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It is official. Dick Smith announced news for mammoth sales up to 80% markdown.
Gerry is not happy?!
News describes it as "suicidal sales".
Is it marketing or Kamekazi?
Your thoughts.
Please Help Dick Smith
eatwell365 on 05/12/2015 - 08:16
Last edited 05/12/2015 - 08:28
Last edited 05/12/2015 - 08:28
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kick off with my thought.
Discount is good.
So let's help to clean it up and ozbargain its warehouse.
Just make sure to pay with PayPal in case it goes belly up and no goods delivered.
dick down up to 80% ????!!! he needs some viagra now!
yes. blow up story doesn't help.
to be more precise, it helps.
But blow up alone does not solve the problem..
FInd me a good deal on a ~$1000 laptop and I'll buy it. I haven't seen any good deals yet.
would have bought dual sim phone Lumia 435 as a spare phone if $79.
just find out REWARD20 does not work on mobile during checkout. $99 still cheapest in market.
may be useful for some.Basically it's a financial con. They write off the clearance lines as losses, then anything they make on them appears as revenue. That way they can artificially blow up their quarterly figures. Their stock price goes up, controlling investors sell up and move on, and the new stockholders are left with a business that looks great on paper but for some strange reason just doesn't actually make money.
By the way, Dick Smith himself has zero to do with any of these shenanigans. He sold the business to Woolies a decade ago, who in turn sold it on.
The sale is a con too - they won't advertise any prices and tell you to go into the store to find items up to 70% off. It's just a scam to get foot traffic into the shop - there were no TV's on special in the three stores I went to on the first morning.
Anything that was worth getting was taken by staff - I could see them pulling stuff off the shelves and putting it out back before they opened the store.
Went into the store on Wednesday only to be totally disappointed as nothing much was on sale. Did buy a few iPhone charging cables for $1 each but the Galaxy S charging cables we really wanted were not on sale. Wanted to buy a new Asus laptop but ended up buying from JB later on the same day because it was better and cheaper.
Mate, like any clearance sale on limited stock, you had to be there at the right time and store. I miss out on so much been in Darwin but in this case I could of had my pick.
I imagine in every other capital city it was a bit cut throat after reading all the comments here and the eBay/gumtree 'new in box ads' but that's how it goes. If you can come up with a way that only allows every person to have only one item then maybe you would of got something but then people would of been making negative comments about that then.
It is possible to prevent this with a tiny little bit of effort. It is a matter of will. not possibility.
@Lysander:
Yeah you are right, the guy that come in strait after me (http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/tiwi/digital-slr/canon-700d-t…) bought all the cameras available and about 7hours later the lot are on gumtree. So two people enjoyed the discounts at Darwin cbd when it could of been about 10. If I was manager I would of told him to pick one and then bugger off and saved the rest for anyone else. Not saying he couldn't get all his mates in but at least it would of been something.good on you mate, name and shame in scum tree - luke smith what a wh@nker.
@DarwinBoy: They had this same system to distribute bread in communist countries, families would be allocated a ticket and allowed to collect there bread after waiting in line with 1,000+ other families. You would normally get your bread the next day as they would run out by the time you get to the front of line.
Well, I went to 3 shops, bought 60" TV's at two of them for a song each, and have been back to my local shop daily since Tuesday and bought a load of Ozbargain certified deals including the soldering station and tool kit. I wasnt picky, and I picked up heaps of stuff. If you rocked up to buy a TV, but happrned across a clearance tablet for 1/3 of the price of a new one, you are still winning.
As others have said, you need to be in the right place at the right time, and at least some and maybe a lot of luck is involved
A decade ago?
Try 1982. That's nearly 34 years ago!
Thanks for making me feel VERY old.
Hey, I still remember visiting his first electronics store at Gore Hill and being served by the man himself.
How old do I feel?
lol when you get old, events like that always feel like "a decade ago". My younger friends were laughing at me when I mentioned buying stuff from Tandy's once…
I still have my Tandy Robbie Jr toy robot and it still works. They don't make electronic toys like that anymore. I don't think it's made in China though.
