my co-worker at best buy thinks bose is "awesome!" (1 Viewer)

[Nathan W.]

I can remember listening to music from a portable tape recorder through one of those old mono, off-white colored plastic ear buds with same colored cable during the 70's. If you can find one of these relic ear pieces, drop it in your friends hand at BB. When he says "What's this?" you say "A better alternative to Bose."

 

[gene c]

If it wasn't for big box stores moving tons of merchandise, the MSRP's of the crappy to decent gear that would be mostly sold at Sears, Macy's, et al would probably be allot higher. That, in turn, would have an adverse affect on higher end products sold at A/V stores. Competition and sales volume do help to keep prices lower. Look at what Walmart has done to the price of just about everything.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

Have you worked for Best Buy, or are you simply parrotting the rumours? Perhaps the Canadian division operates on different principles, but frankly the type of work environment you suggest exists has not been my experience at all, just the opposite in fact. Sure it's a big cororation, but it's no wal-mart.....

 

[Drew_W]

Best Buy is all about helping the customer make the right choice (which God only knows how they do since they know next to nothing...you have a better chance of winning the lottery than being adequately helped start to finish at one of these big box stores...but I won't go there, at least right now)...but it's really about making the right choice with the service plan attached.

Remember the basic formula of Best Buy selling logic:

Apex + Service Plan = Sony.

And of course, your numbers affect your supervisor's bonus, as is to be expected. From what I hear though, very little of it (or none of it) trickles down to the employees. This could explain why (at least here) many of them prance around the store like they don't give a f$%@.

 

[Drew_W]

Oh and by the way, in regards to



I wouldn't put Monster Cable and Bose in the same category. At dealer discount (60% off) Monster is a great buy in my opinion, but not at full price. I wouldn't pay a dime for Bose...

It all boils down to the fact that they don't know any better. And they don't try to broaden their horizons. My standard test usually follows: name three or five (speaker/receiver/cable) brands that Best Buy doesn't sell. 90% will fail. And the question that usually follows is "and that kind of knowledge in your product field helps customers how?"

I don't want to come across as a snob here, but I feel bad for the people that come into stores wanting and expecting solid advice and can't get it, due to the lack of product knowledge on the part of the "Product Specialists".

 

[Lee Distad]

Jonathan, it sounds to me like you would be better off working at a higher end dealer that pays you commission.

Think about it, you can earn a flat wage no matter how hard you work, or you can make people happy by matching them up with the best product for their needs/wants and get compensated in direct proportion to your professionalism and work ethic.

I sat through the Best Buy recruiting fair when they came to town more out of desire to be amused than anything else. The best retail parallel I can draw is that Best Buy is the Sport Chek of electronics. I worked at the Chek a loooong time ago, and when I think about how hard I worked to run a $1Mil sales/year footwear department for a crappy $8.25/hr supervisor's rate, it makes me laugh.

Doesn't everybody feel that they should be compensated fairly for their results?

Since you seem like a smart cookie, I'm betting you could earn $40K+/yr just by being yourself and applying your sales training.

 

[Kenneth Harden]

Well, with Circuit City off commision, and Good Guys soon to follow (lots of rumors, and soon to be truth?), that will about end it.

Are small mom and pop hi-fi stores commision?

 

[Joey_V]

yes, i think there is commission in small hifi stores. they seem a lot nicer too!

 

[Lee Distad]

Well, if you put yourself in the position of Owner of a small high end dealer, who do you want to have working for you:

A) a bunch of counter-leaning clerks who get paid, even if they just stand there breathing.

or

B) organized, motivated, capable professionals who will drive the business, open up new markets, build and dust your displays without being told, because they understand the value of presentation. Naturally, these people get paid on incentives and bonuses.

Ultimately, as the owner, if you are paying these people, which group is going to deliver the ROI that you're looking for?

 

[Kenneth Harden]

So if thats the case, why did Best Buy and CC, and soon Good Guys, end commision?

Its not like the employer has to take whatever the employees give, they tell them what to do. There are tons of salaried jobs where you get chewed out to do stuff.

Now, if your arguement was commision = more and bigger sales, then we might get somewhere

 

[Charlie C]

So if thats the case, why did Best Buy and CC, and soon Good Guys, end commision?

even highschool kids need money. if they cant sell, which they cant, then they make no money therefore they find another job therefore bb,cc,gg has no employees to sell and make money. if you garauntee highschool kids a paycheck, they will show up and do nothing, but there are at least ppl there to take your money. and highschool kids dont get health benefits cause its all part time

 

[Rory Buszka]

...and I applied twice and couldn't get hired...

