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etalian posted:Their weirdo CEO was also obsessed with objectivist philosophy.
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Jun 29, 2016 03:13
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Y-Hat posted:what high-level executive isn't? mark cuban loves him some ayn rand The horrible Sears CEO, his obsession with Rand is one of the reasons he had departments do gladiator fights with each other.
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Jun 29, 2016 03:16
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his solution to his stores doing no business was to start selling Rolex watches
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Jun 29, 2016 03:16
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Krispy Kareem posted:Sears is obviously terrible and everything, but don't you charge full price when demand is high? I thought shorts went on sale in the Spring and Fall and went for full price in the summer when people realize, "oh poo poo I need shorts." Full price in this case is about $40-60 for a pair of shorts that would cost ~$20 anywhere else. Realize also that most people who shop at Sears aren't rich. Sears is middle to lower class so $40-60 on shorts is a big deal.
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Jun 29, 2016 03:17
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The last time I went to a Sears I bought one of those flannel shirts that come in a plastic bag with lots of plastic clip things on it, for a Halloween costume (lumberjack). The shirt fell apart before the night was over. It might have been on the shelf longer than I've been alive
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Jun 29, 2016 04:21
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Solice Kirsk posted:Go online and buy cords. No matter what type of cord you need, get them online. You need a 1/4" to 1/4" mono if you're hooking a guitar to an amp. Actually I heard that getting the first one up from the cheapest is actually the worst wine, because people don't want to spend a lot of money on wine but don't want to look like a cheapskate by buying the cheapest one and restaurants take advantage of that. Not sure how widespread that is or if it's true for other industries.
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Jun 29, 2016 04:50
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PallasAthene posted:*some good words about guitar center* I try to avoid them if I can lately. A lot of music gear sites (mostly sweetwater) absolutely decimate them these days. I bought my most recent bass from Guitar Center. I knew what model and color and everything I wanted, saw online they had the exact one in stock, walked in, made a beeline for it, grabbed it off the shelf and had them price match a site at the counter. Outside of checking out, the only interaction I had with an employee who walked up to me while I was looking at some bass effects pedals while I was waiting for them to grab the box/manuals/etc. for my new bass from the back. He asks if he could help me, I tell him I'm just checking out bass effects. He actually scoffed and said "Sorry I can't help, most of us here play real instruments." If I hadn't already paid at that point I'd have been out the door so fast. I've made a few orders from sweetwater lately. When you make an account there, they assign you a "music gear specialist" or whatever and you can contact them through email if you have a question and they have a profile listing their credentials or whatever. I thought it was just some dumb marketing gimmick, but I wanted to buy an external sound card for my computer so I could record a bit easier. On a whim I messaged my "gear specialist" and asked about it. Within an hour I got a reply from him. He recommended a few products to look at, but openly admitted he was a drummer and didn't have a whole lot of experience in pro audio type gear like that. He said he'd ask some of his friends who worked more in that area for me. A day later I get two more messages with recommendations from two entirely separate people with more experience with it. They didn't even seem to be obviously trying to up sell poo poo. I'm sure they get commission, but they were recommending entry level units at prices in my budget and listing definite pros/cons with each model rather than talking up some BS $10k unit from the start. After talking back in forth a bit with all three about various models and features, and doing my diligence with my own research, I found a model I liked and the price was absolutely right on sweetwater, I got it and I am very happy with my purchase. Sure they wanted to make a sale, but they still engaged with me and talked about different gear and didn't even try to slap a warranty on top. They even gave me multiple differing viewpoints on one product. It's what I would expect from a music retailer, but these days Guitar Center is just Best Buy for instruments. Sorry for the effort post in *~GBS~* but the GC talk hit a nerve with me.
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Jun 29, 2016 05:02
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Iron Prince posted:I try to avoid them if I can lately. A lot of music gear sites (mostly sweetwater) absolutely decimate them these days. I had a similar sales strategy when I worked at Best Buy selling computers, and while I had a slow start you'd be amazed at how many people appreciate honesty. Word of mouth gave me a ton of business and my bosses were so confused.
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Jun 29, 2016 05:32
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naem posted:The last time I went to a Sears I bought one of those flannel shirts that come in a plastic bag with lots of plastic clip things on it, for a Halloween costume (lumberjack). The shirt fell apart before the night was over. It might have been on the shelf longer than I've been alive We couldn't sell all of our winter poo poo so we stuck it in the back for next year. First time we did this. We're also still selling some kid's winter gloves not on clearance even though it's 100F outside. We also got in some winter/fall clothes apparently. I don't know who does the orders but they're idiots.
