ocnor
Lord Of The Thighs
That guy sounds retarded enough to work at Guitar Center. http://www.heavy.com/video/1047
Sam Ash Retards
- Thread starter starbuck26
- Start date
MadAudio
Damned if I do
NYC or not, if a salesman approached me with the phrase "Yo, you need help?" I would look for another salesman.
MadAudio
Damned if I do
SonicAlbert
Super-Sonic "Herb" Albert
You know that Musician's Friend is Guitar Center, right?
The thing is, you were "looking around only". You can't really expect a real answer or real negotiation from a salesperson when you are just idly window shopping.
If you had been seriously interested in buying that item that day, with the money in your pocket so to speak, I'm sure you'd have gotten a lot better response.
The other thing is, you've got to go in with the evidence. In other words, print out the page from the MF web site with their price and bring it in with you. Ask if they will price match.
What will probably happen is that the manager will go online and check the site you printed the page from, to make sure the price is for real. Then chances are you'll get your price match. Negotiating the tax might be another challenge, but pretty much any store will price match a legitimate price from another store.
But you've got to be a real buyer, not just a looky-loo.
MadAudio
Damned if I do
You make very good points in your posts, but ultimately the responsibility lies with the Sam Ash management. If they are not willing to hire people with the drive to know the products they're hawking and be accommodating to requests like the OP made (ie, can I check it out before I blindly buy?) then they've lost the sale already.
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DavidK
New member
1, I didnt take the exchange as verbatim
2. I could say " Yo, you need help" and be folksy.
Its all in the inflection which we do not know.A poorly run store is a poorly run store. But customer service is SOO 20th century. The only thing I cant tolerate is rudeness. Stupidity I expect.
Be nice to me and I will buy something.
In 25 years of being a pro musician I can only recall one person trying to talk down my fee ( and usually I dont set it, I do union or symphony gigs and I rarely deal with the money). This pushy, arrogant lady tried to get me to go down on my violin lesson price, which was already reasonable. Then she called and talked to my girlfriend and tried to get HER to get ME to lower it.
I eventually find out that the lady lives across the street, in a development where the cheap houses are 3 million.
People do that stuff with weddings. They say things like "we cant pay you much but think of the exposure".
That stuff just aint my scene: I am an informed consumer, but I dont need to save 3 bucks in tax by depriving some shmoe of a commission. Sam Ash isnt "Da Man", and even if it was, the employee shouldnt have to suffer because some maroon is telling him that "one buck profit is better than none". It's not.
tc4b
Yeah I been drinkin, SO!?
Was she, you know, not very hygienic?
TexRoadkill
Audio Bum
When I sold gear years ago the the rock bottom price was usually 10% over cost and the commission was 10% of the profit. If the lowest price was $698 then the cost is about $635, profit is $63 and the commission is $6.30.
Hard to believe they can't find good help with that kind of money.
If you want a better deal then slip the sales guy a $20. That way he can drop the price by $200 and still make his commission. If you don't want to pay sales tax then ask them if you can walk out with the product and have them ship the box to an out of state address
Hard to believe they can't find good help with that kind of money.
If you want a better deal then slip the sales guy a $20. That way he can drop the price by $200 and still make his commission. If you don't want to pay sales tax then ask them if you can walk out with the product and have them ship the box to an out of state address
rayc
retroreprobate
Eating IN the restaurant costs more - table service, washing up etc etc.
Buying IN store will too for all the reasons mentioned.
Buying online usually means buying from a warehouse - the overheads are different.
Working on commission translates to - I don't get paid much and I'm living on the equiv of tips - if you're the jnr you often have to defer the sale of gear you don't understand to something further up the food chain.
On those pay scales the people who work on Sundays - no weekend loading or OT - aren't necessarily the most experienced, best or cleverest at the big sell. Hard up folk who have no alternative work those shifts.
This reminds me of friends of mine who go to Vietnam or Bali and HAGGLE over the equiv of AU$0.50.
Play hard ball with a seasoned sales person/gear head on a weekday..
Life's too short to spend over a few dollars - buy on line & feel fine.
Deal with a computer scheduled warehouse order filler rather than a some poor bugger out of his depth and working on a Sunday.
I'm sorry this is beyond me...
Buying IN store will too for all the reasons mentioned.
Buying online usually means buying from a warehouse - the overheads are different.
Working on commission translates to - I don't get paid much and I'm living on the equiv of tips - if you're the jnr you often have to defer the sale of gear you don't understand to something further up the food chain.
On those pay scales the people who work on Sundays - no weekend loading or OT - aren't necessarily the most experienced, best or cleverest at the big sell. Hard up folk who have no alternative work those shifts.
This reminds me of friends of mine who go to Vietnam or Bali and HAGGLE over the equiv of AU$0.50.
Play hard ball with a seasoned sales person/gear head on a weekday..
Life's too short to spend over a few dollars - buy on line & feel fine.
Deal with a computer scheduled warehouse order filler rather than a some poor bugger out of his depth and working on a Sunday.
