Dick Smith Sales hoarders make news.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/angry-shopper…
"DICK Smith says it is investigating reports that staff “hoarded” sought-after items such as TVs and MacBooks during its fire sale, leaving genuine customers out of luck.
MOD: Remove excessive quoting.
What are they gonna do….."dont do it again guys!"
DSE cant keep going the way its going so its not like any of their staff value thier jobs anymore. Its only a matter of time
From news.com.au:
One poster on the OzBargain forum reported staff at a store in Robina, Queensland, “[filling] up a trolley” with cameras “leaving nothing for anyone else”.
Another claimed a Dick Smith employee had told him staff were told in an email they couldn’t buy sale products until Monday. “I said, ‘But that doesn’t stop you from hiding stuff out the back’, they both snickered and made it half obvious that they were hoarding,” he wrote.
In fairness, why not. Especially considering the uncertainty over DSE's future
Yeah I don't blame them. As if all the ozbargainers on here would not have done the same.
+1 I'd rather them sell off to cashies for a quick buck or two when their employment goes belly up, than become yet another dole bludger.
Doesn't this happen everywhere? I mean was a post last week on a fb group im in that EB Games sold a reserved collectors edition by "mistake" to the Manager.
Both stores I went to, the staff admitted as such (putting items out back to buy later themselves). But the staff were so inundated with price changes in the stores we went to, that we still managed to pick up some bargains thanks to the price list Danzan22 posted. The staff seemed shocked when they scanned some of the items we bought and saw the prices. One staff member got upset though and demanded to know how we knew of the price reductions. When I said we had a price list, he proceeded to post about it on the electronic DSE internal memo board.
Hope for the staff's sake that DSE doesn't go under. But as a shopper, can't see us going into DSE again anytime soon.
It's old stock, discontinued stuff that takes up space. Smartest thing they can do is write it off, now they can fill shelves up with the latest stuff and increase the sales per sq m in their stores.
Good on the staff for saving something for themselves. Really I don't get the fuss. What difference does it make they're still a customer and a consumer. No such thing as 'fair' in life. You get what you can when you can and seize every opportunity that comes your way. Otherwise you'll end up being a sucker forever..
From what I've heard they are on stop credit so need to pay off some debts to get the cash flow happening again. Hear say though…
i reckon they did that when i went there. picked up the boxes for items on the tables, but the staff couldnt find them out the back
Is that why I can't find anything to buy at my 2 local Dick's stores? Anyway, it is a disaster because the price is not clearly marked and you only knows the sale price if get it scanned on the counter and there are so many people lining up to scan items.
Broden must work at DSE these days
The bigger concern is how poorly the sale was executed. The sale was meant to be on Saturday but items were being sold during the week. DSE is in shambles.
no one knew what was going to be on sale, and just dumped out the front when they got around to it
exactly the same as the game sale from a few years ago. How can they not learn from their previous mistakes?
really stupid of them, it could be all positive PR but they just get themselves in worse.
buying a handful of products for you/family/friends/sell is one thing, but a trolley load is going too far into the selfish zone.
DSE could have used this sale to a huge advantage if they did it correct. (Ie advertised this sale and the prices)
In essence it turned into a staff sale, with other people getting a few bits n pieces.
If this was an official pre Xmas sale they could have got some great / positive publicity.
A poorly executed Dick Smith sale?
Noooooo… That would never happen.
/S
Maybe Mr Abboud should actually get out from his ivory tower and into the stores.
What's happening here is chickenfeed compared to the rorts in Canberra that's always reported in the media.LOL!
Very true old rocker…. They will be out of a job soon anyway so any profits made from gumtree will tide them over until the Centrelink payments arrive lol
I'm a DS Supervisor at a large-format store and I have ties with Head office.
The staff only found out about the sale the night before it happened, and everyone I've spoken to across Sydney has worked 11 hours days for up to 8 days in a row. I think people assume that because there was no stock it means that staff took it all, but we're mostly too dead to even think about it. There really just wasn't all that much clearance stock on big-ticket items.
Also, we're almost all ozbargainers. Almost everything I bought I found through ozbargain. Our system only updates once a day with stock levels and we don't see prices until the morning that they change unless we go looking for them specifically.
The reported incident with Macquarie was false. The way it was reported doesn't make any physical sense if you've seen how DS stock is stored/organised there, and the store is new so it's prioritised for new stock meaning that it has very little clearance stock. Similarly, there have been large forced stock movements from small to large stores, I don't know personally but I would guess that a trolley full of cameras is a transfer instead of staff being masochistic enough to want to parade staff purchases in front of ravenous shoppers.
I appreciate that most comments about job security come from a genuine place of empathy. That said, I don't believe that 400 + stores will close simultaneously. I suppose time will tell.
Generally I've found that people will believe whatever they want to believe anyway, but I thought I'd weigh in and try to clear up what I can.
Finally someone from DS telling how it is for stores during this event. Hope you don't get in strife for this post.
Ah yes this is the internet, so someone says that they saw this, because thats what they think when they cant find a bargain that they want, and rather than say they THINK its happening, they just make up the story.
But a 100 years ago my grandfather made up a story about a fleet landing in perth, about 5 hours before it did. Cheering crowds etc, as he would miss his deadline, if he waited for the actual event.
No internet then to catch him out…
Reminds me of Car Dealership. There was one Manager who had 'hoarded' 6 demo cars, loaned out to family and friends for weeks and months.
Sales aren't just about "getting it out the door" it's also getting people to visit the stores, relate the brand with having good prices and so forth. At a later date when multiple stores have the same product at a comparable price in future they want people to visit theirs instead. You don't want people to only visit your stores only when you're practically giving stock away (shockingly; business don't want customers who will only buy your product when it's selling at a loss. "Thank god you bought 100 cans of 75% off milo, we were going under otherwise"). No business is grateful for the person who only ever buys from them on loss leaders, they want to build a long-term relationship.
Staff taking a bunch of specials on-top of complete mismanagement organising the sale does "rob" shareholders though. As if their brand isn't tarnished enough down it sinks even further.
Very true and they've certainly built a long term relationship with me - a relationship where I shop anywhere but Dick Smith.
that's the problem with businesses in this country — they only like you when you pay full price for their crap.
sure, the bottom line is important but if a company treats me like dirt because i'll only buy from them if the price is right, i could care less about some "long-term relationship."
they'd be good for nothing more than one-night stands
Over the years I have got really good bargains at DS. This time there was very less stock left for clearance even though discounts were deep. Ended up getting crap $2 items like headphones etc.
lol was just reading that too ;)