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Jun 29, 2016 05:49
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Iron Prince posted:
Anybody remember Mars Music? It was GC done right. Apparently it's downfall was the owners were good at other businesses but hobbyists. Automatic Slim has a new favorite as of 06:06 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 06:03
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Iron Prince posted:Sweetwater Chat I had the same experience when I placed a preorder for a Les Paul a couple of years back. The guy was super helpful, and I never felt like he was trying to push anything on me. He asked if I was in a band, which I was at the time, and when he called back to check in, he'd ask how it's going and what gigs are coming up. I actually felt bad when I hit "unsubscribe" on an email from Sweetwater and got back a personal "Hey, sorry for bothering you. Let me know if I can help you at all in the future" note from him an hour later.
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Jun 29, 2016 14:29
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Cowman posted:Full price in this case is about $40-60 for a pair of shorts that would cost ~$20 anywhere else. Any time I go into Sears I see maybe one or two things that I might actually buy, but the prices are so unrealistic that I cannot imagine anyone actually paying them. Yes I need new jeans, yes those Levis are nice, no I will not pay $100 for $30 jeans.
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Jun 29, 2016 15:14
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Iron Prince posted:but these days Guitar Center is just Best Buy for instruments. I went into a BB for the first time in years because I needed a usb cable for work a few months back. What a shithole that place has become. It's like some exec saw those annoying specialty kiosks in the mall and thought "Yeah, let's make the entire store nothing but these and then triple the prices on everything! People will like that right!?" It was an experience I can only describe as surreal. Oh and that cable I needed? $25. Current price on newegg: $5 readingatwork has a new favorite as of 15:43 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 15:41
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readingatwork posted:I went into a BB for the first time in years because I needed a usb cable for work a few months back. What a shithole that place has become. It's like some exec saw those annoying specialty kiosks in the mall and thought "Yeah, let's make the entire store nothing but these and then triple the prices on everything! People will like that right!?" It was an experience I can only describe as surreal. Lol read the thread you idiot
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Jun 29, 2016 15:54
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Ryoshi posted:The HQ keeps samples that vendors bring in and then sell them to their employees in the "sample store", which occasionally leads to fun things like them selling hundreds of prop phone chargers that didn't actually have wires in them, or old lovely off-brand net books from 2007 with no cords or batteries. etalian posted:Their weirdo CEO was also obsessed with objectivist philosophy. What the actual gently caress? Why haven't the shareholders revolted haha what the hell.
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Jun 29, 2016 17:09
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At this point I would imagine anyone competent has already left, meaning the only ones holding the bag are the dumbest of the dumb/ True Believers
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Jun 29, 2016 17:20
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Professor Shark posted:At this point I would imagine anyone competent has already left, meaning the only ones holding the bag are the dumbest of the dumb/ True Believers Pretty much. Sears stock: March 16, 2012 82.55 June 29, 2016 13.33
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Jun 29, 2016 17:53
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Cowman posted:We couldn't sell all of our winter poo poo so we stuck it in the back for next year. First time we did this. We're also still selling some kid's winter gloves not on clearance even though it's 100F outside. We also got in some winter/fall clothes apparently. I don't know who does the orders but they're idiots. As someone who has met some of the people doing those orders at the corporate level, you have absolutely no idea at all. Roylicious posted:What the actual gently caress? Why haven't the shareholders revolted haha what the hell. They kind of have? I mean there have been more articles written about what an objectively, quantifiably bad leader the CEO is than I have seen about any other CEO in any industry ever, and they've gone back for years and years now. The stock has already tanked almost entirely. Here's the secret though: when Kmart bought Sears and formed the Sears Holding Company, they already knew their retail was in a tailspin. While Sears has been really trying to look like they're doing something to right the sinking ship (with Shop Your Way Rewards and goofy ads like "I shipped my pants") the reality of the situation is that Sears and Kmart actually own most if not all of the real estate where their stores are located - as a matter of policy, they don't lease stores. So Sears' stock is tumbling, the retail channel will dry out entirely within a few years, and the executives are flying it right into the side of the mountain so that when everything gets closed up they make shitloads off of unloading their hugely hugely profitable real estate holdings to some other poor giant retailer that hasn't yet figured out which way the economic winds are going re: box stores. This isn't even a secret at this point.
