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.
Which sale period is best to buy from your store? e.g. Boxing Day, EOFY Sale, a week before Christmas.
I'd say EOFYS would be bare bones rock bottom prices, most things are low as they go, but if you come in at the ends of the days you can nab some really good buys especially on end of life items, good time to make offers as well as they care more about $turnover value rather than profit margin at this point.
if you come in at the ends of the days
So when fire and brimstone is raining down upon the Earth and the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse show up, pop in to your local JB Hi-Fi just before you're relegated to eternal damnation, for a sweet deal on a brand-new iPhone.
Pro Tip: Resist any temptation to buy Apple Care warranty in this situation.
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you got me there
What if I know exactly the product I am after and happy to pay the asking price?
Can I grab the product off the shelf and take it to the counter, by-passing a sales person?
Does that negate possible commission for what would have been a sales person?
Where does that margin then go and would it be possible to negotiate this price at the cash register?
Picking up what you want and going up to the counter will automatically negate any cmomission and nobody will get it, unless the counter staff are helping a particular sales person they might put it in their number, then they will get the commission.
Typically no, you cant negotiate with the counter staff this prevents queues from building up, occasionally you can if the item has been opened or if it's slightly worn or something missing. If you do want to negotiate they will call up a sales person for you. If you're in luck a manager might be there and do it for you.
I have had on multiple occasions done this, they make an intercept and throw some initials on it and knock $5 for you.
Obviously you must be one of the nice polite customers who come in.
Nothing to ask here, but just wanted to say that I enjoyed reading your AMA. Very insightful and honest.
Thank you! I've always wanted to do this but wasn't sure if I'd get booed off the forum or not lol…..
How much is the staff discount roughly? Does it vary for certain products? (e.g. games, apple, cameras, etc.)
Everything is different.
Apple - Nearly nothing - Customers get better deals
Mobile phones - Nearly nothing (apart from weird Samsung staff only deals)
Game Consoles - Nothing
I would like to answer a bit more but I think I don't think it'd help knowing.
I will say though that Retail price at some other stores is cheaper than some staff price items.
why they did the trade 3 old games for 1? what do they do with those old games no one's buying?
That is actually something I don't know tbh, I didn't stay in Games for very long.
I might be able to answer this (I worked in JB games section when these deals were the rage). New games make nearly no profit, especially around launch when retailers are competing on price. Pre owned games on the other hand, had great margins. So say you sell a new release for $60, you might make a loss of $5 (hypothetical numbers, I don't remember the cost prices). Where as if you take in three games that could each potentially make $30-40, then the store is coming out on top. They made the bet safer by having the exclusion list; only accepting games that had a reasonably high resale value.
i doubt there is no profit even at $59 per game. will be nice if theres someone from jb cost accounting who could shed some light.
Can assure you what ever profit made from a $59 new game sold would have been negligible and eaten up by the supply chain.
They still end up selling those 3 old trade in games for around $20-$30 a pop. That's why. Generally the games that are part of the trade in programs aren't THAT old.
What's with Telstra plan from JB, how do JB gain profit from it? Do you know about the loophole https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/468222 where people sign contract for a phone from JB then change it to month to month plan from Telstra without any termination fee? Do JB or the employees have any impact from people doing this?
For every Telstra contract signed up at JB there's a renumeration paid to JB, and it ties in with the philosophy of the one stop shop for all your needs.
I wasn't aware of this loophole tbh. It's very hit an miss dealing with telstra backend.
I to believe that if you sign up to a contract and later have it cancelled a claw back is done on budget and commission paid to sales staff.
I'm not so sure what would happen in this case tbh.
JB Hi-Fi has no impact on this loophole. If the contract is cancelled prematurely JB Hi-Fi won't be paid the full incentive. This potentially could be deducted from whatever the JB Hi-Fi staff member received as commission.
JB Hi-Fi gets paid by Telstra to sign up a customer, you get more for new customers. If the customer cancels the contract this fee gets returned to Telstra. I'm assuming they also get paid on the backend based on how many months the individual stays with telstra.
Thanks for the well articulated and insightful AMA. BEST AMA EVER!
You're welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Do people still buy CDs? Who?
I still buy CDs of my favourite band and most times they have JB exclusives such as extra songs or special album artwork
Lots of people do, I wish they would organise artist signings and stuff more often again.
