Shopped at Sears lately?

[soccerballtux]

I wandered into a mall recently, went looking for some nice shirts, among other things at Sears.

I was presently surprised to find of all the 100000 aisle attendants standing around, none of them asked me if I needed help, was looking for something, or if they could help me find something.

This has become one of my major pet peeves of places like Best Buy-- I go knowing what I want to buy, I'm on my way there, and on the way about 4 people ask me if they can help me find something. Then they try to sell me other things along the way.

So man, what a breath of fresh air. I'm going to do more shopping there from now on, and will probably buy some appliances there like a vacuum, washer, and dryer. They had plenty of people standing around waiting to help...but none were interrupting my train of thought. They must pay pretty well too, lots of middle aged people working there (as opposed to Best Buy with lots of poor college kids eager to make a commission).

 

[mpitts]

Just an FYI: Sears sales people (in the electronics / appliances / etc) are on commission. Best Buy sales people are not.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: mpitts
Just an FYI: Sears sales people (in the electronics / appliances / etc) are on commission. Best Buy sales people are not.

That really makes no sense. Maybe Sears heard about enough people complaining about the BB nagging that they changed their policy.

 

[kevbot]

Spring of 2000, I went to Best Buy to purchase a Sony Hi8 camcorder advertised at a pretty good price. The ONLY help in that department was talking to a customer about digital cameras. I knew exactly what I wanted, and could see it behind a locked glass door. During a break in the salesman's conversation, I asked if he would get the camcorder out so I could buy it.

The salesman got upset and told me he was with another customer. I said I want that camcorder, it's right there, just unlock the door, and I'll go to the front and pay for it.
He spent about 30 seconds explaining that he was with a customer, and I would have to wait. I responded that I was ready to buy, no sales pitch required, just grab it and I'll be out of your hair!
Before I got really pissed off, someone else just happened to come by, and gladly retrieved the item for me.

These days, if I cant go to a B&M and just grab what I'm looking for, I buy over the internet.

 

[mpitts]

Originally posted by: Aflac

Originally posted by: mpitts
Just an FYI: Sears sales people (in the electronics / appliances / etc) are on commission. Best Buy sales people are not.

That really makes no sense. Maybe Sears heard about enough people complaining about the BB nagging that they changed their policy.

I worked at both. It is the same now as it was then. Sears pays their technology / electronics / appliance people a draw that they must earn back via sales. They also make upwards of 10% commission on the sale of an item as well as the sale of a Maintenance Agreement. Most of my sales were placed on a Sears card, which is generally why Sears commissioned sales people were less agressive. They knew that the customer was not likely to shop elsewhere due to the fact that they would be paying with their Sears card.

Best Buy sales people were never given incentive to sell. The only thing I was offered was free CD's if I sold a specific number of warranties. This was never pushed on me and it was arbitrarly offered. There was never a set schedule of when it would happen.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: mpitts
Just an FYI: Sears sales people (in the electronics / appliances / etc) are on commission. Best Buy sales people are not.

Nah. Gotta provide some proof for this one. These people would have been more helpful if they were on commission. The way to avoid annoyed customers is not pay on commission so your salespeople can act as resources to the customer and don't feel pressured to shove a product down the customer's throat.

edit, just read your post above mine. Interesting....

 

[mpitts]

Originally posted by: kevbot
Spring of 2000, I went to Best Buy to purchase a Sony Hi8 camcorder advertised at a pretty good price. The ONLY help in that department was talking to a customer about digital cameras. I knew exactly what I wanted, and could see it behind a locked glass door. During a break in the salesman's conversation, I asked if he would get the camcorder out so I could buy it.

The salesman got upset and told me he was with another customer. I said I want that camcorder, it's right there, just unlock the door, and I'll go to the front and pay for it.
He spent about 30 seconds explaining that he was with a customer, and I would have to wait. I responded that I was ready to buy, no sales pitch required, just grab it and I'll be out of your hair!
Before I got really pissed off, someone else just happened to come by, and gladly retrieved the item for me.

These days, if I cant go to a B&M and just grab what I'm looking for, I buy over the internet.

You likely had to wait due to that person being the only one in the department. He would have had to walked the item up to the register or he could have been severely reprimanded.

It's not an excuse for not calling for help. I'm just explaining why it happened the way that it did.

 

[mpitts]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux

Originally posted by: mpitts
Just an FYI: Sears sales people (in the electronics / appliances / etc) are on commission. Best Buy sales people are not.

Nah. Gotta provide some proof for this one. These people would have been more helpful if they were on commission. The way to avoid annoyed customers is not pay on commission so your salespeople can act as resources to the customer and don't feel pressured to shove a product down the customer's throat.

I'm not sure what "proof" you want me to give you other than I worked there and know people who still work there.

 

[kevbot]

I totally get what you said, but in this case, actual buying customer > browser. Also never had an employee of ANY store "walk the item up to the register".

Maybe my local BB stores suck... yeah. Actually, not always. I have had some pretty informative and inciteful(sp) experiences there from the help. There was no excuse for the camcorder debacle however.

Sears is not BB, so I apologize for the hijack.

 

[mpitts]

Originally posted by: kevbot
I totally get what you said, but in this case, actual buying customer > browser. Also never had an employee of ANY store "walk the item up to the register".

Maybe my local BB stores suck... yeah. Actually, not always. I have had some pretty informative and inciteful(sp) experiences there from the help. There was no excuse for the camcorder debacle however.

Sears is not BB, so I apologize for the hijack.

Not to re-hijack the thread, but I have had a number of items walked to the register in the past.

Just in the past few months I have had a Garmin 660 at Fry's and a MacBook Pro at MicroCenter walked up. Whatever! Back to Sears. 🙂

 

[Scarpozzi]

I like Sears. They usually have good deals from time to time and they pricematch electronics. I just hate that they're having trouble competing with Walmart. They're like the only remaining department store from the Mall era of the 1980s that's still hanging on.

People have shifted to specialty stores and discount stores like Walmart for their consumer electronics. Sears has barely stuck in there because of their tools and appliances. (and the company trying to concentrate on retail instead of diversifying so much)

 

[LS21]

i avoid retail if i can help it. online shopping = so sweet [except cant check out girls]

 

[deadlyapp]

I work at sears now. Sales people are paid commision, but not anywhere near 10%. I try to not be intrusive unless someone looks like they genuinely need help or they approach me, otherwise I let them be.

FYI - Hardware/lawn garden gets an average of 2%, and only about 4% on the warranties.
Electronics is a lot more than that.
Appliances is strictly commision so of course they get a lot.

 

[kevbot]

My only problem is that I want to go to a store and be able to say "I want that."

At some stores, that is impossible. At BB, shouldn't be a problem. It isn't my fault if they are understaffed.

I'm done with this, but I just wanted to point out that some businesses are so concerned with cost savings that they forget about their customers and then wonder why they aren't raking in the fortunes.