...and a visiting harman/JBL representative commented that I knew more than the BB salespeople and should apply for a job at BB as a speaker specialist...

...i hate online applications because this is what happens...

...there's always next year...

 

[Joey_V]

i applied, i got in - then i quit... that place makes you sell those performance service plans like there is no tomorrow.

 

[Lee Distad]

Simply put, as a business, commissions typically comprise your largest monthly outgoing cash flow. More so than paying the vendor for product, since product is often paid quarterly, or it is paid for with lines of credit, which you pay back to the bank much later. Payroll gets paid out every month, rain or shine.

Never mind that if your incentive plan is structured intelligently, having large commission payouts should equal positive top & bottom line growth for your company; it is indicative of today's business climate that companies seek to cut costs without carefully weighiing the benefits of the expenses they seek to reduce.

My personal trade is focused on custom installations, both projector rooms and multi-room distributed audio-video systems. Big jobs and small, $2K to $10K+ in size. I'll tell you right now, nobody hands over their Amex card on their first trip to see me. These jobs take days and sometimes weeks to invoice. Why? Because of the level of planning, expertise, and consultation with the customer needed to find the best possible solution for their application.

I and my colleagues take this seriously because this is how we earn a living. Doing good work means happy clients. Happy clients means repeat business (yes, some people buy more than one installation) and referrals.

At the opposite extreme, chain stores like BB, CC, etc. have evolved into a cash & carry business, focused more on short-term sales. There, employees clerk MP3 players, camcorders, TV sets, things that require 10-15 minutes tops to sell. Why? Because with their level of training/experience/motivation, that's all that they've been equipped to do. Are the 3 BB's in my town doing huge custom installations? I can tell you first hand that they are not. Do they do the occassional small surround room pre-wire? Yes, but I can think of three installations in the last six months that they completely screwed up, and the client came to us to fix them.

So, which kind of dealer do you think is delivering higher-ticket, higher quality invoices? If you were in the market for serious product, whether high-end video display, or upscale audio, what kind of dealer do you think you should shop at? If it was your business, how would you want to run it?

 

[gene c]

I think bigger ad budgets have replaced commissions to sell stuff at big box stores. Since Good Guys, Magnolia, etc. also compete with them to an extent, they have to follow that path. And having BB, CC, etc. install anything near high end would be as silly as paying Lee to drive two hours to install a 19" portable TV on a micro wave cart! All places have there purpose. Use them wisely.

 

[Andrew_A_Paul]

I used to work at BB (only was hired as seasonal for a few months). Worked in computer sales because they didn't have any openings for the tech bench. Anywho, same as everyone else is stating, I was definitely pressured to sell the higher margin products, or sell the 30 dollar gold plated USB cable that "doesn't rust" It seemed like every 5 seconds the department manager would walk by and whisper something to me telling me to try and sell a better (more $$$$ system) when I was right in the middle of talking to a customer!!!! He was promoted to customer shortly after, lots of politics involved.

At a previous job I had a co-worker that was convinced that Bose was the best. Just another case of name recognition, nothing more. He knew absolutly nothing about HT.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

i have mixed feelings about all of this, and there is defnitely some gross misinformation going around.

Firstly, I work for Best Buy Canada, which may well be run differently than the US parent, but I doubt by much.

-yes, best buy is a cash and carry store. That is the customer has the option with most items to pick it off the shelf and head to the checkout. However we have strcit guidlines, every customer must be greeted, and offered service.

-yes, we are all non commission. NO this does not result in reduced sales. In fact it results in a happier environment for employees and a better shopping experience for customers. Employees are not competeting against each other for sales, and customers are not pressured relentlessly. A lot fos tores have a "3 no" rules (guess what that means), but at best buy, no means no, plain and simple. If you think lack of commision results in employees who don't care, think again, there are lots of other incentives.

-yes, we are supposed to sell the performance service plan. And this is an issue I struggled with because when i used to shop at furutre shop (where they have a similar plan) i always said no, without question. However wokring for best buy i had no choice but to actually leanr about the plan, and the reality is that it DOES make sense for many porducts. WOuldb buy it on speakers? No way, but on a big screen LCD projo? You bet! The purpose of the PSP is to increase margins, which frankly are very low on most products, but it absolutely is not a rip off, and I feel no shame in recomending it to people.