Hmmm…. I should probably part ways and sell it.
It wasn't in 82 that it was sold to woolies.
Wikipedia says 1982. If that's incorrect you may want to update and link the wiki to a correct source.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Smith_(retailer)
Very eloquently put
Name one thing Dick Smith and Maggie Beer have in common.
Cookbook
Suicidal sale? Far from it. I wanted DSE to price match an Office Works clearance item but it couldn't because it was BELOW COST!
In the last year or so, I've never successfully done a single price match through DS. Everything is 'below cost' to them. E.g. Chromecast. $38 in Harvey Norman, they can't match because it's below cost to DS. Really?!! It costs DS more than $38 to stock a Chromecast?!
If you read the DS manager AMA, that is a blanket BS statement used to get out of price matching.
…up to 80% markdown.
After an 85% markup…
That would still be a 63% discount, so not bad. ;)
They are probably clearing out the crap they have had lying around for quite sometime. I'm not seeing discounts on things like the latest Apple iphones, ipads, etc. Will be interesting to see.
On the first day I bought a PS3 500GB with GTA V for $150. And PS3 and XBoxOne games for $10/$20 each, which isn't too bad. I was going to trade some in to EB for Fifa16 but EB only give up to $8 per game (some they give 50c!). Maybe have better luck at JB.
On the second day I wanted to get a clearance macbook but the stores either didn't have any clearance of them to begin with, or the one or two units had gone by 9:05 (probably staff and will see them on gumtree soon). I did get a nice notebook (brand new out of the box… I saw him unpack it) for $150, down from $500.
I just wonder on stock levels of the good stuff. Glad you got a bargain though.
Maybe they wound up Gerry to wake the media with a trademark whinge.
After whiskey and a cigar or three, such plots make for good banter; seeing how much of a stir can be made in the media with a sly comment- and cheaper than a campaign or offering any real 'deals'.
Makes for an especially good joke to drop whilst comparing numbers/share of pocket their various vehicles achieve per peasant.
Meanwhile Dick sits at home contemplating his wounds, wondering whether it was such a good idea to stick to his guns and rip people off in his old-fashioned ways. He could have been right up there enjoying life with all those wholesome and inspiring captains of Australian business- enjoying the intellectual conversations in the fine company of all the greatest Gliterati; polishing schemes to artificially pump revenues, royally rip investors (and anyone else they can find with desires to prey upon). He could even have beaten Clive to the post in parliament and be the people's champion. But alas, now we have a new breed, from a new class at Court- for Malcolm is taking that mantle too. Actually he's cleaning up, and taking it all back to Point Piper where a giant NBN-enabled (FTTRT) Round Table is being installed for a new millenium of controlled prosperity ;-)
Meanwhile Dick sits at home
He
Dick sold the business in the 80's. He's got nothing to do with it any more.
@Less Point; Sorry I didn't make it clear about that- my point was that he failed to get anywhere in business, or the Liberal party after he pulled out of the shops.
However maybe now he can buy it all back for $1 and take JB's on for the tortoise's trophy! It'd be good to be able to buy electronics (ie components) from there again…
Gerry is the scumbag here, do NOT forget, it is his inacessant whining about international purchases, not inflated retail prices and poor customer service, which is why retail is struggling in Australia and pestered until a new online tax has been introduced and implemented.
Gerry Harvey is the dirt below a steaming hot smelly pile of animal waste and even then, that's probably being generous!
Dick Smith should have told them they can't use his name for the business when he sold it on. Should have told them to change it to Richard Smith.
Hrm my first thought was to keep the first name as it's distinct and change the generic last name for another .. like 'Brown' … Oh wait on second thought your is better.
Wasn't it called DSE for a while, then they went back to Dick Smith?
Lol.
Still haven't seen one item worth buying in these supposed unprecedented "sales".
These events cater for cashed-up bogans, Centrelink-dependants and the clueless soccer mums who like their 50-month interest free deals; normal, intelligent, online-savvy folk like OzBargainers should be staying well away from any retailer using hysterical language in their marketing and promotional materials (e.g. "99th Closing-Down-for-Good Sale. Prices So Low The Store Manager Has Committed Suicide! Rush in Now Before We Go Straight to Hell!")