I'll buy CD's sometimes from the servo to get an extra 4c off with my voucher. Make great Christmas presents
Same as your vote count :P
Why all the negative votes? Weird!
This one is pretty much the same and has many positive votes?
What are the exact costs that you include when JB staff check their computer and quote a cost price? (It's obviously not just the invoice from the distributor for the product only).
Do you know the % of overheads included in the cost price?
The % varries greatly, can't really say how much. Below is a list of price boundaries we can go to.
*retail price - on the ticket
*go price - what they can discount without butchering their commission
*event sale price - no discounts beyond that unless you buy huge bundles
*zero - no commission paid
*-10% - 10% below zero - store loss/negative commission
*apparent cost - staff price
*real cost - supplier price which nobody gets
I should mention none of these are fixed and vary between every item.
Thank you
I should mention that difference between ticket and -10% could be 10$ or 100$ there's no fixed spread.
I have tried my local JB store four times to price match online price (local Australian stores). All these times i was deadset to buy, but they refused to match price and i had to buy online. I even offered them to add delivery fee as per advertised stores to make exact same price.
TBH i prefered my money to help local store as store is only 3 years old and still there is not much traffic there. It is beyond my understanding why my local JB store is this snub. I'm not ready to bealieve that all my sales were going to make them loose money.
I'm not really sure why they wouldn't price match. Could you give me a little more context about what the item was and what stores you were price matching?
Which local Australian stores? I'm quite interested to know as it is interesting to know which ones are out there.
This has been my experience as well! Stores around me Would not even price match Officeworks.
They wouldn't even price match Bose QC35 II from Officeworks or Camera gear from online Australian retailers.
Every. Single. Time. "sorry we cant price match because it is a grey import…"
Grey import.. from Officeworks?!
A few years back I got a 15" MacBook Pro of JB for a 28% discount by price matching Harvey Norman, other JB stores, Officeworks and Apple. It was excellent!
Online only stores are a bit of a stitch up, I have a feeling in the next 3-5 years this will change, so hold out for that.
Not price matching Officeworks is ridiculous. I'd definitely email a complaint in and send it to multiple store emails. It will get through and you should get some good resolution out of it.
Who does all those neat cardboard drawings of videogame or cartoon characters?
Varies between stores, there's usually 2-4 people who rotate doing it.
does having art skills make you a more lucrative hire? doing those drawing would be a dream side gig for me, i love seeing them at different stores :D
((potentially could you just do that and not have to deal with customers??))
Heck yeah it does! Every store has their own people which they shuffle from various departments, you could even just ask to come in and do solely that if you like, depending on that the managers are looking for.
Would be great as the people who end up doing them usually have 2 million other things to do.
I would just go in every week and hassle them to better your odds.
Are hipster fashions, hairstyles, tattoos and piercings compulsory for all staff?
Not really tbh, JB likes people who like people.
Reason my local JB would decline to price match this and try to sell me an iPhone 8 instead?
Depends what store you were trying to price match. What store was it?
The receipt is from a JB Hifi…
Ahhh sorry I misread your comment.
The price on that receipt would be well and truly under apparent cost for the store. Typically there would only be about $10~ margin on any iPhone, even then they aren't allowed to do this. The price on that receipt would be the result of some sort of deal/negotiation with the store manager.
This only happens when the customer is buying a tonne of stuff(think $10k+ worth of stuff), they are an actual regular or there was some colossal stuff up which requires the customer to be compensated.
This isn't exclusive just to JB, I'd imagine HN or any other retailer would be the same. Below the floor value discounts are case by case. If they had to price match that receipt, then the default price would just be that as everyone would just price match it making the ticket irrelevant.
How many piercings and/or tattoos do you have? Man bun? Lilac hair?
I worked at the flagship store for a couple of years and during that time I did end up getting eyebrow and ear piercings and started wearing clothes I would not normally think where my style.
When your in the JB Hi-Fi ecosystem you definitely start to feel the pull towards being "with it".
I some how remained a clean skin the whole time I was there lol
Beard? Beanie or unusual hat? Flannel Shirt? There where many ways they get you…
Why are PC peripherals so overpriced in comparison to your PC outlet stores like Msy etc?
That would be a HR question tbh, there have been instances where I found staff price would be higher than retail price at other retailers. I never got an answer as to why this was the case.
