back to article Dixons' best chance? Quit the UK and move to Sweden

Dixons' best chance of surviving is to close its UK business and concentrate on its Scandinavian business. The cold-hearted claim comes from Morgan Stanley, which studied UK electrical retailing and found the whole sector is making losses. The analysts reckon there is more than 25 million feet 2 of selling space, but a serious …

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  1. Waderider
    Thumb Up

    Gut reaction........

    Good riddance to badly run companies taking advantage of the lack of knowledge of their average customer.

  2. Small Wee Jobbie
    Thumb Up

    Could this be the end of PCWorld????

    Wouldn't it be a shame if PCWorld came to an end.....ok maybe not, but it might give the smaller PC retailers a chance.

  3. Michael Jennings

    Assisted service that does not assist

    If you buy your electronics in Tesco, the price will likely be better, there will be less pressure on you to buy accessories or warranties you don't need, the accessories you do need will likely be fairly priced, and in the event of returns or warranties, after sales service will likely be smooth. If instead you go to Currys, you get assistance from a salesman who doesn't likely know much more about the product than the guy in Tesco, but who might pretend to.

    So people buy in Tesco. Funny that.

    1. Elmer Phud

      quality?

      I'm not sure if I've ever seen any electronic stuff in Tesco that I'd want to buy.

    2. Code Monkey

      For Tesco, substitute Amazon

      ...and you have my gadget-buying down to a tee. IIRC the last thing I bought from Dixons was a portable cassette player

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Of course ....

    ...its nothing to do with Dixons being a crap retailer... heaven forbid that any of it should be their fault.

  5. Steve X

    move to Sweden

    What have the poor Swedes done to deserve that?

    Perhaps an alternative would be for Dixons to hire store staff who are sufficiently competent that people choose to go to them for overall value, rather than buying on line just because it's cheaper?

    Oh look, bacon on the wing...

    1. M Gale

      Unfortunately...

      ...as hammered into me during my unfortunate tenure with their PC World arm, knowing about computers is not part of the job description. Knowing how to SELL computers is.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What have the poor Swedes done to deserve that?

      I think it's the UK's unstated policy to piss off the nordic countries one by one. Having had a couple of year's fun at the Icelander's expense it's time to turn on the Swedes (the Norwegians will be left until last as we need their oil and gas), flatpack furniture and Dolph Lundgren movies not so much.

  6. mark 63 Silver badge
    Coat

    get yer coat!

    yeah see ya!

    allow me to be among the first of a long stream of Dixon hating....

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good news

    Last time I went there the lass couldn't even work the till.

    Never again...

    1. Marvin the Martian
      Troll

      So you got the stuff for free?

      Underlying profit model: inspired by underpants gnomes.

    2. M Gale

      Eclipse EPOS terminals.

      It's funny. I still go into a DSG store very occasionally for a phone top-up or something. Watching the cashier blink and poke at the screen in confusion, I'll usually say "just give it here. See that button? Yeah, the e-topup/e-voucher thing? That's the one. Now the icon for Three network.. 10 pounds please.. like me to cash the till up for you too?"

      Though these days I'll usually just use the self service tills at the local Tesco, yes. Same thing except I'm actually supposed to be operating it myself.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    :O

    Quick! Sell more Monster cables and extended warranties!

  9. Wayne
    WTF?

    They don't like money

    I remember walking into the Currys megastore at Lakeside and trying to buy a Nikon D700 just after my D200 was stolen.

    I'd seen an offer on the net for 20% off, but wanted to buy in store. Nope, sorry - we will charge you the full price to buy in store.

    Really? So I want to hand you just over £1000 right now, but you don't want it? Ok... And Warehouseexpress made another sale.

    Sure, they were 8% more than the offer price on the currys website, but if a company doesn't want my money I'm not going to force them to take it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Wayne

      You're not very smart are you? Personally I've always been given the web price, however, if your communication skills are somewhat lacking you could have ordered online to pick up in store. For some reason I'm not surprised that you'd rather throw a hissy fit and spend an extra 80 pounds elswhere but then I suppose that's your business.

      1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
        Grenade

        @AC

        Well, yes, but that's rather the point. High street retailers need to learn to give all of their customers the best deal they can, all of the time, regardless of communication skills, appearances, or any other value judgement you want to apply to said customers. We shouldn't have to jump through ridiculous hoops like ordering on-line to pick up in store, in order to get the price that results.

        Not learning this lesson is why the high street stores are dying. Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

        GJC

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Geoff Campbell

          >regardless of communication skills

          I disagree. I'm sure a salesperson would rather accommodate someone who is polite than a know-it-all in your face loud mouthed chav, that's simple human nature. If you would treat both such clients equally then you must be an exceptional person.

          Secondly if Wayne really wanted to stick it to the man wouldn't he have got more satisfaction ordering online then going to the salesperson who refused him the same price to ask him/her to get the camera from stock for him.

