Comments on: Retail http://www.gazimoff.com/2009/03/18/retail/ Ramblings of a geek in an insane world Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:53:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Gazimoff http://www.gazimoff.com/2009/03/18/retail/comment-page-1/#comment-24 Gazimoff Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:14:10 +0000 http://www.gazimoff.com/?p=163#comment-24 You're right, in that I can go online, check things out and see if the spec matches roughly with what I want it to do. And at the end of the day, I can always install XP or Vista or even Windows 7 beta (which is very good) and customise my experience that way. What I was hoping to do - and which doesn't take a lot of training - was to actually look at the physical ergonomics and layout of the kit, try out OS X and see if it was something I could get on with and see what else was bundled in it that I might want to use. That was what I completely failed to get done. I'm now looking at laptopsdirect.co.uk and taking a more traditional route to getting a laptop, but again I'm going to be buying blind as far as aesthetics/ergonomics go. You’re right, in that I can go online, check things out and see if the spec matches roughly with what I want it to do. And at the end of the day, I can always install XP or Vista or even Windows 7 beta (which is very good) and customise my experience that way. What I was hoping to do – and which doesn’t take a lot of training – was to actually look at the physical ergonomics and layout of the kit, try out OS X and see if it was something I could get on with and see what else was bundled in it that I might want to use. That was what I completely failed to get done.

I’m now looking at laptopsdirect.co.uk and taking a more traditional route to getting a laptop, but again I’m going to be buying blind as far as aesthetics/ergonomics go.

]]> By: Simonj http://www.gazimoff.com/2009/03/18/retail/comment-page-1/#comment-23 Simonj Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:37:18 +0000 http://www.gazimoff.com/?p=163#comment-23 The whole retail experience isn't helped if you're reluctant to look at the product with a massive amount of interest in the first place. That said, if the place is busy, as you'd expect it to be in Regent Street, unless you're actually keen, you will always find it hard to get the sales person to involve you and sell you something. What's more likely however is that the sales staff, especially as I've found from past experience, will have little no no technical knowledge of the product you want them to sell you. This also fetracts from the whole offline retail thing. If you go online, most good websites, as in those that are well setup and thought out, with lots of technical specs to hand, will be able to give you most of the information you want, if not all of it. A poorly trained or less than knowledgable salesperson who has no idea what screen resolution means, let alone what the screen resolution of product X actually is tends to take us more technically minded punters out of the store and into the realm of online shopping. The problem with sales staff is that they're told how to sell the product on things like it's really big screen, it's blue-ray DVD, and it's light weight construction, as opposed to what we actually might want to know about a product, such as the HDD capacity, the memory size, whether the GPU is a full spec version or a mobile (and usually despecced version). We can see how big the screen is, and how light the thing is, but we need to know as potential buyers, whether it's the product we want that will do what we want it to do when we want it to do it. It's one of the most annyoing aspects of retail, not just in techie gadgetty type purchases, but any purchases. A total lack of product specific knowledge puts people off buying the product from that store. It says a lot about the sort of customer service that the store is actually offering as well. If they're more inteested in taking your money off you, whether it be straight away or for the next 18 months on that contract you're not sure you want anyway, then there's no customer service there. Retailers need to realise that in the current financial climate potential customers are made and lost on things like product knowledge. If the product knowledge isn't there for the customer who may even be persuaded to buy a more expensive gadget just on the specs alone, then that customer is going to take his money elsewhere. If enough people do that, your retail store won't be retailing for very long. The whole retail experience isn’t helped if you’re reluctant to look at the product with a massive amount of interest in the first place. That said, if the place is busy, as you’d expect it to be in Regent Street, unless you’re actually keen, you will always find it hard to get the sales person to involve you and sell you something.

What’s more likely however is that the sales staff, especially as I’ve found from past experience, will have little no no technical knowledge of the product you want them to sell you. This also fetracts from the whole offline retail thing. If you go online, most good websites, as in those that are well setup and thought out, with lots of technical specs to hand, will be able to give you most of the information you want, if not all of it. A poorly trained or less than knowledgable salesperson who has no idea what screen resolution means, let alone what the screen resolution of product X actually is tends to take us more technically minded punters out of the store and into the realm of online shopping. The problem with sales staff is that they’re told how to sell the product on things like it’s really big screen, it’s blue-ray DVD, and it’s light weight construction, as opposed to what we actually might want to know about a product, such as the HDD capacity, the memory size, whether the GPU is a full spec version or a mobile (and usually despecced version). We can see how big the screen is, and how light the thing is, but we need to know as potential buyers, whether it’s the product we want that will do what we want it to do when we want it to do it.

It’s one of the most annyoing aspects of retail, not just in techie gadgetty type purchases, but any purchases. A total lack of product specific knowledge puts people off buying the product from that store. It says a lot about the sort of customer service that the store is actually offering as well. If they’re more inteested in taking your money off you, whether it be straight away or for the next 18 months on that contract you’re not sure you want anyway, then there’s no customer service there. Retailers need to realise that in the current financial climate potential customers are made and lost on things like product knowledge. If the product knowledge isn’t there for the customer who may even be persuaded to buy a more expensive gadget just on the specs alone, then that customer is going to take his money elsewhere. If enough people do that, your retail store won’t be retailing for very long.

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