The article's opening line was spot-on:
offering discounts of up to 80 per cent off unwanted stock
You're goddamn right it's unwanted. Gee, old games from 5 years ago and products that have been out-of-production since people were worrying the world was going to end in 2012; Dick Smith you've done it again, I can't wait to head over to my local DSE to find threadbare shelves, non-existent staff, and products labelled with one price that scan at another price or products that should be discounted scanning at full price and bumbling idiots who don't know when their sales have actually started. What an excellent waste of a weekend.
You really need to look harder :)
Some is salty they missed out. There were heaps of bargains to be had obviously supply was limited and many items sold out quickly but they did exist. I personally scored a $49 nexus 7, galaxy tab s for 149 xperia z ultra for 74 and a retina macbook pro 2014 for less than half retail price.
Those were some good deals! I bought a Toshiba Encore tab for 48.
Yeah I saw that but it was ex display so I passed.
Like the games sale from a few years ago that was poorly run this too was in the same league. Having staff with no idea and products with no price tags made what should of been a great way to get people in store a frustrating experience.
Aside from that if you were one of the lucky ones you walked away pretty damn happy. I personally walked away with about $1600 worth of products for bout $300 and judging by the comments I wasn't the only one who was pretty happy.
It's not great making generalisations based upon your own personal experience when you can go through all the comments and see the last few days even been a headache were pretty awesome.Congratulations for what a good bargain hunting experience and results which has just awakened me.
With the advancement of technology, people (including myself) have the luxury of shopping online with the computer or phone. Wake up in the morning and the deals are posted or emailed in front of us. We forget the hard work behind - the need to hunt, in order to find a bargain.
Sitting here and ponder why.
Why wasn't the deal posted?
Why doesn't the code provided working?
Why only have a few hundreds for sale and gone in 60 secs?
Why people are so selfish and bogan on the hard work you post?Remember we used to walk or catch transport to find a bargain - one item or two, you go home and then tell your friends/family to visit the shops. Finding Bargain is hard work!!!! Not just click, click.
Picked up a second Nikon s02 for $29 at the Move store. Wish I could get the Canon Ixus 145s for $20.70 instead though.
What are the bargains? Is there a OzB deal post for this as it didn't come up when I search Dick Smith?
Where have you been nubzy, its been all over OzB since like Wednesday last week! :) Various postings, forum as well. Nothing left now - basically you missed a giant scavenger hunt for mostly unlabelled crazy low bargains in store only at Dick Smith, some of which were current models of tech planted in small quantities only to create a frenzy, many of which were end of line display stock etc.
In summary:
a few lucky people got crazy deals like 50inch TVs for $200, $1000+ cameras for $350, and $300 PVRs for $80 etc.
with some persistence many of us came away with some sort of 50-80% off something (even if it was just a $80 power bank for $20 or charger or ipad case down from $29 to $1), but not necessarily the main bargain that we wanted.
for most, the deals were hard to find, and many came away empty handed complaining of:
(a) staff that kept all the stock for themselves, or were just unhelpful or uniformed generally.
(b) the selfish entrepreneurial bargain hunters who went in at opening time and bought everything, who are now re-flogging their 5 tablets, 6 cameras and 7 TV's they snagged in one morning on gumtree.
Then there is those who missed the whole thing, who were hearing about it later and asking how to get a bargain… that's where you are now, but sadly I think its too late. However on the bright side, you probably saved yourself hours of searching for a needle in a haystack in a busy store where you would have had to repeatedly line up with a bundle of items waiting to ask the staff to scan them to see if they were on sale, only to put most of them back as they were the usual over-priced RRP.
Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, as it says in this forum, all of which was aimed at boosting sales figures to raise the plummeting share price.
"Fears of a price war"
Yeah, I'm utterly terrified.
Oh no, Gerry Harvey's greatest fear…. fair competition!