          I agree, we shoudldn't have to jump through hoops to get the web price but the buyers attitude has a lot to do with it.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Thumb Up

            "the buyers attitude has a lot to do with it."

            I agree, I always get the best deals when I wave my gun around.

          2. Jim Morrow

            jumping through hoops

            >>> we shoudldn't have to jump through hoops to get the web price

            if you want the web price, buy on the interweb.

            it's unfair to expect shops to match those prices. they have higher overheads for starters. and they may offer better customer service, like being able to play with the stuff before buying it. or a hassle-free returns policy. or getting clueful sales advice. not that you get any of that of course in dsg's tat-o-ramas.

            1. M Gale

              Re: Jim Morrow

              This is DSG we are talking about. These are the people that will charge one price for walking into the store and asking, and another price for walking into the store with a smartphone/tablet, pre-ordering the product IN THE STORE, and then still subjecting you to the same godawful hard sales techniques when you go to pick up the product that comwes from the same place, and costs the same amount to store in the shop.

              It may be a "web price", but it's hardly a web purchase is it? That pre-order scheme was made with one thing in mind: To get you into the store where they can pester you to buy a warranty, instead of buying off the web where you just uncheck the little box that says "rape my bank account please."

            2. Terry 13
              WTF?

              DSG = Internet free zone

              I, rather stupidly went into Currys recently with £250 burning a hole in my pocket. I was quite interested in the well-reviewed Advent Tablet DSG sell exclusively, which must be a fluke. But I'd read the screen was a bit dodgy and opinion was divided on the iPlayer performance, so decided to take a look. I thought, by now, they must have wifi for testing computers. Surely.

              "Can I connect to the internet to see how this performs?", I asked the salesgirl who looked so rough she would probably be turned down for a job as a chugger.

              "Of course you can, it will just say 'Page not found'".

              WTF I thought. "So, you still don't have wifi? How can people evaluate your technology products?"

              "But you can see how the browser performs, you just won't see the page, it will say '404 Page not found'" she replies. I was actually quite surprised because '404 error' was the most impressive display of technical knowledge I had ever encountered in a DSG employee.

              At that point I gave up, but I had to ask: "Starbucks sells coffee but has wifi. MacDonalds sells burgers but has wifi. How can you sell computers, routers, etc. but not have wifi?"

              She replied with more truth than she knew: "But they have wifi as a service. We don't offer services"

              Exactly. If you want any kind of service, don't visit a DSG shop. Why did I go in?

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @Geoff Campbell

            "I agree, we shoudldn't have to jump through hoops to get the web price but the buyers attitude has a lot to do with it."

            This is why people hate and are gradually shunning the likes of Dixons: that you have to participate in some kind of sales dance/ritual, haggling as if you're in downtown Marrakech, in order to activate some "secret handshake" offer. Meanwhile, everybody else wonders why the hell the retailers are penalising themselves by encouraging people not to use their expensive retail facilities, instead going to *other* Web-based retailers to get their goods.

            Avoiding extra charges is another hassle of dealing with these people, too. "Oh, let's charge you delivery for something being replaced under warranty!" The trick there, for those of you confronted with this, is to complain and then use your Jedi powers to persuade them to charge the delivery to the servicing company.

      2. Wayne

        Who mentioned a hissy fit ?

        I like to think I'm fairly smart (but don't we all). I just don't see the need to throw hissy fits in a store. I walk in, I ask them to sell me something that they are offering to the public through some channel and if they don't, I leave.

        What's wrong with wanting to support retailers who treat you like a human?

        I'm sure if I'd dragged a manager out and thrown a hissy fit, I could have got the web price. But my time has value, and my blood pressure is quite low. I'd like to keep it that way.

        Yes, I chose to spend 80 quid elsewhere - with a smaller company, who have a record for providing good products at a reasonable (if not the lowest) price and have a reputation for not sucking.

        1. Gulfie
          Thumb Up

          +1

          I'm with you. Penalising bad service by taking your £££ elsewhere is the best feedback you can give. Make sure they know you're doing it too. I do it in pubs and restaurants when I get food that should never have left the kitchen, and yes, I've done it in big electrical stores too.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fading away in captive markets

    Dixons Group's operations in Scandinavia (Elkjøp, ElGiganten, etc.) aren't too popular for their sales practices, either, but together with a few other chains, they come across as the only game in town. Still, there's plenty of opportunity for other players to take business away from them, as has indeed happened in stuff like electronics, gadgetry, home entertainment, and so on.

  11. AndrueC Silver badge
    Happy

    Oh dear.

    What a shame.

