Please keep in mind that I know nothing about retail.
But I was wondering if there was a way to market your expertise post-sale … like offereing some sort of advanced tutorial session periodically to people who did purchase their items in your store. You might give me a bare-bones run-down on a laptop, and then add that if I purchased it, you offer a 1/2 hour workshop on some feature of it every other Saturday (proof of purchase required of course) You could match your offerings to whatever seems to click with your customers. My mother (who is always my example of the anti-techsavvy person who buys electronics) would not really care about learning how to maximize processing performance, but would get excited about learning how to put goofy captions on her vacation photos so that she could email them to her children. Among your staff, you probably have enough people with an expertise with a certain thing that the workshop could be part of their regular shift – if no one shows, they can keep working the register or whatever.
I’m often surprised by how my mom and her lady friends go to those workshops at Home Depot, and then buy a metric ton of home improvement products and seem to really enjoy it.
This sounds like a great idea, and one that’s been discussed- unfortunately, it’s unworkable at present for a variety of reasons, mainly due to time constraints. Basically, We only have a handful of staff working at any one time, and sometimes- especially on weekends- we’re just too busy to explain the ins and outs of How Computers Work (best said in a Troy McClure voice) to people who can’t tell one end of a mouse from the other.
I will suggest to the boss, however, that we hold an “Information Night” one evening and run people through the ins and outs of Computers, Teh Intarweb, and How Not To Be A Technon00b (Another Neologism! Twice in on thread, no less! :D)
On a related note, I’d like to mutter darkly under my breath about Computer Manufacturers that sell units without enough RAM (256Mb in a new computer is just not enough anymore), but offer no way to upgrade said RAM without invalidating the warranty. It’s a 2 minute job for me (or anyone else who knows anything about computers) to unscrew the case, put a new RAM stick in, and then put the case back on. But even with our company’s branded RAM, it would still invalidate the warranty, leaving the customer up the creek without any fuel for the outboard, so to speak. The idea is that you send the PC to The Computer Company and get them to do it- but they’re in Sydney and we’re up here in Queensland, over 1000kms away. Customer responses to this offer to generously mail their PC 1000kms to have a 512Mb RAM upgrade installed have ranged from “No thanks” to howls of derisive laughter…
I don’t understand why your customers would be doing this. Why would they go elsewhere to get the same price they have already got from you? Are you sure you’re not being undercut?
I agree with Lissa here - Customers who takes price as the only factor are usually the one who will give you the most grief over petty issues after sales. I read that somewhere in “The Laughing Warrior:How to Enjoy Killing The Status Quo” by Dale Dauten.
Because they want to go and compare prices- no-one buys any notable purchase without shopping around.
After a day of trudging around shops (possibly with a nagging wife/husband/kids in tow), they get to store number three, four, five, or whatever. They’ve realised that the item they’re after generally costs $X, and they’re tired and would like to call it a day. Salesman in store three/four/five says “Tell you what, we’ll do the item for $X” (if it’s not that price already), and the customers says “Sounds good, let’s buy it and go home.”
So, in short, we’ve done all the work explaining the product to them, and someone else gets the sale.