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Jun 29, 2016 18:32
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I think there is going to be a resurgence of retail embracing knowledgeable, non-pushy salespeople. As some people in the thread said, a lot of people are turned off when someone tries to sell you overpriced crap because his supervisor makes him. Sometimes they will make a sale, but that person probably won't return. And you are turning off plenty of people, too. I just had an estimate done to get a patio in my backyard and the guy who came over was really annoyingly pushy. He wanted me to put money down to "secure" him so I can have it done before the summer. I saw work he did for a friend and it was great work but his way about him made me tell him I was going to keep shopping around. He was kind of making it like I was an rear end in a top hat if I didn't hire him, which basically guaranteed me not using him. Like 2 days later I posted on a local Facebook group for dads, and I was asking general questions about patio installations. This guy messaged me and talked to me for a good 45 minutes about the different RCA/sand/concrete that should be used as a base, what material to use for the edge to secure the bricks, how to pitch it properly for the rain, etc. I asked him how he knew all of this stuff and he eventually told me he has been doing it as his business for 32 years. He wasn't even trying to make a sale and just like the goons who posted about Sweetwater, it made me way more interested in hiring him. I asked him for a few photos of his recent work, one person for reference, and hired him right away. Just because he wasn't making me feel like I was buying a used car. The work came out incredible and I am going to hire him to do other parts of my yard as well. The other end of the spectrum is what a lot of other retailers are doing and hiring people who know barely anything and have almost no interest in helping you unless it's to open a credit card or buy a warranty. I mean Wal-Mart sucks if you ever need to ask a question about something, but at least they don't try to upsell worthless poo poo. Wal-Mart can get by on the business model of not knowing anything and having uninterested employees. But I have no idea how Sears or Guitar Center thinks they can apply that to dishwashers and digital pianos. If you want to see an example of a retailer that is doing fantastic, just read up on PC Richards (a longtime retailer in the North East). They pay their employees extremely well (sales people there can support a family), their employees are incredibly knowledgeable, they aren't pushy, and yet with all those things, they are incredibly successful and are doing very well as a company. Even Yelp reviews for their stores are high. I don't think I ever saw a retail store with good Yelp reviews ever. I mean obviously whatever all the other big box retailers are doing isn't working so you'd think more places would try this. Ryoshi posted:The Sears thing should not be a surprise to anyone that has ever had the displeasure of visiting their corporate HQ. This is hilarious and I want photographs of Sears HQ as soon as humanly possible. As for their horrendous CEO, isn't there some theory out there that he actually benefits more if they fail than if they succeed? I could be remembering it wrong but I could have sworn I read an article about that. e: and you answered the question right before my post! Chumbawumba4ever97 has a new favorite as of 19:47 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 19:22
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Ryoshi posted:As someone who has met some of the people doing those orders at the corporate level, you have absolutely no idea at all. I was amazed to find out Blockbuster didn't own their properties. Most locations were there for 10 to 20 years easily. When you have that many retail locations, it makes some sense to own your land as a hedge (like Sears apparently has done). Kind of like how McDonalds considers itself a retail landlord first and a fast food corporation second. Maybe Sears can live on and retreat to their mail order/online enclave Lands End. Or have the hosed that up beyond repair as well?
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Jun 29, 2016 19:46
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Original_Z posted:Actually I heard that getting the first one up from the cheapest is actually the worst wine, because people don't want to spend a lot of money on wine but don't want to look like a cheapskate by buying the cheapest one and restaurants take advantage of that. Not sure how widespread that is or if it's true for other industries. This may be true now, but it used to be the go to trick. I haven't paid for wine in a restaurant in like 10 years. BYOB for life yo!
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Jun 29, 2016 20:01
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Uncle at Nintendo posted:If you want to see an example of a retailer that is doing fantastic, just read up on PC Richards (a longtime retailer in the North East). They pay their employees extremely well (sales people there can support a family), their employees are incredibly knowledgeable, they aren't pushy, and yet with all those things, they are incredibly successful and are doing very well as a company. Even Yelp reviews for their stores are high. I don't think I ever saw a retail store with good Yelp reviews ever. The sales people at PC Richards probably get a commission. The concept of sales associates that can't earn a commission infuriates me. Retailers try to spin this as creating a hassle free environment yet employees are reprimanded if they don't sell enough services/warranties/accessories/etc. that they don't get a cut of.