    Never mind.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Bye

    Don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meanwhile in Spain

    It has been confirmed that PC-City will be shutting shop in Spain.

    http://www.channelinsider.es/es/noticias/2011/04/14/confirmado-pc-city-abandona-espana

    I for one won't be cheering. I've always found the staff to be pleasant and never had any problems with returns. Oh, and the one time I was offerered an add-on I politely declined and didn't feel the need to get offended by it in anyway.

    Why don't all you PC-World haters go down to your nearest store and ask the staff if they want unemployemnt cover, I'm sure they'll thank you for it and it might make you all fell that little bit better about yourselves and give a tiny boost to your superiority complex.

    1. Code Monkey
      Headmaster

      It's not a superiority complex

      DSG staff _are_ typically clueless and too keen to push rip-off warranties.

      That your experience in another country is different is no huge surprise.

    2. The Alpha Klutz

      Why don't you go down to your nearest store and ask the staff if they want

      a job in your underground dungeon complex?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    You dont get boots in Boots.....

    you dont get curry in Currys, but at Dixons.......?

  15. teapot9999
    Go

    Who needs Dixons?

    I buy electronics from either Amazon (cheapest) or John Lewis (knowledgable assistants and free extended warranty), neither of them try to sell me an extended warranty or anything else I haven't specifially asked for. There is no need for Dixons/Curry's, whose shops are not appealing, have a limited range and no USP.

  16. John 62

    H&Dixonkea

    They'll go to Sweden, wait til we've forgotten who they are and come back selling hauflungte that we have to assemble ourselves and we'll love it.

    Value for "the many people"!

    http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/about_ikea/the_ikea_way/our_business_idea/index.html

  17. Anna Logg

    Closing stores? what stores?

    I thought Dixons only operated onlne in the UK these days, or does the article actually refer to DSGI i.e PCWorld + Currys

    1. Peter Hewitt

      name change

      I think that DSGi renamed itself to Dixons Retail a few years back.

      Least that was the impression I got when the woman I was arguing with re: a faulty Currys dishwasher gave me the wrong email and then wondered why she'd not got the photos she was wanting.

      Replacement came from John Lewis who were delightful.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Welcome

        John Lewis

        Buying face to face for the value of Customer Service?

        Richer Sounds, or if they don't stock it, John Lewis. If only DSG stock it, choose again!

        All we needs to know....

    2. tickedon
      FAIL

      Annafail.

      Anna.. stop trying to be clever. You've utterly failed - DSGI is no more, they renamed themselves to Dixons retail plc and announced that back in June 2010.

      Hence the article was correct referring to Dixons in terms of them as a company, not the now-renamed stores.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Dixons/Currys

    I was always a little disappointed when Currys bought Dixons because I always found Dixons to be slightly less annoying than Currys. The annoying thing about Currys was their procedure. Firstly, you had to get a sales assistant to fill out a slip of paper with what you wanted on it. Then you had to take the slip of paper to the tills to get it pulled from the warehouse. Then you had to pay for it and wait. And finally you got your goods. During that system, they would attempt to sell you an extended warranty three times. I don't mind someone trying to sell me that once, but once I have said no I expect no-one to attempt to sell it to me again. The last few times I used Curry's, I used to say in reply to the sales assistant's attempt to sell me an extended warranty, "No thanks, and if anyone else attempts to sell me an extended warranty, I'm going to walk out." The last time I went in Curry's they didn't listen to me, attempted to sell me an extended warranty a second time, and I walked out, never to return.

    For customer service they are one of the worst, and I, for one, won't miss them if they do leave the UK market.

    1. The Starglider

      Wrong way around

      @AC - Currys didn't buy Dixons, it was the other way around years ago. If you're referring to why the Dixons shops changed names, it was simply a cost saving thing, cheaper to rebrand Dixons to Currys than the other way around. They had been the same company for a long time.

  19. djberriman
    Thumb Up

    Just ask them

    I faced this situation in PCWORLD (online price was cheaper).

    I picked up an item not realising the store price was different, I got to the checkout, the guy rang it in the till, I was surprised by the price and questioned it, seems the price I had was online only, so I asked if I walked out to my car, fired up the laptop, ordered it and walked back in I would get the online price which I would, I pointed out it was all a bit silly, was there nothing he could do and he quitely logged on to the web on his till into an existing dummy account on their website and placed an order. He then put the order no. into the till and charged me the web price.

    Guess you just have to be nice!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @djberriman

      Ssshhhh, people in here don't like it when you say nice things about PCWorld.

    2. Just Thinking

      Not unreasonable

      It isn't unreasonable to charge different prices online and in store.

      It is catering for two different markets. For people who prefer to go to a shop, pick something and take it home, then they have to pay shop prices, because shops cost money.

      For people who buy online, and expect online prices, then they are simply using the fact that they have a shop to gain competetive advantage. When you order online, they are, in effect, delivering it instantly to a pick up point in your town which is open long hours, whereas the competition will deliver it a week later at a time of their choosing when you might not be in. You order from them, maybe even pay slightly more.

