations, my company gets charged £49 and that can be for doing little more than taking a tv to a house, plugging it in and turning it on. The standard rate for that sort of thing is £49 an hour, minimum charge of one hour, and that's just 2 guys in a little van. If Currys is using a large delivery company with huge lorries and 2 man delivery teams, it wouldn't surprise me if it worked out at £45 minimum on average per delivery.

I don't know if Currys guys set up the equipment, though, or if that's a further charge, but I am basing it on the basic costs for where I work.

If you were selling your car, and were looking to get at LEAST £500 for it (for example), would you then happily sell it for £450 then give the buyer £10 just because they wanted it?

Irrelevant.

Not really, I was just trying to put you in the position of the company, to a degree, to see where they're coming from where pricing comes in.

A company is just as within their rights to refuse an unprofitable sale as you are to look elsewhere. Coming back and being borderline abusive to the staff member who was no doubt under instructions from superiors (the people who he is being paid to obey) to not lower the price isn't exactly a decent way to behave.

I was not border;line abusive, the salesman was arrogant and obnoxious and acted as though since there was nothing in it for him he did not care. As explained the manager took a completely different stance on the matter - probably why he is a manager and the salesman is a salesman.

To be fair, I'd consider it borderline abusive if I was unable to match richer sounds' price and they made a point to come back and wave a receipt in my face. If you had a customer service issue, it'd have been dealt with better speaking straight to the manager so that he could deal with the staff member in a more suitable setting.

I've had times where a customer complained about me because I didn't throw in a free HDMI cable because their display TV didn't come with a box. It was £100 cheaper than its usual price and I explained before the sale that display sets don't come with boxes because we have no place to store them and that the set is still covered by the same guarantee as a new, boxed set, but no, that wasn't good enough and they complained to my manager.

He actually reiterated the same points as me, thankfully, but there are times when I've seen better people than me on my department being on the receiving end of a complaint because of something beyond their power and sometimes it's just because the customer has had a bad day and wants to have a go at someone.

As a result, I can often see where the salesman is coming from, but yes, there are bad ones around (I know the staff in my local one stop are pretty poor and will look at you like an alien if you actually want them to give you some change), but it seemed more like the issue was that you didn't get discount rather than you being annoyed at poor customer service.

I respect your views and appreciate that you are in a position to offer advice based on experience. However your whole posts tends to rest on the fact Currys make very little from electronics which i just do not believe. I dont think they make a fortune but i know they make enough to be able to offer free delievery. Also you are treating me as a customer as someone who will buy something for only one day in their lives.
The next time i need something my first port of call will be comet. Not currys Comet. If i see something in Currys i will always see if Comet can finalise the sale by matching Currys so they will be the ones who recieve my money.

And to be fair, if you are as honest as you say you are then you are a minority. You wouldn't believe some of the gash i have heard come from salesmens mouths in a futile attempt to sell me something i dont want or even need.

My post more rested on the impression I got that you felt they owed you free delivery because you were inside the shop. The margins for Currys may not be as tight, and while it isn't right to think of a customer as only coming in once - I've seen lots of recurring customers because they like the service they get where I work - but with whatever targets the salesman may have, he might have feared that giving in once will see you always trying to get money off. It's a slippery slope where discount comes in. If he wasn't allowed to give discount, but did 'just this once' what'd happen next time you came in? Free delivery and a 10% discount because youve shopped there before? Sometimes it is best to nip it in the bud at the start. The best way i've found is to explain that no discount can be given, but offer to search for any offers that may be on regarding TVs of the size the customer is looking for, or something similar. As I said, though, if the issue was more to do with the poor customer service and salesman's attitude, rather than the lack of free delivery, that's another point entirely.

I know that PC world has some 'gash' so to speak. A colleague of mine left PC world because he was fed up with having to sell PCs with warranties by effectively scaring customers into thinking their PC would fall apart in 2 years when PCs have to be designed to last 7 years.

