I’ve worked in about 10 different stores in my time at the company, been in every department from apart from whitegoods and carsound.
You could say I’ve been around the block a few times lol…..
If there’s something’s you are curious about, fire away.
Edit - Hey guys, I did leave a few years ago, I wouldnt be the best for asking buying advice on what to buy.
@DryScissors: Maybe not the worst. They just seem angry that they're not working in some uppity pretentious café where they can more freely ignore customers.
either their a Gemini
I believe you're thinking of the Scorpio stereotype. Geminis just talk a lot.
Since you're in QLD, is your recruitment strategy to stand outside Fortitude Valley at night and offer anyone walking out of a pub or club a job?
JB hires people who like people. :)
So perfect for people like me then?
do you post AMA posts and then never respond? Is this JB policy?
My understanding of this post form factor is that it is traditional to hang around and answer questions right?
Sorry I was asleep.
I posted it around 6am, I wanted to get a little bit of a nap in and wait for the questions to build up.
Give him a break - he's sick. What do you get from bashing him?
What is your juiciest gossip involving 2 (or more) other staff members?
I'll start. All the way back when I worked for a big box store in my uni days, a female employee had managed to sleep with over 50% of the staff at a particular store and end 2 engagements. Otherwise she was a nice lass.
I found my manager on Tinder, lucky I found them before their partner and kids found out. Still keep that favour in my pocket for a rainy day!
Don't seem like they hire good people then lol
I'd like you to find me any industry where people are completely entirely wholesome.
Sounds like a manager at an electrical retailer I used to work at.
Employees sleeping with each other is fairly common, also theft remains a problem with some individuals. One of the coordinators I worked with was caught hiding headphones under his shirt, taking them out of the store and then trading them for meth. He once came back with a black eye and claimed it was because a box hit him in the face. It didn't.
Lmao that's insane. Don't think I've ever encountered something like this in my time at JB.
I know someone who use to buy stuff at staff price and ebay the items just to boost themselves a little.
Do the scrawny security guards ever catch anyone stealing stuff?
They do, they are lovely people and always help out when they can.
U go on and do that son, u do that
Yeah, Dad, I will, take all the things and he won't look at me
The guard at one of my local JBs is a 7-foot behemoth and you wouldn't want to be caught stealing from his store.
I'm 8 foot super Saiyan, if he values his life big elephant knows his place
I work retail, the scrawny / overweight dads type guards don't do shit.
They hassle the elderly/small-sized customers and check every shopping bags in their trolleys.
They big-sized muscular giant sized customers… they are not in sight.
When they theft in progess is discovered/alerted and we let the guard know about it. He stands at the end of the aisle to 'observe the thief'. When the thief leaves the store with the goods, he pulls out the 'we are not protected/covered/allowed to catch them outside the store'
I reckon these scrawny guys are cheaper to hire compared to those huge giant muscular guys. My boss is cheap so who you hire is what you sow.
I use to work for the Company that provides all the guards at the front and covert guards in plain clothes.
There is a no touch and chase policy if they physically resist. Their are only allowed to verbally instruct and document for police and mall staff to follow up.
JB management has asked for this after a major melee a few years ago in the store with a guard vs bunch of teenages and it went on ACA
Can you spot an OZbargainer from a mile away? If so, what are the signs?
They use discounted gift cards to buy TVs.
The TVs also have to be severely discounted as well to begin with.
lololol I don't think I ever thought of this while working there, I always saw people as just trying to get the best bang for their buck and I cant blame them for that.
Lololololol I'd just give anyone game enough to wear that a good price by default.
Why did JB ruin the Good Guys?
The GG in my area used to have great staff who were friendly and would go the extra mile to help.
Now they baulk at giving reasonable discounts saying they aren't allowed to anymore and the new staff replacing the original ones are JB clones. (Dumb as dog's s**t).
Sorry to hear that Hithere,
The acquisition did happen after I left so I dont really know much about the Goodguys staff and their quality of service.
I noticed this too in terms of staff being shuffled around. I think different kinds of people shop at specific store and people have come to expect different things. I'd suggest maybe the person you were dealing with was new to the department they were in or filing in for someone.
If you like shoot me a pm and I'll try my best to help you get the quality of help you'd like.
A company acquiring another doesn't mean that their staff are replaced, unless of course the store was dysfunctional to begin with.
Corporate culture tends to come from the biggest organisation, which also includes hiring and firing types and even certain people.
SO yes almost always (unless they have fired walled it) the big company will dominate the small company, which may lead to sackings.
when i tried to price match jb staff will say oh no this is wayyyyyy below our cost (even though the price matching i ask is not that big difference) . is that below our cost phrase true?