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Jun 29, 2016 20:09
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eric posted:The sales people at PC Richards probably get a commission. The concept of sales associates that can't earn a commission infuriates me. Retailers try to spin this as creating a hassle free environment yet employees are reprimanded if they don't sell enough services/warranties/accessories/etc. that they don't get a cut of. Yeah, PC Richards do get commission. Unfortunately there are none in Vermont but I used to buy stuff from them all the time when I lived in NY and they somehow were way, way less pushy with warranties and add-ons than Best Buy ever was, yet Best Buy employees aren't even getting compensation out of it which is crazy. I think it is what destroyed Circuit City, too. They were doing fine when their workers were on commission. Then they fired all of their top employees (that is not a typo) and hired high schoolers for $7.50 an hour. You saw the difference immediately. Stores looked like poo poo, nobody knew anything, no one cared about helping you, and they were out of business not that much longer after that. I really do believe the executives get compensated for saving the company tons of money (no more salespeople earning 70k a year), then they get the hell out of there before poo poo hits the fan, then a few months later everyone realizes they should never shop there again and the guy who made that decision is long gone so he doesn't care anyway.
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Jun 29, 2016 20:27
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Uncle at Nintendo posted:
I know someone who got out of the military with full disability and since then he'll get a part time job at a place where he wants a discount, work a day or two a week and if it stops being fun he quits after a year or two. He worked at Cabela's for a while and said that their company really bought into the idea that now customers just use their computers or phones to pick what they want and just come in with their minds made up, so they just needed to follow what was trending online and have people there to hand out what people wanted. So he worked in the gun section and he said they went from hiring people who really knew a lot about guns or scopes to hiring people who "liked" guns and would work for minimum wage. He said after a while they stopped doing things like bringing people to train employees about guns or hunting and instead got people to give seminars about selling credit cards or warranties, and the company had a seminar where they divided customers into categories based on how much money they spent and how much time they took. I don't remember exactly how they did it, but I remember him saying that they called old people "Goldens" and because they tend to talk a lot and not have as much money to spend as young professionals or babyboomers, the company put them as lowest priority. He said it sucked because he said the only people who come in before noon were retired old guys who wanted to look at cowboys guns and their managers wanted them to pretty much blow the old guys off and vacuum the floor or something so they wouldn't come in now often because they didn't spend as much money per hour of interaction and as a whole they weren't tech-savvy enough to complain about it online. A while later he was working at an Autozone or NAPA or something and said since they didn't give a poo poo about what trended, the store he worked at still hired folks who knew a lot about cars or tools, or were pure cashiers.
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Jun 29, 2016 21:25
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PallasAthene posted:I know someone who got out of the military with full disability and since then he'll get a part time job at a place where he wants a discount, work a day or two a week and if it stops being fun he quits after a year or two. He worked at Cabela's for a while and said that their company really bought into the idea that now customers just use their computers or phones to pick what they want and just come in with their minds made up, so they just needed to follow what was trending online and have people there to hand out what people wanted. So he worked in the gun section and he said they went from hiring people who really knew a lot about guns or scopes to hiring people who "liked" guns and would work for minimum wage. He said after a while they stopped doing things like bringing people to train employees about guns or hunting and instead got people to give seminars about selling credit cards or warranties, and the company had a seminar where they divided customers into categories based on how much money they spent and how much time they took. I don't remember exactly how they did it, but I remember him saying that they called old people "Goldens" and because they tend to talk a lot and not have as much money to spend as young professionals or babyboomers, the company put them as lowest priority. He said it sucked because he said the only people who come in before noon were retired old guys who wanted to look at cowboys guns and their managers wanted them to pretty much blow the old guys off and vacuum the floor or something so they wouldn't come in now often because they didn't spend as much money per hour of interaction and as a whole they weren't tech-savvy enough to complain about it online. Yeah this is what I don't get. Retail has everything going against them compared to online except one thing: human interaction. You can buy anything online; the only reason you'd buy it in person is because it's clothing, or because it's something you need to know about and can speak to someone about. I am not going to call Amazon and ask them which dryer has the best features. Retailers not seeing this is amazing to me. And you mentioned Autozone which is a great point because I absolutely love that place and try to fix stuff myself and I am not that good with cars, but they explain everything to me. So I pretty much buy anything car related from them. If they hire a bunch of teens who only try to sell Modern Driver magazine subscriptions I'll just go to Amazon unless I absolutely positively need it that second.