-yes, we are under a lot of pressure to upsell, particularaly monster cables, but every retail outlet on the face of the planet upsells, it is an essential component of buisness. Even though I personalyl think moster cables are gorssly overpriced, they are absolutly a quality product, one that i used myself (though not the uber expensive THX ultra....). Again, in 90% of retail buisnesses, the margin is in the accessories. There are very few people who would not benfit from a monster component or svideo cable over the POS compsoite cable that came with their DVD player.

-yes, there are some employees who don't know their stuff very well. Sad, but true, and obvioucly I cant deny this since i started this thread, but guess what? you go into any store in the world and you will find some employess who dont know thier stuff. You will also find many employess who DO know thier stuff, like moi.

-finally we are exposed to vendor training like crazy. At out particular store we had several vendors comment on how pleased they were that we all knew out stuff (with some exceptions, noteably the bose lovers, which the JBL rep ribbed relentlessly....)

I'll add a qualifier here. It is very easy to lump a chain store together as one big giant group of people. Please don't make that mistake. Just because one best buy store has a management team that hires dolts, and keeps them on, doesn't mean they all do. Of the 100 or so people hired at out store i have met very few who didnt know thier stuff, and not a single of of those was in management. Of all of the stores in Canada, 50% of our customer surveys are coming back with use rated 5 out of 5 across the bored, they dont report how many rated us 4 out of 5, so the actually aproval level is probably 75% os so.

Lasty, I would not work in a commission environment again. It was never a positive experience. I worked witb people who sole goal was the make the biggest commision, would sell customers porducts that were plainy wrong for them, if they didnt know soemthing thwy would make it up, they would lie to customers, just to make that sale. not to mention the unfirendly competition between employees struggling to make thier quota to avoid having thier commission clawed back. Non commission with regular raises is the way to go.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

Comission also result in more bigger returns from unhappy custimers manipulated into buying something they didnt want.

It also results in fewer return visits from customers.

In the last few weeks to you know how many people have told me how glad they are that best buy is coming to town because they "will never go back to future shop", or will never go back to a&B sound?

Commision sales is unfirendly to the consumer, and unfirendly the the employess, unless they are extremely agressive and unscrupulous, and in turn, poison to the consumer and in the long term the buisness.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

Lee, I understand what to you mean. When I went to the BB fair I had the same reaction as you. I wasn't there for a career, and I'm still not. I was there becasue I needed a job, badly. The econmoy is bad in BC, and jobs are hard to find. Combine that with an INSANE cost of living, and well, frankly it sucks. I real career is as an actor/writer, but just try making a living at that, it can take years to build up a career....

So I went to best buy with very mixed feelings, but i do love HT, and that discount is incredibly great, so I though what the heck. I'll tell you I spent two weeks with the company before I actually make up my mind that the rumours werent true, and its actually a decent place to work. Unlike so many retail establishments, hard work IS recognized, and if you give your best, you will get a raise, a promotion, and so on. Our store is not even open yet and two people have been promoted. I have heard it argued that BB promoted to fast, but I disagree, they pick out the best and recognize them before those idnividual become apethetic. If someone isnt being recognized at best buy, more than likely its because they are a lazy bum, who, as you say is coming in a doing nothing to colect a paycheck. I have no idea what kind of bonus supervisors get, its true that it doesnt trickle down to part time and full time assosiates, but on the other hand it doesnt take a long time before the best of those part time and full time assosiates will have the chnace to become a supervisor.

The corperate culture is difficult for a lot of us, as an artist type, extremly difficult for me. I wouldnt work at best buy if i didnt have to, but if there is something I have leanred is that you cannot live your life always looking to the future, and being afraid to embrace the present. You've got to do both.


Oh, and about $8.25 an hour at sport check, what a farce....

I'm making significantly more than that as a part timer...

 

[Andrew_A_Paul]

Now that this thread has jumped topics (for the most part)…..

When talking about stores in the US or Canada, everything is going to be different. The managers and what beliefs/values they try to instill in their employees is goig to greatly affect the environment. All stores are supposed to be run with the same values and rules. Is this the case? Probably not. They never told me to get the person what they need, its get the store what it needs; higher margin sales.

No, there is no pressure to compete with other employees; you are just competing against yourself. If I tried to sell a computer that was just what someone needed and didn’t hassle them about add-ons and peripherals after they said no once, the department manager, or even the senior employees in the department would ask me why I didn’t try and sell the person a higher priced computer (usually meaning a higher margin for the store), trying to sell them on add-on crap they don't or may already have, or moving them to a laptop which are inherently higher margin than desktop PCs.