Apple products, yes.
Mobile Phones, yes.
Gaming consoles, controllers and games, yes.
It depends what the brands/products are and depends on the commission structure.
I spent some time working at a telecommunications store with published cost prices in our systems. Then i went and worked for a supplier. Those cost prices weren't true (especially once you took volume rebates etc.. into account).
To be fair it wasn't all brands, just the high volume stuff at the time (hint: wasn't apple)
This said, none of this information will help you get a better price.
That's a given, I regularly found prices of cameras cheaper at Video Pro, often lower than the staff price at JB lol.
@tobi: ^^ this - I bought a 65" Samsung 4K TV delivered from Video Pro $300 cheaper than local JB Hi-Fi could do cash.
Those cost prices weren't true
Would the retailer's cost price includes overheads?
Like I might pay the supplier $50 for an item, but then I need to pay $20 of labour to unbox it and put it on a shelf, and $2 of electricity to power the display item, and $5 of my rent to cover the floorspace.
@abb: I too would like to understand the meaning of cost price. Surely overheads are factored in without the commission…?
@abb: Some companies do. HN for example would get a rebate for X amount for an SKU then they'd add some overheads where applicable - depends on how they wish to do their finances and accounting.
E.G. $20 per unit for an SKU product from a supplier. They buy 1000 units of this SKU and they may get rebate for $2.50 per unit due to this purchase volume. + - overheads and you'll get a cost price etc. CP can be adjusted on the go depending on product, currencies etc to my understanding.
Weird and complicated.
@abb: Generally, yeah. It's not necessarily the cost of purchasing the item for sale, it's the cost of doing business for that item.
E.g. HN has a system called 'Tag' where it is the purchase cost price + warehousing + some percentage based on the supplier and how much advertising the supplier does with the company.
Conversely, and I've seen this across all of the major big box stores where I have worked all manner of shifts, there are deals that wont automatically lower the cost price using unit cost averaging.
e.g: Big PC brand X will give head office a deal on a PC. Buy over 1000 units, get a matching monitor for $200. Over 2500, $100. Over 3000? Free monitors. (all figures purely to illustrate a point). H/O will organise purchases in bulk, and organise distribution to the store. These monitors will have a specific SKU that allows them to be entered into the system at $0 + warehousing cost (e.g. $15), but they will also have a SKU that already exists at the full ticketed price from a previously purchased batch (typically these deals are for older gear they are trying to shift).
Every time a sale is made, the staff enter the old SKU and end up selling the free monitors at close to full ticket. If they have a sale that warrants it, they can get the free SKU to enter into the system to sell at a significant discount.
Not all staff are initially given the new SKU, as the props want you to sell the "free" items at full price, but certainly the cost price is not (automatically) averaged down across all remaining items in stock to reflect the new cost price.
He did say you could ask anything.
No answers were promised.
Once a JB staff member, ALWAYS a JB staff member.
I'm sorry I was asleep.
Why did you get fired
Didn’t comply with minimum tattoo requirements…
Why did you get fired
They got fired because they served a customer immediately instead of either hiding or chatting to another staff member for 10 minutes first.
Towards the end I actually tried to quit repeatedly for a few months and they wouldn't let me go.
Hahaha, that's not how employment works… Is it a retail store or a concentration camp?
I cant say too much but I only stayed because of how crazy things were at my last store and I didnt want to leave my manager high and dry. I was a leatherman tool you could use in any department and we were a little short on staff at the time, so I stayed for a bit longer than I wanted. No regrets. I loved working at JB.
How do i get a trading account at JB Like a 30-60 Days Account
You might have to go in and ask a sales person about Commercial Solutions. Give them your details about what you want and someone will come back to you.
Any price matching policy secrets would be gold.
Honestly, just make friends with a sales person you jive with, build some rapport with them, don't even have to spend money, we're all whores for positive reinforcement and a bit of kindness. Bringing them doughnuts may improve your odds.
Be genuine though, we cam smell you discount bois a mile away.
What are the subtle signs that, for you, readily give away that a customer will be a "discount boi"?
Scratches back of head with left hand, while fidgeting with his gift cards in his pocket with right hand
I remember I tried getting some games price matched once at my local.
The guy said sure, then disappeared for 30 mins and came back with a coffee. Then the idiot had to ask me again if I needed something.
That genuinely sucks man, I hope they sorted you out.
If things like that happen just ask to speak to a service manager or a department co-coordinator and let them know,
they'll end up helping you out in some way.