      Fair enough really.

    3. M Gale

      @djberriman

      That's what I used to do. Couldn't see any sense in turning a customer away when I could just grab OpenOffice, tell it to create a link to "www.pcworld.co.uk" and double-clickie.

      Of course the manager would get on at us for doing so. Fortunately you found a store where the staff hadn't had all sense of individuality beaten out of them yet.

  20. This post has been deleted by its author

  21. Smudge@mcr

    Free Market

    When they give you the OPTION of buying a PC / laptop without an OS pre installed then I will start shopping there again.

    Why am I forced to buy something I do not want or use (i.e. MS Windows)

    1. Sean Baggaley 1
      FAIL

      Seriously?

      Why do you expect a retail chain targeting *typical consumers* to offer you customised versions of products they don't even manufacture themselves?

      Don't want a PC with Windows on it? Go build your own. Or buy from a specialist dealer.

      99% of people would rather own a computer that actually does something useful when you unpack it, plug it in and switch it on, instead of just making a pathetic beep and demanding you insert a "system disk"—whatever the hell that might be.

      Partly, this is because it's a damned sight easier to test and demo such stock in the store—the alternative is to pay someone valuable money to sit staring at progress bars while installing OS images whenever new demo kit arrives.

      Partly, this is because most of the demand from consumers is for a computer that does X, Y, and Z (where either X or Y is something like, "runs Crysis 2 in real-time, rather than as a turn-based slideshow").

      But it's MAINLY because 99% of people wouldn't know what an "operating system" was if their lives depended on it. If you think PC World's support is crap now, imagine what it would be like if their tame, underpaid support people had to read a script that included lines like:

      "Hello, my name is being George! First, which operating system are you running please?"

      "Okay, and which particular Ubuntu distribution you are using please?"

      "10.10... okay, good... you are running KDE, or Gnome, or Unity?"

      "Gnome, okay! Is this Gnome 3.0?"

      ... etc.

      (It helps if you read the above in a strong Indian accent.)

      Support—unless you work in FOSS—is a cost centre, not a profit centre.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Free Market

      Name one major retailer with a high street presence which will sell a brand name PC/Laptop without a pre-installled OS.

      Retailers sell to the general public, they will not stock niche products that may sit on the shelf for months. They are also resllers, they can only sell on what is made available by the manufacturers. If you want to complain about this practice then direct your bile at the likes of HP and others.

      Oh, and nobody is forcing you to buy anything, you could always build your own or go through the maze of options at Dell to find one of the token machines they sell without an OS.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Funny this

    I was in PCW today browsing, looking at Android tablets. The place was dead. After about 10 minutes of me playing with a tablet I SOUGHT sales advice from one of the half-dozen bored-looking chatting-amongst-themselves assistants. The enquiry I made (will you throw in a case) took 10 minutes to get an answer. (No, was the answer. Shame, I was testing but may well have purchased.)

    While waiting I wandered round and realised about a third of the floorspace is unused - and I thought to myself: this is a company that doesn't appear to expect to be trading in a year's time.

    And then I read this story tonight. No surprise whatsoever.

    Laughably bad.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Alternative?

      So pop in to Maplin?

      I've always found them relatively well informed for non engineers.

      If you're the kind of person who wants to risk buying counterfeit or broken stock online and waiting 2-4 days for it to arrive then go for it. The Internet gives a lot of advantages to the well informed.

      But most people in shops haven't a clue what they want, or want it right now and can't wait.

      For these people they'll need informed staff and a company willing to invest in premises.

      So of course they can't price match.

      1. John 62

        non-engineers?

        friend of mine worked as a sales assistant in Maplin for a while after getting his MEng in RF engineering.

  23. Smudge@mcr

    Re: Free Market

    Just to clarify a few points from the replies.

    I am not anti Microsoft. I am pro choice.

    Why would PC's "sit on shelves"? I am NOT advocating PCW should sell computers with Linux pre installed. I am advocating that for a number of consumers with the correct tec skills (like REG readers) you should be able to buy a computer blank and then install the OS of your choice.

    If a PC comes from the factory with Windows pre installed (and all the junk that comes with it)there should be an option for the shop to format the drive and knock the price of Windows off the computer. Would take about 5 minutes.

    Not saying this is for eveyone just it would be a nice option for those with the skills to do it.

    Would you like to install Windows yourself without all that trial rubbish which comes from a pre built PC?

    1. M Gale

      Re: Re: Free Market

      I'll respond as someone who's had to work for this company before: PC World don't care about technically literate customers. In fact, you are their enemy. They want someone to come in, ask if the "hard drive" comes with a "slide-out cup holder", and can they buy it in pink?

      You can't blind someone with science and swipe their wallet while they are dazzled if they know more about the science than you do.

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