Kirby Vacuums

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Never used one myself but from what I’ve heard they are a nice piece of equipment that perform as advertised even though they are on the very pricey side ($1500-$2000). People that have them seem to really like them.
But my question is this:
For a company that is 80+ years old, and has a quality product, why do they use such an antiquated manipulative distribution system that leaves a bad taste in consumers and sellers mouths?
Apparently the only way you can buy one or even get a price on one is by having someone come to your home and demonstrate it for you. And typically they use methods such as offering free carpet cleaning to get into your home, staying 2-3 hours not cleaning much, then giving you the hard sell and refusing to leave.
I had a Kirby rep call me just the other day wanting to know what day would be good for me. A co-worker of mine (a bit naive, he’s an imigrant from Kenya) had them into his home and they got rude and beligerant with him when he told them “No, Leave now!”
And from the sales side it seems they entice employees with promises of making big bucks but it’s pretty impossible to do so. 90% of trainees quit within 1 month according to wiki.

You’d think with all the disgruntled employees and disgruntled misled homeowners their image would be tarnished badly but somehow the quality of their product keeps them going.

So why not drop the door-to-door tactics that everyone hates, find a national distributor like Sears, or BestBuy, drop the price from $1800 to $999 and sell a crapload? You’ve already got the name recognition. People are willing to pay big bux for a vacuum apparently with the success of those Dyson machines.

Or has the door-to-door hard sell prey on the public screw the salesman over tactic worked well for them over the years?

Here’s an endless list of people complaining about their sales tactics.

2

You can get them for just over $700 on ebay. Print out 4 or 5 of those and you can get rid of just about any door to door salesman who wants to charge double.

3

I had never even heard of the company until I saw a feature about it on Cockeyed.com. It mostly discussed the nasty sales tactics, and also mentioned that it was illegal for an individual consumer to sell their Kirby vacuum (this claim was accompanied by stories of eBay auctions being shut down). I am very curious about that.

4

Yeah, how do you do door-door sales now? Nobody is home during the day. Kirby vacuums also weigh a TON! I remember a friend had one-it had a jillion accessories, for God knows what.
I guess the price is OK when you realize the thing will last 50 years! But they are an old design-from about 1955!

5

1979 Kirby Hunting Trophy, Night Light

6

Was Kirby named after these things?

7

Here’s the link to that.

I’m a little skeptical that Kirby can prevent people from selling items they own outright. Is there something in the fine print that turns it into the equivalent of a leased telephone or something?

8

Former Kirby salesman here. (Hey, I was just out of college and hungry)

When I did it in 2000, the asking price was $1600. Of that, the salseman got $350 commission. It was possible to get the price all the way down to $850, of which the salesman got $50.

You did 3-4 demos a day, and for a demo to count you had to call in from the customers phone. The manager would give you instructions on how to keep hard selling the customer. The manager literally would not let you leave until the customer to you get out. If you completed 10 demos a week you’d get $250, even if you didn’t make a sale. I think you could make a certain number, possibly 3 sales and still get the $250. Didn’t happen too much and they always tried to screw you out of the $250.

The customer had 3 days to change their mind and they often did. So you’d end up having to go back for the machine on your own time and gas, no commission, no nothing.

They used the scummiest finance company in the world, I won’t say their name, but it rhymes with Household. They’d finance just about anyone, except for the time I got someone who had purchased a Kirby in the past and stopped making payments. No really.

I was trained by a long time Kirby salesman, suffice it to say we where threatned with a gun because he would not leave.

The one redeeming aspect of the job was the glimpse into the psychology of filth. Part of the Kirby schtick was a little attachment that went on i place of the bag. It held little paper filters, maybe 5’ in diameter. When you vacuumed it caught the dirt so you could show it to the customer. In a clean house, you’d vacuum quite a bit to get a little bit of dirt and the people would be horrified. In a filthy house, the filter would turn black in seconds and you’d replace it over and over again to get a reaction from the homeowner. I quickly learned that people with nice house and plenty of money would never buy a Kirby. It was working poor people who would go for it, they just weren’t as savy.

Any way, long ramble short, I hated it and felt like scum. I lasted maybe 4 weeks and ran screaming. Oh yeah, I forgot the morning pep rally with the pounding “Jock rock” music. And the way they lie to the salesmen every bit as much as the customer.

Don’t buy a Kirby, buy a decent vacuum that doesn’t take a team of oxen to move.

I do evilly await the day a Kirby (or Rainbow) salesman shows up on my doorstep. They’re in for a long afternoon. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

My ex had a job selling Kirby vacuums…briefly. What a nightmare.