Thanks for the AMA OP? Where do you see JB heading in terms of what they stock? The CD sections are almost gone (I remember that JB pretty much started with just CDs) though vinyl seems to be making a comeback. I'm assuming DVDs and BDs will also be stopped soon. Interested to know what you think they will be replaced with? More electricals/homewares/games…etc?
JB Hifi Direction - I have a strong feeling JB will become more and more successful considering GG acquisition and the $21 million budget Telstra gave them to put into the telco division to bring in more customers. How that happens is not a simple answer tbh.
The CD's and Vinyls are something that I think are a staple of JB and for now will possibly only be a novelty presence that's there to remind people where it came from, when I was leaving there were a lot of stores moving even that around and I dont think all stores carry them. It wont disappear as it's a metric JB sees that it can milk but not a strong one for sure.
I think Bluray Discs will be the standard for the next 5 years I believe and overlap with the 4K media for a while. And when NBN gets fixed in about 10-15 years, is when most physical Media will be phased out in Aus. Just my view.
Even while doing a lot of great stuff, JB actually fails in many regards, IT department severely lacks any good home server solutions, BTO is stunted to DELL and Apple, I really wish they had a BTO division which would compete with umart and msy etc….. I've seen skus for item that lead me to believe this is possible but only time will tell.
They sell virtually no professional video camera gear. The stills Camera departments are an embarrassment when you realise they only sell basic Canon, Nikon and Sony gear and you cant even order in most of the lenses in the catalogue. The camera accessories are so bad you might as well buy them off Ali Express tbh. I dont think JB hifi will ever go pro video/photo, I think they have no desire to do so, as the business model is to basically flip stock and camera gear does not flip quickly.
They virtually stock no projectors and lack any hifi setup to show customers how all their PRO High End speakers would sound. Most stores lack it, maybe there are some that do, most dont. If this is one thing every store could do adequately I would love it and would be on my wish list for Santa, I would go back in a heartbeat.
I'm unsure of the future of Whitegoods and Carsound tbh, they've recently moved kitchenware to Goodguys and some stores have removed their Carsound departments I believe.
The shift in the last 3 years has been very lukewarm with what we sell in stores , the only great addition I've seen in my time is the entire Drone, gimbal and automation section with the little cozmo ai toy and build your own stuff.
I think JB is doing a lot of good stuff, they just need a bit of specialisation going on in order to be great. They have to realise that they can't just be average at a lot of things, they need to be good/great at something. Kogan has been improving, more people are buying Grey Imports, Costco and Amazon are here already, I'm just waiting for B&H and NewEgg to move in.
Really appreciate the detailed reply OP! I agree that they need to focus on being good in some key areas rather than being average at everything, as you said. Very thoughtful answer!
Terrific insight. Greatly appreciated.
Even while doing a lot of great stuff, JB actually fails in many regards, IT department severely lacks any good home server solutions, BTO is stunted to > DELL and Apple, I really wish they had a BTO division which would compete with umart and msy etc….. I've seen skus for item that lead me to believe this > is possible but only time will tell.
For a company the size off JB Hifi I was horrified at the system(s) you use for B2B and keeping track of sales. I worked with the IT team in Melb to investigate B2B solutons for the JB commercial side of things. Which is basically a skin job on top of the JB Retail system. JB has a long way to go in terms of infrastucture to even get on a stable platform. Heck some stores in Aus and NZ dont even have an hard internet connection and relies on M2M/ Mobile broadband for running the stores..
lolololol at the skinjob joke
I honestly think they do have means to do it. It's the old dogs up the ladder holding the company back.
I mean how can you have the financial standing to buy and entire company with a supply chain for white goods and kitchen fixtures like Goodguys, but not start a BTO division which would operate out of maybe 2-3 warehouses and deliver to every store in the country?
Old dogs are just holding back the company and that's just a plain old truth. The same truth with any multi-million dollar company.
I wished JB would sell more computer equipment, like you said similar to MSY/CPL/CentreCom. But when you can get a better Cat6 for 25% of the JB price on eBay it's hard to see them ever competing.
Send emails every day! The more people ask, the better the odds of it ever happening.
I've seen skus for SSDs and other random components.
What’s your internal reaction when a customer tries to price match something by going to extreme ends. (internal reaction is how u feel, not how u react to it externally)
Also will someone be treated differently the next time if him/her is known to do alot of bargaining / counter offer/ price matching etc …
I always wondered about that last one.