I'm sorry this is beyond me...
gvarko
New member
Unless you are in the DJ section, then it's appropriate...
SonicAlbert
Super-Sonic "Herb" Albert
I agree that the salesperson should know the products, and of course the customer should be able to try out the product before buying. I was addressing specifically the negotiation over price.
Max_Kincaide
New member
I think the point that everyone is missing here is that this guy was lacking something we like to call CUSTOMER SERVICE. Whoever the schmuck was that was trying to earn commission was riding the clock, in my opinion. When you are making your living through commission, you do Anything to get the sale...take for example car dealers. They can't go too far down on their prices, because they really do have to make some kind of money....but the fact of the matter is that there is a bottom price they can sell the cars at...and you are more than welcome to ask them what the lowest is they can go on the price of their product. The fact that this guy didn't even sound the least bit interested in making a sale tells me that he's just there to draw a paycheck...he really doesn't care if you leave with what you were wanting to purchase...and in the retail business...especially commissioned retail....that is the WRONG way to do things. He should have asked questions of what it is that the customer was looking for in the particular item they were shopping for...and if they couldn't get the price down to something the customer liked, then maybe they should move on to something comparable at a slightly lesser price. Any BOZO could have done that guy's job and made the sale. And I can't believe that there are actually people that would want to hear more of the salesman's side of it. There is no side, except he should have done whatever was necessary to make the damn sale, so he could have money in his pocket and the customer could leave happy with the product he came for and wanted to return to shop again. GEEZUS!!!!!!!
DavidK
New member
I couldnt get past her face. Yikes!
Zaphod B
Raccoons-Be-Gone, Inc.
Dear god, how many times have I heard that?They say things like "we cant pay you much but think of the exposure".
(And, subsequently, band members arguing amongst themselves: "Hey - we're playing for free, but at least we're playing!" "Who cares - no pay, no play!")
DavidK
New member
Why didnt he just blow the guy??
A salesman is not a trained seal, he is a human being. He doesnt have to do anything to make the sale, he can simply wait for the next guy.
I have "relationships" with the fellers at Sam Ash and GC, even the dumb ones.
It's a bit different because usually one shops locally. The OP was an out of town customer, he aint coming back. There is no repeat business there, no future reward.Starbuck sums it all up:
C'mon, thats like telling your waiter that a 50 cent tip is better than nothing. It's not. I bought a Korg synth last May at Sam Ash, I got it home and it was defective. I returned it for another and it took about 30 seconds. THAT'S why I buy locally off of humans. Granted, the OP was out of town, but it seems like his attitude would apply to the local guys too.
Can you imagine if everyone in life did this, and they did it to YOU and YOUR job?? It's beyond degrading. If I was playing a gig and someone said to me " I will give you 50 cents to stay 10 minutes over and play Happy Birthday", I wouldnt do it. Chances are I might do it for FREE if they asked politely, but I wouldnt be insulted.
DavidK
New member
Great, if we play this gig for free, we might get some other free gigs from it.
As your fellow Fort Worth resident Van Cliburn once said to me at a party: "Only birds sing for free".
ocnor
Lord Of The Thighs
I see that you don't know much about being a salesman. He is working for the store so he needs to sell gear whether he makes a commission each time or not. The salesman is being paid an hourly wage to sell. Commission is just a bonus. If the store is not making money then he will not have a job for very long.
DavidK
New member
100% true, I do not. But I do know about personal economics:
Maybe a former Sam Ash employee is lurking and can give us the poop. If they pay 7-8 bucks an hour, the commission is hardly a "bonus". It is the only way to make a liveable wage.
Well, he wont have THAT job very long. Its a two-way street, he will be forced to leave. If he cant make enough commissions, it is economically impossible to work there. Since we often complain about crappy service at Sam Ash and GC, maybe they simply dont pay enough to keep a decent employee??
If I worked there, I wouldnt do it. I wouldnt let a guy talking to me in that way bully me and tell me "you get a buck or nothing". No way. They could fire me and I would go get another crappy job. Keep in mind that not EVERY customer does this, that would be completely different. In THIS case, from what little we know, I would tell the guy the price and that's that. Sam Ash is a volume dealer, and most of that is loyal repeat customers. A customer who treats an employee crappily is not a loyal customer, he literally doesnt care. Starbuck said it in no uncertain terms:
That kind of customer is not going to make or break the Bottom line. The employee keeps his dignity and morale is good. When employees hate their job and feel like second-class serfs, the damage done is arguably a lot worse than losing a few bucks on a zoom sale.
Zaphod B
Raccoons-Be-Gone, Inc.
Me and two former high school buds had a power trio that did a lot more rehearsing than playing. We rehearsed in the basement of the drummer's house which was right next door to - you guessed it - Van Cliburn.As your fellow Fort Worth resident Van Cliburn once said to me at a party: "Only birds sing for free".
(Yes, the drummer is doing quite well, thank you.)
We always joked that Van must be gritting his teeth but we never heard a thing from him.