They're more so convenience sales than anything else I would imagine. Otherwise drive to MSY/centrecom - most busy families or businesses wouldn't bother. When I used to overlook a retail chain and a monitor broke/keyboard/mouse would just walk into JB and pay whatever price.
It's a different market to deal with pro-sumer.
Yeah I kind of assumed that too but even on through their "madness sales" the prices are still higher than what it would be at your Msy's etc
Yeah that's the thing, some of the prices don't make sense and some of the prices are bang on good.
So where do you work now? At a competitor?
Can't disclose that unfortunately. Rather not be identified.
Are you breaching any confidentiality terms of your employment with any of your posts?
Cant breach any NDA terms if I'm not an employee anymore!
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Just be careful ..
Cessation of employment may occur due to many reasons, but termination of employment does not imply that the employment contract entered into, is rendered meaningless or has come to an end.
Confidentiality employment contract terms may continue to apply after you cease working for JB.
I can't start blabbering government secrets around the world after my employment ends.
It’s JB hifi.
Hardly the NSA or Area 51.
Maybe at corporate + level.
Are staff encouraged or known to push product A over Product B in order get larger volume bonuses with Product A even though it's an inferior product?
I've never seen this sort of scenario. JB is actually so much on the side of customers side than people realise.
The only thing I would see is maybe there would be some push to sell a previous version before a new revision of a product comes out, but that rarely ever happened.
There was never a conversation of "alright guys we gotta sell these stale turds before those new shiny things come in and make sure you charge them full price"
If we were ever trying to get rid of stock, it was always discounted and bundled with anything a customer would need.
Yeah they are when a product has a spiv attached to it ! I used to down sell or push that one in order to get an extra $50/100 on top of normal commission happens all the time in I.T, Visual and cameras ! There's no volume bonuses just more $$ for the salesman
*Ex tv salesman for 5 years.
When Hisense was gaining traction they had some decent comms but they weren't half bad, Teac did some 55"s years ago and had $50 per one, we pumped out 18 in a week with a 50% failure rate lol
There's a reason some TV's come with a 3 Year warranty and that should speak for itself lol…..Selling Hisense was no different to selling Soniq TV's.
I never sold any of them unless people really wanted it, not worth doing the JBRLS.
'Selling Hisense was no different to selling Soniq TV's'
I thought Hisense was a cut above Soniq?
@JimB: They are definitely better now, they have better binned panels than Soniq by a long shot, but I treated them the same as when they first showed up they had the same warranty period as Soniq. I was a bit suspect of them and sure enough their earlier RMA rates were high, these days Hisense has some really good CQ and much better standard of panels.
Just a reminder I left a few years ago.
That was what I was afraid of.
When you say extra commission, is that due to higher overall profit margin on one product or because there an extra commission for that particular product?
Extra commission would be a SPIV given by the supplier, maybe JB, it wasnt always clear, but they mostly came when a product was going to be refreshed or JB placed a massive order so they got a slightly better price to push it. They would show up for the first weeks when a product is released as well then disappear.
If you wanted to buy a Sony TV for certain feature or what ever we may cross sell you to something else with the same value/feature/price but that's only done when the Sony you are after isn't within your budget or in stock.
There are sales people who would obviously steer you to the SPIV product when customer seek recommendations, but no good sales person is going to willfully compromise your TV experience so you he can get an extra 10-50 only to risk it being taken off when the customer comes back to return the product and ask for a refund.
If you want to avoid being given the "inferior" product state the your expectations and experience you would like your product to give you before hand.
At my local JB Hifi, I have a salesperson who is my goto person for every purchase. He has been able to price match / provide the lowest price almost every time I have asked, to the extent that now when he tells me his best price, I don't feel like asking him if he can do better cause I trust that it is the best price he can do. He was quite happy to give me his mobile number so I normally can text him and agree on a price and rock-up to the store and be out in like 5 minutes. Funny enough it all started when I was standing in front of 75/85inch Tv and my initial impression of him was far from what he actually is. He is only young but as the OP said, he seems to be the kind of bloke who has been there forever and probably is a senior member of the team and yes I got my Sony-XM3 from him for $274 odd with TGG price match!
Just from that I can tell you're on that level of banter/friendship where there is a lot of trust, the same kind I made with a lot of customers who followed me around to various stores. Make sure you buy him a coffee or doughnuts! Or send in email compliments to the store! It really does make peoples days and helps them keep going.
