The Local Dick Smith store has closed down

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#668298 6-Aug-2012 13:55

Jaxson: Yeah Jaycar, if you haven't found it, is just across the road as such from there. Corner opposite Count down end of Plaza carpark, opposite 'Fish Town' take aways. Jaycar are the Dick Smith of 20 years ago...

Yep, that Jaycar is great. I found most of what I wanted there when I was building a timer circuit for a sump pump. The staff are usually very helpful.

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bisr

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#668304 6-Aug-2012 13:58

DarthKermit:
Jaxson: Yeah Jaycar, if you haven't found it, is just across the road as such from there. Corner opposite Count down end of Plaza carpark, opposite 'Fish Town' take aways. Jaycar are the Dick Smith of 20 years ago...

Yep, that Jaycar is great. I found most of what I wanted there when I was building a timer circuit for a sump pump. The staff are usually very helpful.

Even if they don't have the knowledge, more important they have the stuff and they have more than one flavour of it.
And there is probably one person on the team who might be able to help you.

crackrdbycracku

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#668314 6-Aug-2012 14:06

bisr: you may have been doing some hidden trolling in your post and having a laugh at my response

I wasn't trolling. I also didn't reproduce the conversation word for word either. I generally do my research on line before I buy a product but I generally ask the shop staff questions to confirm what I think I already know, and see if they know as much as I do. I guess you could say I'm trolling them.

I have a 'reasonable' idea of my options as far as video playback are concerned and I am currently leaning towards a media player type box to play video files from an external HDD, there are reasons why I haven't done this yet but that is another thread.

My point is the a response of "Eh, I don't know" is pretty poor, yeah I'm getting used to it too. If (yes, IF) stores like DSE wanted to compete then knowledgeable staff would be a reasonable starting point. I guess the reality is that they know they can't compete and are happy to die a slow death; fair enough for the suits, kind of sad for the floor staff.

Helpful, knowledgeable, well trained staff could differentiate stores from the net and do a whole lot of other positive stuff, sad they don't.

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

bisr

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#668318 6-Aug-2012 14:10

I guess you could say I'm trolling them (consumer electronics staff).

That sounds like a fantastic idea for a series of videos on youtube :)

Glad to hear you have a handle on it. Please do let me know if I can help because right now I am doing my overdue GST sorting and it is painful and worthy distractions are invited :)

Chainsaw

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#668937 7-Aug-2012 13:29

Dick Smith are the only shop in my town you can walk into and buy Sanyo Eneloop batteries (as I did yesterday). I'd really miss them if they closed, though they may not be the hard core electronics shop they used to be I still find them very useful for stuff the big shops don't have.

stevenz

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#669043 7-Aug-2012 14:36

crackrdbycracku:Helpful, knowledgeable, well trained staff could differentiate stores from the net and do a whole lot of other positive stuff, sad they don't.

This may be part of the problem. The type of people who (generally speaking) can tell the difference between a rheostat and a LDR are probably not the sort of people who are going to be working in what is now a consumer electronics store. They probably don't want to pay to train the people in the wide ranging field of electronics and the return for paying "qualified" staff probably isn't high enough for them. Giving them the pamphlets and reading the sides of the boxes is probably more than adequate.

I've generally found the staff at JB HiFi to be more knowledgable, but they tend to have staff dedicated to the different sections (audio, music, stereo's, TV's etc).

The guys at JayCar tend to be a little "odd" (coming from me, that doesn't mean a great deal) but they know their stuff.

I'm surprised that Dick Smith still sell soldering irons given that they sell bugger all to use them with. Their point of difference between JB is wafer-thin these days.

@KnightNZ

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crackrdbycracku

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#669068 7-Aug-2012 15:11

stevenz:

I've generally found the staff at JB HiFi to be more knowledgable, but they tend to have staff dedicated to the different sections (audio, music, stereo's, TV's etc).

Yeah, I have found the same thing too. I think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the guys selling TVs and audio work on commission. This gives a clear incentive to gain product knowledge. It also gives a clear incentive to try to up sell but I can live with that as a price of informative advice.

stevenz:

The guys at JayCar tend to be a little "odd" (coming from me, that doesn't mean a great deal) but they know their stuff.

Yeah, JayCar is like the result of a group of people getting sick of not being able to find what they want and starting their own store. Who knows, this may well be how it started. I think this type of 'enthusiasts selling to other enthusiasts' is the future of bricks and mortar retail, like those great independent book stores. The rest will be online.

stevenz:

Their point of difference between JB is wafer-thin these days.

As far as I can see the difference is that DSE is doing a bad job and getting kicked.

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

bisr

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#669186 7-Aug-2012 18:04

And charging more for it, too in smaller shops that have less stock, too.

BlakJak

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#669190 7-Aug-2012 18:07

crackrdbycracku:
stevenz:

I've generally found the staff at JB HiFi to be more knowledgable, but they tend to have staff dedicated to the different sections (audio, music, stereo's, TV's etc).

Yeah, I have found the same thing too. I think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the guys selling TVs and audio work on commission. This gives a clear incentive to gain product knowledge. It also gives a clear incentive to try to up sell but I can live with that as a price of informative advice.