I may be lucky in that I work for a company who does offer very good deals and doesn't impose stupid targets for the staff. We are encouraged to provide a profitable performance, and building the sale is important, but I don't try to bash a customer's head in. I'll recommend what I think they need, and if they want to go away, grab a coffee, or go home and think about it, then that's fine. My shop doesn't say "Shift X units TODAY" because, as my department manager says, "we may have made 76k today, but I expect an extra 5k will come out in the wash." Meaning that anyone who bought a TV and is considering a PVR or HDMI cable or whatever will likely come back to us because we recommended it, took the time to explain and demonstrate even though we knew they didn't want to buy that day.

Time and patience with customers goes a long way to building a good customer relationship, but that doesn't mean we can bend to every demand.

There's a fine line between being firm and offering poor customer service and I guess that salesman got the balance wrong. Oh well.

RobertoMoir

"So you suggest the salesman simply throws the towel in? Also, its was more his attitude and refusal to do anything. Had he spoken to me a little better and perhaps explained he would love to do something but his orders are that he cant - would that not be better? "

On the other hand, if you presented as a 'know it all' he may have felt that nothing he could say to you would be worthwhile.
I just do not believe that Curry's would be charged £50 for delivery.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. What possible reason and evidence do you have to dispute this when someone here has told you what they know from working inside the system, without anything to gain for themselves or any employer by telling you this?

You haven't replied to them to say "No, I heard it was actually only XYZ", you haven't made any other useful comment, you just said you 'don't believe' it. Without having a reason to "don't believe it", you're just being stubborn. I think I can see why the salesman wouldn't waste that much time trying to butter you up.

sturll

RobertoMoir wrote: »

"So you suggest the salesman simply throws the towel in? Also, its was more his attitude and refusal to do anything. Had he spoken to me a little better and perhaps explained he would love to do something but his orders are that he cant - would that not be better? "

On the other hand, if you presented as a 'know it all' he may have felt that nothing he could say to you would be worthwhile.
I just do not believe that Curry's would be charged £50 for delivery.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. What possible reason and evidence do you have to dispute this when someone here has told you what they know from working inside the system, without anything to gain for themselves or any employer by telling you this?

You haven't replied to them to say "No, I heard it was actually only XYZ", you haven't made any other useful comment, you just said you 'don't believe' it. Without having a reason to "don't believe it", you're just being stubborn. I think I can see why the salesman wouldn't waste that much time trying to butter you up.

All i offered was an assumption in regards to delivery - which is all you have just offered.

What's your point?

Tozer

sturll wrote: »

That is absolutley right and i have come to the conclusion d.edna must be a troll. No one would seriously say (and believe) that a rule of business is - if you don't buy it someone else will - thats absurd.

I didn't do business studies degree but have some knowledge of business and the way things work.

You are right that the "if you don't buy it someone else will" principle is wholly incorrect. For products such as fridges, there is a limited market - not everybody buys a fridge every week, month, year or possibly even decade. Not many people purchase fridges on impulse - as you might for a chocolate bar.

Therefore, there is a limited pool of customers and losing one effectively reduces the pool of customers / market and thereby presents an opportunity cost for the retailer.

The principle applies in all market conditions - not just a recession.

RobertoMoir

sturll wrote: »

What's your point?

That I can very easily see why the salesman may have felt it was a waste of breath trying to talk to you.

PopeSock

sturll wrote: »

I doubt that it is so little, especially since one week a TV is £800 then a month later it's £500

The distinction there is that the price reduction is the company's decision. And the price will show as such on the system. However, any discount that is done by a *store* to a price, to reduce it below what's shown on the central system, it shows as store discount. And if the store discount percentage goes too high, the store manager, and subsequently the staff, will probably get a bollocking.

d.edna

PopeSock wrote: »

The distinction there is that the price reduction is the company's decision. And the price will show as such on the system. However, any discount that is done by a *store* to a price, to reduce it below what's shown on the central system, it shows as store discount. And if the store discount percentage goes too high, the store manager, and subsequently the staff, will probably get a bollocking.

They would want it for free next :rolleyes: