By Claire Reilly
The retail industry has taken its fair share of hits in recent times. There is plenty of talk about the rise of internet shopping and any online news story that mentions declining retail sales is sure to be met by its share of comments bemoaning the supposed ‘lack of service’ in bricks and mortar stores.
But while there is a good deal of retail rhetoric swirling around the industry, there are also plenty of retailers who are working every day to get Australian consumers excited about technology and to keep people coming back into stores for the great experience.
Walking into a JB Hi-Fi store in Sydney yesterday, this journalist had one such experience that served as a great reminder about the strengths of this industry.
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A new computer was needed (the 5-year-old MacBook had been starting to click and whir and, much to my chagrin, it had taken to periodically ‘pretending’ that it had completely wiped its memory). So, taking advantage of JB’s 10 per cent off Apple sale, I went in to buy a shiny new MacBook Air.
Calling ahead, a number of stores informed me they were low on stock, but at every point in the chain, I was greeted with helpful staff who steered me in the right direction to find my chosen model in a nearby store.
A friendly chap at JB Hi-Fi’s Eastgardens store in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney promised to hold his last 256GB Air for me, and with that, I made my way in.
In the corporate speak of its yearly financial reports, JB Hi-Fi is always talking up the point of difference that its staff members bring to every store, and when I walked in I found the perfect example. A young, informed sales assistant who was tearing around the store with a sort of manic control, helping customers and more junior sales assistants alike with their questions.
And true to the retailer’s heritage as a music store, this fellow looked like he’d walked straight off the set of a swing-band film clip. So much so that when I first walked into the store and was trying to identify the fellow I’d spoken to on the phone to reserve my computer, a greeter pointed me in the direction of “the guy who looks like he’s walked straight out of Mad Men”.
We had a chat about the basic specs of the new device and straightway I could see he was refining his sales conversation based on the knowledge I was bringing to the table. He worked out that I didn’t need to know the difference between a hard drive and a solid state drive, but he was able to tell me his personal experience with processor speed and battery life.
Once the minimalist white Apple box was on the table and ready to go, then came the question that showed me it wasn’t this salesman’s first rodeo:
“So, what else are we going to look at today to go with this?”
He had deftly skirted around the great retail clangers, ‘Will that be all?’ and the more crude ‘The counter is over there when you’re ready’.
While I was clearly a previous Mac user looking to upgrade, he immediately thought about what was in the box and then focused on what accessories he could show me to add to the sale. Not only is this important with any product in a retail store (You have some speakers, what about cables? Just bought an MP3 player, now how about some decent headphones?), it’s especially important with Apple products which only offer very small margins to retail stores.
So I let him do his pitch.
Before long, I had been talked into Apple Care – Apple’s extended three-year warranty product. By bringing in his own experience with Apple products and his knowledge of what services Apple provided (including repair turnaround and comparable costs when not covered by a warranty), he made the product personal.
He also acknowledged the trade-off that the Air offers in terms of a lightweight body but an increased tendency to overheat. So we talked about solutions, and additional products that could be purchased to extend the life of my new product — some of which aren’t available to buy through JB.
I’d had such a good experience that I looked around the store at some PC games and stereos, before walking up to the counter to complete my purchase, complete with the $300 up-sell that had been deftly tacked on to the sale.
The good experience came down to a great atmosphere in the store and a clever and knowledgeable salesman.
Certainly, I could have bought my computer online at the JB website, and I’d still have the same product sitting on my desk right now. But done correctly, the sales process can actually help retailers bring customers into their store, adding to sales, building loyalty and generating positive word-of-mouth recommendations that are worth more than even the highest spec’d MacBook Pro. And that’s seriously valuable.