Gerry Harvey you low baller scumbag
I wonder if JB hifi will buy up Dick premises like they did with wow?
who knows? someone may try to put all the negative news out to get DSE share price to down nothing, then offer an attractive price to takeover overnight and make a bucket load of money. Happens often, I will be looking when it is 22 cents.
Im getting sick of these click and collect deals in the last few days for dick smith.
Everything is nearly impossible to find unless its just useless crap.I just got some batteries, charger cables and expansions for The Sims 3 for extremely cheap prices. I was happy with what I got. The Sims 3 expansions were $10 each, phone charger cables were $2 each, batteries were $2 for a pack of 8. I can see what people on this and other threads have been saying about Dick Smith only discounting rubbish old stock etc to try to clear it. Apart from the cables, batteries, a small selection of games, and phone cases, nearly nothing else was on special.
It's more so there is nothing left good on special.
I will still be dropping in again tomorrow to see if there is anything left or some bit of treasure bought out that was hiding behind all the other rubbish.I should have added that the store I visited was Tamworth. I haven't seen many good varieties of things in that store before.
personally, I picked up a few PS3 games for $10
there were one other thing I wanted, a Razer mouse mat marked down to $11 from $40 on the shelf, but it scanned as the full price at the counter, and the DSE staff wouldn't budge even after I took him to the shelf and showed his the price tag…..
other than that, I brought a DSE brand electronic door bell thing for $5, marked down from $55
That is poor form on the part of the staff that wouldn't sell you the discounted mouse mat despite their own tag… if it were something at woolworths you'd get it for free!
If the tag is there, isn't that along the lines of one the entries here https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/displaying-prices
or at Coles.
Wifey picked up some Samsung S4 cases for $1 on Saturday at Northland so she was happy, bit I can;t see how they are worth any more than $5 full RRP.
Also an Ipad Air Folio Move Case for $10, quality seemed quite good. People everywhere at Northland heard one staff member say it was busier than the boxing day sales. Nothing else of note in store. Glad I went to DJ's Bourke St on Friday though.
Interesting no comments from JB as yet re the DS sale.
Dick Smith is a share market listed corporation. It requires no help or assistance, and doesn't have some entitlement to survive. It's a non living non breathing entity.
If it collapses, the stores will be rented out to someone else and current employees will find other jobs. Shareholders will be wiped out, true, but perhaps in the future they will stop buying businesses that are purchased by private equity groups and then pumped and dumped. Its happened many times before and will happen again.
Wasn't worried too much it goes down.
More to gather help to clean up unwanted stock at bargain price.
I came back empty handed but was very happy that I couldn't buy anything like the $300 dslr that would probably be sitting idle in the cupboard for years to come. You know those grapes are sour ;)
Overheard a staff talking on the phone as I browsed the sparsely stocked DJs. Didn't get all of it, as I was wandering around. But a couple point stuck. He seemed to be talking to another DJ/DSE person.
- He was asking when they will get more stock. He had an entire wall empty.
- He mentioned they were "self-managing" for the past month.
- One staff was no longer giving a toss.
Personally, I think DSE will get worse, far worse before it have any chance of getting better. This round of clearance sales will generate some revenue. But they now have empty stores with little left to sell, and I doubt this little boost in income will get the supplier on board and give them more inventory.
was in the local DSE to have a browse today - it looks like closing down sale more than clearance sale. As you said, empty shelves everywhere.
I get the feeling that this is a futile attempt to get some cash in hand to keep the wolves from the door (or for the higher ups to pay for their golden parachutes). Staff member I spoke to was genuinely worried for their annual leave and long service entitlements and was actively looking for a new job…
Long service leave in a retail environment? Wow, now I have heard everything! :)
I have had look at few DSE stores around me an they have started to look like prawnbrokers !
One of everything. They had way to much outdated stock anyway Who pays $70 for a longer then 2m HDMI cable? Things like tablet and phone covers and cases these days? what are they worth? There worth only the moment butter fingers flips them onto the floor and cracks some glass ,them little phone repair kiosks at the shopping centers are making a Killing $$$.
Verdict is out. RIP DSE Jan 2016
they stolen alot money from investors, so lets say R.I.P to the dicks
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/223177