Depends on how much time I spend with them, the $ value and commission structure. Assuming I spent a few hours and there's a big commission + spiv (spiv - is a special commission to push certain products) My first internal reaction is "okay how can I salvage this and offer the customer more value while trying to save my spiv and make this worthwhile"
If I can't salvage it I just price match and offer what ever I can even if it means I kill my commission into the negative, you can always go back to you manager and be like "yo dude I spent a bunch of time and managed a $5K deal but had to gut it." My managers were always god tier and would swing an extra $10-$50 for really good sales.
If it's only a small sale I never really cared, I'd much rather make someones day than fight for a couple of bucks.
Honestly if someone kept OzBargaining me we'd honestly have developed some rapport to become friends. In the end they would be my budget filler, I'd make no commission on them but I then have this A**h0le friend who at least shows up and puts some firewood in my fire and helps me keep my job.
Good stuff, Cheers mate!
Were you aware that Google sends in their own mystery shoppers to see check team member knowledge on Google Home, mini, pixel, and chromecast devices?
It's been a while but I believe Samsung and a few other brands also did the same.
I've done a few assignments for Samsung in JB Hifi Stores. Pretty much all big brands send mystery shoppers
Correct I've also done a number for Microsoft across the old Nokia phone range and surface, surface / book
ayyy, it's the mystery shopper AMA person. Have a gudday mate. :)
Lol mysteries revealed
Why does JB find excuses to not price match places like MSY ?
I do not have an answer that will satisfy you unfortunately.
The thing is most laptops/computers with identical specs can have about 100 variant SKUs. This means even if they came from the same brand like Dell, HP or Asus or whatever the Manufacturers would be selling to each retailer at different prices. As such I think the Computer dedicated store receive special pricing. As such JB, HN and GG are all treated differently and have a higher base price.
Is this a manufacturer SKU?
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/computers-tablets/laptops/hp/hp-sp…
https://www.harveynorman.com.au/hp-spectre-x360-13-3-inch-13…
if you look just under the names you'll find "5KF05PA" in this instance they are the same model with the same spec but the JB website though has something added onto it, I'm not 100% sure about this instance and it would be up to a manager.
@tobi: Price match $1696. Because since HN give me the gift card, you should price match from 1999 to 1696.
@Bills22: Would be a case by case basis, I dont think they'd give it to you at $1696, but you're welcome to try.
@Bills22: I'd suggest trying other JB stores, some managers will do something. They might try to meet you half way with matching the price and doing accessories.
I do know that stores down south operate a little differently in some aspects but over all the numbers are the same across everywhere.
@tobi: Looking at the two links the part numbers are the same and the SKUs are different, which makes sense. #ABG would just be something JB put on for whatever reason. The hash to me indicates that it is separate to the OE number.
Beyond company specific pricing based on quantity etc I don't think there would be any difference between what MSY would charge JB compared with any other retailer.
@mezje: Like I said, I wouldn't know in this situation and ask a manger. If it was a customer who was a regular, or someone who was good to deal with or buying a lot of stuff I'd make a case to price match it with the manager.
What is the actual commission structure? Varies for each category? and I think you mentioned you would get a negative commission on some sales which may write off commission of another sale?
I found the phone guys loved signing up phone contracts. When I went in one day with a corporate account with like 23 contracts the guy like died.
Games section - No comission
movies/music - No comission
Most of everything else there's a few dollars to be made.
lets say you want to buy a $800 laptop
The commission would be around $5-$20, but lets say this is a model that's being promoted for some new windows OS or something, the supplier will tag on an extra $5-$10(called a spiv).
What happens is if the ticket price is $800 you might have some room to bargain, as they discount to a certain point your commission decreases and then freefalls to less than half once you reach a certain point. Sometimes the extra spiv will be removed even if you only discount $1 from the ticket price, sometimes it stays.
If the item is on a %15 off sale, i.e. $800 down to $680, very often the commission will be a little more than normal, the spiv may or may not be there, but if you discount even a $1 you lose everything.
If you keep discounting or pricematch to something you will go into the negative.
Going into the negative doesnt take away any commission from you in the end, it's more of a mental thing I believe to deter you from getting to those points even if it's out of your hands. Occasionally I believe it did with weird mix/matches, but those can be corrected end of the week.
Why game discs have to be taken out? I always want sealed and wrapped games.
Unfortunately people steal the games from the boxes and this method allows for slightly better inventory management/transfers and stuff. If you do want a completely sealed game your best bet is near launch, ask the games coordinator in advanced to do this for you.
What is the biggest commision + bonuses you got from selling an item? And what item was it?
@freakatronic: I agree. They are the worst staff I’ve ever dealt with in any store!