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Jun 29, 2016 21:39
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I feel like half of these stores should just give up and stick to selling credit cards since they don't seem to have interest in retail.
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Jun 29, 2016 21:40
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There will always be salesmen for certain things. Cars, finance, whole sale liquor, pharmaceuticals, technology, etc. My fear is that eventually the competition for those positions will be so great because all the other places people used to be able to make a living as a salesman will be gone and it's going to be a huge cut throat industry even more so than it is now.
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Jun 29, 2016 21:50
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Do you think stuff like truecar will eventually get a lot of car dealerships to do away with commissioned salesmen? I've never used it, but it seems like the point is to get rid of wiggle room on prices so they don't need to offer salesmen the incentive of getting more commission on a higher sales price.
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Jun 29, 2016 21:56
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Solice Kirsk posted:There will always be salesmen for certain things. Cars, finance, whole sale liquor, pharmaceuticals, technology, etc. My fear is that eventually the competition for those positions will be so great because all the other places people used to be able to make a living as a salesman will be gone and it's going to be a huge cut throat industry even more so than it is now. Oh yeah salespeople are definitely needed. I just think they are better off being knowledgeable and selling what you came in for. For the long-term I feel like that is better than whatever Guitar Center is up to (I don't work or shop there; just going by posts here).
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Jun 29, 2016 21:59
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PallasAthene posted:Do you think stuff like truecar will eventually get a lot of car dealerships to do away with commissioned salesmen? I've never used it, but it seems like the point is to get rid of wiggle room on prices so they don't need to offer salesmen the incentive of getting more commission on a higher sales price. I want to say that CarMax already works like this if you go buy a car from them.
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Jun 29, 2016 22:03
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PallasAthene posted:A while later he was working at an Autozone or NAPA or something and said since they didn't give a poo poo about what trended, the store he worked at still hired folks who knew a lot about cars or tools, or were pure cashiers. i was shocked when i called autozone asking for an a/c cleaner without a particular product in mind, dude was able to order it for next day and then the price was even cheaper than what you can find online. i went in and it was exactly what i needed and he even gave me some advice on how to use it.
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Jun 29, 2016 22:03
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Given the flood of (often wrong) data/information on the internet you'd think actually that niche knowledgeable salespeople would come back into vogue for all the reasons mentioned. I know I'd definitely go visit a store vs buy online if I knew there was a real person I could speak to that would know what the hell I'm talking about but I guess the strategy of 'turn the store into a showroom for the website' works better for big box stores in terms of short term share prices?
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Jun 29, 2016 22:08
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amazon same day delivery is going to absolutely destroy every big box store lol
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Jun 29, 2016 22:21
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kazr posted:amazon same day delivery is going to absolutely destroy every store lol
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Jun 29, 2016 23:02
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That'll leave more room for condos!
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Jun 29, 2016 23:09
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This was interesting to me when i worked at best buy. It used to be the salesmen would get seminars on stuff, the big name reps would come in with some swag and training and it was a Big Deal to work there. I came in on the tail end of that and you could eee the vesitges of the old system there. Intel offered like 80% off their new i7 series processors and youd only get it if you took their training courses. Thats a huge deal, right? Their training was actually on point and made you feel knowledgeable about the product. The thing was you had to do it all on your own for any of these training programs. The store wanted you to sell more stuff and warranties and cards. The employee had to be passionate on their own to actually become good sales people. I dont think they even offer that kind of thing for their employees anymore and they wonder why people hate going in there.
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Jun 29, 2016 23:25
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I know someone that worked at BB recently and she told me it was 95% selling phones and crap people could get cheaper online and 5% getting yelled at for not selling enough warranties.
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Jun 29, 2016 23:30
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Ah yes, the Radio Shack business model. Solid plan.
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Jun 30, 2016 00:00
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kazr posted:amazon same day delivery is going to absolutely destroy every big box store lol It will really screw up Wal Mart but I don't see it impacting places that sell stuff like refrigerators or washing machines or anything. Just basically everything else though. Buy stock in retail locations that sell cold drinks or something you really can't get from Amazon even same day.
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Jun 30, 2016 00:03
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seems like walmart's prices beat amazon on a lot of items though
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Jun 30, 2016 00:05
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