Sorry but this is a bit of a crock. Most sales staff are on commission in my experience - even if the percentage is relatively low. DSE used to be 0.5%.
Rock and Hard Place:
- Commission incentivises sales. It doesn't really make a salesperson want to know more about their product, it wants them to learn techniques to 'close the deal'. 'Good enough' is often the target. The truly motivated will realise that if they get it right, the customer will be happy and will a) come back for more, and b) not require a refund when they realise it's wrong.
- Lack of commission would prevent 'tricks' being used to close the deal - meaning more honesty in play, I'd expect - but for a business driven by sales profits, this might be counter-productive.

In my DSE years I saw several sales staff who were anything but technical, who got by on basic customer service abilities (or not) along with an ability to work from a bullet-point-list of features for a product without necessarily understand what those features mean...

stevenz:

The guys at JayCar tend to be a little "odd" (coming from me, that doesn't mean a great deal) but they know their stuff.

Yeah, JayCar is like the result of a group of people getting sick of not being able to find what they want and starting their own store. Who knows, this may well be how it started. I think this type of 'enthusiasts selling to other enthusiasts' is the future of bricks and mortar retail, like those great independent book stores. The rest will be online.

Jaycar does have a more ... eclectic... selection, and probably hires a more... eclectic... selection of technically-minded staff as a result. I'm not sure how they incentivise their staff tho.

stevenz:

Their point of difference between JB is wafer-thin these days.

As far as I can see the difference is that DSE is doing a bad job and getting kicked.

DSE do have, as an earlier poster noted, a wider range of slightly more obscure bits and pieces in their catalogue. This is likely to be less and less significant as time goes on, and while they could potentially make a good go of the 'consumer' space, there's plenty of suppliers to choose from and i'm cynical because of what I think of the way they've evolved. Perhaps someone who cares less, could determine if Dick Smith are in any way better than their competition.

JB HiFi are no doubt cutting seriously into their margins... (I was buying online from JB HiFi before they even opened their first NZ store... ) ... If they can keep the cloo level of their staff at a perceivably high level, they'll win the war I think. DSE seem to be sliding the wrong way in that area.

No signature to see here, move along...

JimmyH

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#669320 7-Aug-2012 22:05

As far as I'm concerned the rot set in when Dick Smith bought out David Reid Electronics - sadly I'm that old. David Reid used to be like Jaycar, but when they were folded into DSE they became much more consumer-ised and dropped a lot of the specialist stuff they use to carry. Ever since then, DSE has been on a slow steady track away from the enthusiast market towards becoming just another electronics shop.

I will still go in if they have something in particular I want in a hurry (they are close to work), or an attractive special, but in general I think their market position is terrible. For enthusiast kit Jaycar has a better range, better pricing, and more knowledgeable staff. For consumer product JB HiFi and Harvey Norman have a better range, and JB has more knowledgeable staff and typically sharper pricing. For mass-market commodity items, Bond & Bond and Noel Leaming have about the same range and calibre of staff, but still seem to have sharper pricing.

So, other than particular specials or convenience items, I am struggling to see why Dick Smith would now be the retailer of choice for pretty much anything?

Jaxson

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#669400 8-Aug-2012 08:32

BlakJak:

Jaycar does have a more ... eclectic... selection, and probably hires a more... eclectic... selection of technically-minded staff as a result.

They also have a lot of plastic crap, lots of novelty stuff guaranteed to break in the first 2 minutes. A lot of their gear is also over priced compared to what you can buy elsewhere, and a lot is their house brand which is more of a risk than buying known brand products.

That said, when my mates Zinwell freeview HD box died, or when I felt motivated to replace the rubbish capacitors on my Onkyo receiver, Jaycar had what I needed, at my local store and with a discount through my work. Likewise when I needed a cheap hdmi cable and they had them for $7.50. It's that sort of thing that now makes a clear line between consumer electronics, bond and bond/DSE etc and what these guys can offer.

It's just amusing that as we talk about 'green' products and recycling etc, more of our products head towards throwaway/ no user serviceable parts inside. It costs the price of a new freeview set top box to even look at a faulty old one, so there's less of a demand for servicing now.

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floydbloke

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#669456 8-Aug-2012 09:47

I'm quite fond of Jaycar too, although the product search facility on their website is atrocious.

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

floydbloke

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#669459 8-Aug-2012 09:50

Jaxson:

It's just amusing that as we talk about 'green' products and recycling etc, more of our products head towards throwaway/ no user serviceable parts inside. It costs the price of a new freeview set top box to even look at a faulty old one, so there's less of a demand for servicing now.

And then there is the non-recyclable plastic blister-packaging, and I suffer multiple skin lacerations whenever I try open one of these.

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

allan

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#669468 8-Aug-2012 10:00

floydbloke:
And then there is the non-recyclable plastic blister-packaging, and I suffer multiple skin lacerations whenever I try open one of these.

Yeah should be reserved for cigarette packaging only.

stevenz

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#669546 8-Aug-2012 11:43

At the end of the day, they want to make money, there's a lot more money in mainstream electronics than hobbyist equipment that the 80's DSE, David Reid, Wisemans etc. sold.

When you've only got a couple of stores like Jaycar selling specialist stuff, then that's fine, but it's not the type of outfit that can really branch out much, the demand just isn't there.

@KnightNZ

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