Stoopid Retailers

BigEejit

I had a look in [edit]PCSuperstore[/edit] in Cork on Tuesday .. I was looking for a cheep webcam ... Up on a shelf I saw a Geforce 2 GTS 64MB ..
The Price was .... €417 ... yes thats four hundred and seventeen euros .... muppets
[edit] Ack!, forget me own head next ... I had put down CompuStore by mistake instead of PCSuperstore ... my comment about them still stands however .... muppets .... (and yes, in my mind they are as bad as each other)

Like Matt says, that item is now 3 generations old and it is unbelieveable in this day and age that such an item could be priced so high. I don't remember what price they were when they were current leading edge, but I'd have said you could have found them for significantly cheaper than the current price at the time (i.e. £328 or thereabouts)
[/edit]

hussey

why does everyone jump on this .. anybody who doesn't sell cheap is a muppet business

you have to take into account things like wages, overheads, staff, theft, insurance etc. and not everyone can afford to buy in bulk

they will have a lot more overheads than people like komplett etc

so why don't you open up a shop and see how 'cheap' you can sell stuff at?? then you can call them muppets

I know that price is terrible btw, but i could be a mistake .. they sell a ti4200 for Eur 259.00 near me.

A cynic is someone who know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Matt Simis

If muppet in this context was taken to mean "bad" business people, then there is nothing wrong with the statement that they appear to be "muppets for selling a grossly outdated piece of technology at the same price as current tech, at least 4 generations down the line".

AFAIK, such stores can avail of a rebate (from the manufacturer ) program for volitile tech stock not shifted during its "primetime" window. The fact they are not doing that also makes them look like "muppets", as defined already.


Im guessing you work for such a store to defend such practices so vehemently.



Matt

madmoe

At the end of the day people some poor sould will go in there and buy that an be happy out, may even think they got a good deal, LOL! That's the way it is today in RIP OFF Ireland.

hussey

I am not trying to defend any perticular store, or that product
I am not defending that store, but the culture of people complaining where inappriote .. as in you sell product X 10euro extra than some no frills online company .. your a rip off etc.

I'll give my reasons here :

I do not work for any retail shops

I used to hold a part-time job in a local newsagent, which was on a road near a shopping center

now we sold sweets etc and milk .. nothing fancy .. it was fairly small

now the nearest shop was that supermarket.

Now I used to get moaned at everyday by people because the price of milk was 5p cheaper in the supermarket, or that a small box of corn flakes was 20p cheaper in supermarket

our price was always in line with RRP.

one week the manager got a quote for his insurance, he never told me what it was.

it was due the following month or so

now this woman sends a child around to buy bread milk etc, he gave another worker a 20quid note, but she made a mistake and gave him change of a tenner. Now the kid goes home, I came in later on and she went home. The kid came back and said I mischanged him I explained the situation, that I can not know if that happened, but when the boss comes in he will count the float if we are 10over we wil give him the money etc.

now about an hour later the kid comes back with the mother .. I explain the same story to her .. she isn't happy .. now just that second my boss walks in .. I tell him the story and he check the float (as excess money is dropped in a safe, when shifts are changed) sure enough it is a tenner over and he gives her the money back

now 1 week later we get a letter from the woman's solicitor saying she is sueing him for 3,000IR for deformation of character

when the renewal quote came in it was 25% higher than the original quote and for such a small shop it was a huge difference

she lost/dropped the case BTW.

now people use to complain all the time about little things like that, and it really bugged me .. every price complaint we were compared to the supermarket, and anybody really moaning we would whip out the consumer price list and showed them .. most of the time they just said 'Well it's still doesn't make tesco cheaper' or something stupid

The shop closed down two+1/2 years later after being in business for over 20years

**
so basically what I am saying is that it is unfair to always compare stores to each other .. you have to look into other factors .. I believe that these stores that you mentioned are muppets .. not cause of their prices but cause they won't know a computer if it came up to them and hit them

so this wasn't an attack on big Eegit by the way

Matt Simis

Interesting story, but doesnt really seem to tie together with your argument. Local newsagents and (a national chain of) Computer stores are entirely different, with different polices and products. You also mentioned that people complained that "milk was 5p cheaper.." to put that in perspective with the complaint against Compustore, it would be like the milk was 50p in Tescos and £2 in your store.
Would still stand there and bare faced tell us "thats the way it is, go shop elsewhere", which incidentally is what people did in your case.

Anyone selling products must remain competitive. If they aren't competitive, Im sure as hell not going to make up for their lack of innovation and business savvy buy shopping there and basically paying an idiot tax.



Matt

tribble

At the end of the day people some poor sould will go in there and buy that an be happy out, may even think they got a good deal, LOL! That's the way it is today in RIP OFF Ireland

As an employee of one of the above retailers I can confirm that some originally stock that was cutting edge last year (or more) has not been reduced by a sufficient amount to bring it in line with the current value of said stock.

However, I can say with some confidence that NO salesperson would EVER attempt to pimp old stock onto a customer (unless either or both are complete muppets). Most of the sales people (in my branch) know their stuff, if they don't they ask somebody who does (usually meh :rolleyes: ).

AFAIK, such stores can avail of a rebate (from the manufacturer ) program for volitile tech stock not shifted during its "primetime" window. The fact they are not doing that also makes them look like "muppets", as defined already.

I am unaware of this but i cant see Creative et al taking back an old GF 256DDR for anything more than buttons.

tribble

hussey

my point is that the reason why certain shops are a rip-off is not always because the evil shop owner wants huge access of cash but because people wrongly compare them.

in my case tesco sold their own braned milk cheaper than we bought golden value milk etc.
So I would love to know how we could compete with that?
people went to our store not because of cheap prices but because of convience.


I accept that that perticular price is pretty bad, but as I said I am not trying to defend any store, or any computer shop (as I always do my computer buying with either komplett or marx)

I am just saying that people can be too quick to say .. rip-off

oneweb

Who's really stupid? Personally, I say the customer who's willing to pay the extra. Look at it from the company's point of view. They're not being stupid on purpose, they're being clever (sly admittedly, but clever nonetheless). They charge as much as they can get away with. Why? Because they know for a fact that people will still come and buy from them as they're convenient. The stupid ones are customers who, from pure laziness pay the price for something they could get far cheaper a few minutes/miles away.

A few phonecalls to many of the Electrical/Computer stores around Dublin/other cities will highlight a pretty big difference in the highest and lowest prices of an item. All it takes is a bit of effort.

Also, don't forget that a company may have hundreds or even thousands of product lines - and it may just be possible to have made a few mistakes or even forget about a line or two. The best thing to do is to ask a salesperson if that is in fact the current price on the system. If it is, ask to speak to a manager and find out if he/she can do a better price given that the product is old or far cheaper elsewhere. If they can't, let them know you won't be seeing them again. Nor will your mates.

patch

The likes of compustore are rip-off merchants. their more expensive for pretty much everything. The people who shop in them reckon their a big, famous company and so wouldn't screw people over. The people who shop in them don't know how much stuff really costs.
Having said that, I wish I owned compustore........:mad:

Trebor

i know people who belive that companies that sell products are all goodhearted people who want to do everything they can for the customer as opposed to selling their product for as much as possible with as little service required.

companies are only competitive when they have competion but in ireland there is little if any as we are too small a market to invest in.