Marco Nero
Veteran Member
Following on from the "Man, I Hate How These Computer Stores Act As If You Know Nothing And They Know All!!" posting the other day, it occured to me that many consumers might be unaware of some of the drivel that goes on behind the scenes in the camera stores today.
I worked a few years in camera retail, both before and after I entered the film industry full-time. I've dealt with all manner of regular & genuine customers, celebrity customers, rich kids, low income earners, irate idiots, shoplifters (both violent and drug crazed and the obscenely stupid), professionals, wannabee professionals, mental patients on day release with repetitive behaviours that bring them into my store again and again... and of course, the infamousTWA's (aka: time wasting @sses). Some of the people employed at the store were physics students, photography students, career sales professionals and people related to the boss/owner.
Contributing to consumer's woes are a number of negative things that might be encountered in any given Camera Store:
Lazy, ineffectual staff. Uninformed staff that are unfamilliar with a product, yet pretend otherwise.
Tyrant managers who dictate sales statistics to force more sales from staff at any cost. The use of commission based on sales.
Cash bonuses paid to staff as incentives to sell certain older or defunct products and clear the store of obselete models.
Bait-and-switch: where a product is advertised in a catalogue to lure in the customers for a great deal, only to find that stock are sold or haven't arrived and an alternate, more expensive product is then offered. It's illegal but hard to prove... my store never did this but others have.
The above are merely an example, yet simply working on a commission/bonus incentive can mean that a staff member does not provide adequate information to inform the customer of the best choice. More often than not, the wrong choice of camera is offered.
The Friedman Selling System © is the most common sales system in use in the United States and Canada. It takes 12 weeks to three months to complete by each potential staff member and has been rated by newspapers (such as the Telegraph & SMH) and vitims on both sides as an unfair statistic-driven sales system that involves dehumanising the staff and forcing them to perform on a measurable hourly based system. It involves the staff being forced to consistently exceed the previous sales each day from the previous year. Failure to achive the required percentage of sales over the previous year for more than a fortnight results in a cautionary warning. Failure to correct the problem results in a formal warning and threat of dismissal. No exception is made. Luck, economy and customer base are not included in the statistics. Failure to secure a sale and add-on results in formal cautions and dismissal.
The system guarrentees a higher return for the store owner yet quickly erodes the customer base as consumers avoid the high pressure sales techniques and ultimately the stores themselves. It's easy to spot a store using this technique: They greet you within 60 seconds upon entering the store, ask you open ended questions that cannot be answered with a "Yes" or "No", then probe you further to determine your worth and likelihood of purchasing. From here, they'll try to "smoke out" your objections before manipulating you into purchasing a product that you may not have been interested in the first place. Psychological techniques such as handing a product to the customer to develop a bond with the item are used, as well as hand written notes on business cards are common ploys (customers are 75% more likely to keep a business card with hand written notes on it) used to secure a sale.
The Camera store I once worked at in Parramatta is just now using this technique, having purchased the rights to do so from the United States. On my last trip to the States, I was besieged by stores using this very method from LA to Florida. I myself was schooled in it in 1996 and then left the company I was with in disgust.
If you find yourself being pressured, don't engage the sales staff any further. Leave the store and find another because their job is anything other than helping you make the best choice for yourself.
All the best.
--
Marco Nero.
http://www.pbase.com/nero_design
I worked a few years in camera retail, both before and after I entered the film industry full-time. I've dealt with all manner of regular & genuine customers, celebrity customers, rich kids, low income earners, irate idiots, shoplifters (both violent and drug crazed and the obscenely stupid), professionals, wannabee professionals, mental patients on day release with repetitive behaviours that bring them into my store again and again... and of course, the infamousTWA's (aka: time wasting @sses). Some of the people employed at the store were physics students, photography students, career sales professionals and people related to the boss/owner.
Contributing to consumer's woes are a number of negative things that might be encountered in any given Camera Store:
Lazy, ineffectual staff. Uninformed staff that are unfamilliar with a product, yet pretend otherwise.
Tyrant managers who dictate sales statistics to force more sales from staff at any cost. The use of commission based on sales.
- Utilisation of sales techniqes and selling systems such as the infamous "Friedman Group© Sales Technique" and similar.
Cash bonuses paid to staff as incentives to sell certain older or defunct products and clear the store of obselete models.
Bait-and-switch: where a product is advertised in a catalogue to lure in the customers for a great deal, only to find that stock are sold or haven't arrived and an alternate, more expensive product is then offered. It's illegal but hard to prove... my store never did this but others have.
The above are merely an example, yet simply working on a commission/bonus incentive can mean that a staff member does not provide adequate information to inform the customer of the best choice. More often than not, the wrong choice of camera is offered.
The Friedman Selling System © is the most common sales system in use in the United States and Canada. It takes 12 weeks to three months to complete by each potential staff member and has been rated by newspapers (such as the Telegraph & SMH) and vitims on both sides as an unfair statistic-driven sales system that involves dehumanising the staff and forcing them to perform on a measurable hourly based system. It involves the staff being forced to consistently exceed the previous sales each day from the previous year. Failure to achive the required percentage of sales over the previous year for more than a fortnight results in a cautionary warning. Failure to correct the problem results in a formal warning and threat of dismissal. No exception is made. Luck, economy and customer base are not included in the statistics. Failure to secure a sale and add-on results in formal cautions and dismissal.
The system guarrentees a higher return for the store owner yet quickly erodes the customer base as consumers avoid the high pressure sales techniques and ultimately the stores themselves. It's easy to spot a store using this technique: They greet you within 60 seconds upon entering the store, ask you open ended questions that cannot be answered with a "Yes" or "No", then probe you further to determine your worth and likelihood of purchasing. From here, they'll try to "smoke out" your objections before manipulating you into purchasing a product that you may not have been interested in the first place. Psychological techniques such as handing a product to the customer to develop a bond with the item are used, as well as hand written notes on business cards are common ploys (customers are 75% more likely to keep a business card with hand written notes on it) used to secure a sale.
The Camera store I once worked at in Parramatta is just now using this technique, having purchased the rights to do so from the United States. On my last trip to the States, I was besieged by stores using this very method from LA to Florida. I myself was schooled in it in 1996 and then left the company I was with in disgust.
If you find yourself being pressured, don't engage the sales staff any further. Leave the store and find another because their job is anything other than helping you make the best choice for yourself.
All the best.
--
Marco Nero.
http://www.pbase.com/nero_design
. To top it off, you leave with a chuckle and now he's got stress issues, instead of you walking out with your blood pressure boiling. I love watching used car dealers spin when I shop for cars. I walk in with a piece of scrap paper covered with notes and my pencil... looking all around the car ignoring all his comments while he's trying to 'steer' me to what he wants me to see. I love to write notes about the car and try to be obvious about comparing it to other cars I've looked at. Within a short time you can catch them glancing at that scrap of paper with hate in their eyes. And they become so desperate when you leave the lot without buying.