I don’t understand how some major retailers stay in business.
The major electrical retailer in the UK is Dixons Stores Group, which owns PC World, the only significant computer retailer (until Best Buy arrives later this year), and Currys, a predominantly white goods chain of stores.
For more years than I can remember the Dixons Stores Group have managed to keep the rather dubious accolade of being the least popular electricals retailer in the UK. Which? (a major UK consumer organisation) has just published their latest survey:
You’d think that after at least a decade of this that someone in management would have said ‘look chaps, we seem to have a bit of a problem on the customer satisfaction front.’ Perhaps the fact that they have a virtual monopoly may have made them complacent, but I just don’t understand the management mentality that allows this state of affairs to continue.
Surely however well you’re doing (and until a couple of years ago, they were doing well financially) a good business will want to do even better? They have had a bad reputation for years, so I’m sure that they have lost many sales and profit opportunities, and the bottom line has suffered because of it.
The sheer ignorance of their staff in relation to most consumer electronics is bizarre. You can stand for 10 minutes in a store without being served. You can wait at the till and there’ll be no one there. They’re more interested in selling you the insurance on the device. They do that American style thing of asking your address and phone number. In short I hate them.
Why spend money training and hiring competent people when the regular dipshits are making you plenty? I’d prefer apathy over the outright lies that I’ve gotten at Best Buy and Circuit City from some of the floor staff. Now every time I go into a big box to buy something I tell the sales doofus straight away that I’m an electrical engineer. Helps cut down on the pseudotech babble.
I wouldn’t mind the pseudotech babble. They just seem to know nothing most of the time. Their staff is primarily South Asian in my experience but a bit of training in something other than insurance flim-flam would be beneficial.
There is one possible excuse. PC/electrical retailing is one of the only areas where the retailer is expected to work on pretty slim margins *and * to provide in depth technical knowledge over a wide range of different products. Maybe you can only make it work if you are supported by other types of products, like John Lewis, a department store chain which always comes top of the Which? surveys, or if you offer specialist services that can beef up your margins.
I’m not sure that many PC/electrical stores have a huge fan bases.
Like it or not, business is simply one cost-benefit analysis after another. The big box stores could give you customer service personnel who have an in-depth and studied knowledge of what they’re selling, but based on surveys and mathematical models the business has done, they’ve found that providing those types of people doesn’t produce much more of a profit, especially when you factor in their higher salaries.
High-end luxury stores will offer you the type of service you’re looking for, but you’re going to pay for it. That’s why they’re high-end luxury stores.
HMV, fwiw, seem to hire people with an interest in music and film. Most staff in there I’ve talked to have a fairly in depth knowledge of what they’re selling. How much higher salaries do people who know what they’re actually selling demand?
Well, then- you don’t want to buy what they want to sell (extended warranties), so they don’t care what you think.
That depends on what is being sold. If it’s people who know a lot about something that is used a lot by other businesses (like computers and software), they’re going to have lots of other job opportunities and be able to ask for a lot more money. If it’s something that a lot of people have knowledge of (like music and film) or something that only a few people want to buy (like the crafts they sell at Renaissance fairs), not so much.
I know nothing about this particular store, but I have worked at a variety of similar places. One possible explanation is the situation that I have observed several times. Once the business became a major enterprise it seemed the management types were much more interested in clawing for position than actually getting anything done. A lot of these guys would rather be king of a dung heap than a yeoman in a castle.
The sick part is, it worked just fine for those who were low and dirty enough to win. They still pulled in seven digit salaries even as they rode the whole mess to the bottom. For the most part this turned out to be an advantage for us rank & file since the dumb bastards caused a lot of trouble during the small amount of time they actually paid attention. Gridlock was the best we could hope for.
For the simple fact that despite poor results in surveys, people obviously still go to the shop and buy things which means the company makes money, and as long as it makes money it has no great incentive to change anything.
Provided it continues to be viable, people get paid whatever’s required to staff the business. Where I work we’ve had close to a 100% increase in pay over the last year just because there was a shortage of people qualified to do the job AND willing to work for the company, so the pay goes up by huge amounts to ensure the company doesn’t go under. The job’s the same and the expertise required is the same it’s just the supply/demand equation that has changed.
The relevance of this to HMV is that I don’t think it’s very difficult finding young salespeople who have a strong interest in music. Because there’re lots of them, they don’t have to pay a great deal to get them.