If I offered you $50 cash - would you be inclined to go out of your way to offer me the best price on a decent tv?
Or if I’m in the market for a washer/dryer/tv ect. Put a list of models with a pineapple would that help?
Or would I need to go to a manager to do so?
Hahahha yeah that’s be a quick way to lose a job lol…….I believe that’s a no go zone and would lead to termination. Tempting but I never took similar offers.
Best bet is build rapport with a staff member and go that route.
I've done that a couple times I looked after this Asian guy who spent $10k on Apple products with me did it all at cost got no commission and shook my hand with $200 cash in it. But it's not worth risking your job doing it often !
Any tips on landing a job with JB?
Either in sales or storeperson?
(I've applied for a storperson position and hoping to get an interview).
TIA!
Know someone already on the inside, be a people person and persistence.
Bring in a resume ever week if you can.
What tips do you have to get the best price when negotiating a deal on a TV?
Do your research
bring in screenshots of competitors websites
Pay cash/gift cards
Don't bother using interest free terms as they won't discount
Be nice and tell them you want a deal today if the price is sharp enough
Usually coming in say 5pm or late on the weekends will help get a good deal as it goes to their budgets
Also if the price is better on eBay with a coupon just buy it from them as that price is usually way below JBs staff price
bring coffee and doughnuts
Thanks for your AMA. I'm good friends with 2 of the long termers at my local. Often I'll swing past and say hello + coffee etc. When I do buy stuff through their "PDAs" and they print out the magic slip to take to the counter, should I or should I not then pay using GCs? I was once told that if I was using a GC, it had to be put through another way? Othertimes I was told it was OK to use the GC's, when I checked to see if I could use them together with the magic slip (because I didn't want the salesperson to get in trouble)
How does this work and is it generally nicer for me not to pay with GCs when taking magic slips up to the counter? As much as I love a deal I'd hate to be eating into someone's comms or getting them into trouble.
Just checking before I answer, when you say GC, is that the Gem finance card or is that the normal gift cards?
Gift cards are fine, they don’t cause any trouble. Gift vouchers on the tail end of Receipts or emails can cause a bit of an issue, finance cards can be a bit annoying to deal with and eat into the stores money.
Nothing serious, but the finance cards can cause some trouble.
Just a normal gift card!
Yeah those should be fine, lot of the counter stuff can get confusing, if there's mix/matches or this and that you have to scan things in a certain order to get them.
Gift cards never get anyone in trouble.
@foolsgold: Finance cards are alternative monthly payment options.
Theres HSBC and Gem. Gem isn't really used anymore.
High interest if you don't pay on time, otherwise really great for businesse and paying things off over time.
@foolsgold: Apologies, they are Credit Cards, me calling them finance cards is just the jargon I used to use.
If it's an item you can pay off in 3 months, your only fee would be $59. If you buy during a sale like 50 months interest free it would be $59 for every year you have the card or you can pay it off early without any early finalisation fees.
On the website, a dash cam was roughly $100 and I was willing to pay $100 and I couldn't be bothered asking for a discount. Went to a rep and asked if any of X model is in stock, he said yes. Then he started yapping about extended warranty, I butted in and said no and just want the item without the addons. He then said, he can make the price $89 WITH extra warranty included. So I saved $11 w/ extra warranty which was pretty nice of him.
1 - Would he had made commission on the sale?
2 - Was he just being nice?
3 - Or was there was a push on extended warranty and it happens my item was a perfect fit for it?
I found it weird he just gave it to me.
He likely needed to keep his stats good in order to be eligible for commission.
Like units per sale need to be greater than one (warranty counts as another unit).
Also the number of warranties sold also would be a KPI they need to meet.
What would really annoy them is if you return the next day as ask for a refund on the warranty. Because he would not have put the warranty through as $0 on the reciept.
This way you get your $100 dash cam for $89 less the price of the warranty on the reciept..
Basically what Moral Hazard said is correct, there would have been a solid $0.50-$0.90 of commission he would have made on that sale on a generous scale.
He would have likely come out of a training session where a sales manager would've been hammering him to up his IPS.
It was the Samsung NX500, $200 commission for selling a $600 camera, (profanity) mental. Never had a big comission like that by itself again.
I was on about ~22$ an hour, after commission I was making about ~30~35$ an hour this could dip greatly though.