I still have mine, though. :smiley:

I also used to work with a guy who had been a Kirby salesman. Where he worked, they went out in pairs, and he had several stories of being stuck in the car while his co-salesman was inside, having sex with the lady of the house. :dubious:

10

That was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title. This article says it’s a strong possibility, but there’s no conclusive evidence.

11

The most entertaining part of that post is the quantity of people who gave in after several hours of pestering and spent close to $2000 for a vacuum cleaner they didn’t want. What a bunch of morons.

12

Wow, I did the same thing almost exactly, only it was in the early 1970’s (same reason, I was young and hungry). I lasted about a month, and only sold one. That one was only because I was with my supervisor who did the actual selling, and the customers discovered during the demonstration and conversation afterwards that they were related to me through my father.

Anyway, the tactics were not quite so drastic as you described. We were encouraged to be enthusiastic and persistent, but we were not told we couldn’t leave. I was finally encouraged to quit because I was not sufficiently enthusiastic. This is probably because I couldn’t figure out why anyone would actually buy one. There was also some talk that the motor was too strong for the bag, i.e. that tiny particles would filter back out of the bag while the motor was on, pushed through the fabric and liner due to the strong motor. Never verified, as far as I know.

It does sound like the strategy and tactics have not changed for over 30 years.
Roddy

13

It is amazing that they still use this method of sales. I had no idea.

“Nothing sux like an Electrolux”

14

I was almost a Kirby salesman, which, to anyone who knows me, is ridiculous because I’m horribly shy. But I was desperate for work at the time (this was around 1993 or so) and this was a chance to actually make a little bit of money, so I went to the training.

We had three days of training. The general manager of the regional distributorship claimed to be an alumnus of my (small, Catholic) high school, so was chummy. After the third day of training, we were allowed to take a machine home to test out and to practice using for the sales calls. I wasn’t terribly impressed.

Between the non-impressiveness of the machine, my own misgivings about bracing strangers in their homes, and the insistence that we provide the dealership with sales leads (in other words, sell out our friends and relatives to be pestered), I decided the morning we were supposed to do ride-alongs to quit. I brought my machine back and asked for a receipt so I had proof that I’d returned it (it was a $2000 machine! Of COURSE I wanted proof that I’d returned it!), which you’d think I’d asked to make sweet, sweet love to the manager’s pet dog from the way he reacted…cursed me out and acted so SHOCKED that I wouldn’t trust him, a fellow alumnus of my high school! Which pretty much made me think I’d been right to insist on the receipt, really.

The slime was palpable. Really…I don’t think I’ve ever been so closely involved with any operation where I was morally uncomfortable from the moment I stepped in the door before or since.

15

And not a single mention of price anywhere on the website.

16

I own a Kirby. I bought it used from a friend for $150. It’s the only way I would ever, ever, ever own one.

If you really feel the need to own one, check out Craigslist. You can get one for anywhere from $800 to $200 depending on model and whether it has accessories included with it.

Honestly, as long as the vaccuum is used, I don’t see how Kirby can stop people from selling them. It’s yours. You can sell it if you want.

17

A used Kirby can be an OK buy. No reason to buy one otherwise. And no, there’s nothing they can do to stop you from selling yours. In fact there’s a store rigth down the street that has a slew of used vacuums, including Kirbys.

CR sez it ain’t worth the price.

18

Ah, here we go. Apparently a lot of these machines on eBay are “stolen”. :dubious:

I wonder why these are the ony product pictures on the site?

19

My brother had a working one for about 4 years before it took a shit. He was happy and beaming how great it was for the first year. After that he wished he’d bought a good one for around $150 to $200 instead. He had problems getting replacement bags.

20

Heh. A Kirby salesman came to my house about a year ago. There were two - one poor guy who did the demo, and then the real salesman who came after.

I was bored that night. The vacuum didn’t even do a good job, so there was no way I was buying it, but I had fun watching the sales guy run through his entire repertoire of sales tactics. First he started on a religious tactic, which didn’t work very well. :stuck_out_tongue: He then went to a personal history, and finally went to needing money for his family. He was absolutely certain that anyone who let him stay that long was going to buy. He didn’t know me very well. I think he went down to $400 or so by the time he was done - of course I figure that if I said yes he’d say the brushes and bag were extra.

He was Israeli, by the way, but I’m from New York so we were well matched.

It taught me that you can get a much better deal if you hold out. We went to a timeshare thing the other night, for a trip to San Diego, and before we went we were take aside and offered a special deal also. We still said no.