Latest Jessops News!

[smithphoto]

They've never had targets before, because they have always been refered to as sales advisors not salesmen/women.
Jessops used to always pride themselves as offering the customer impartial advise, but they will now be clearly endorcing the products with a bigger margin on it so that they can reach their target to save themselves from getting fired!
And as for deals Cyclone.... the profit margin is so small, that there is never any room for negotiation.

 

[candlestick]

I bought a telly a couple of years ago from Martin Dawes. I checked the price on their website, and it was competitive with other online retailers, so I took a trip to my local store, where it was priced £100 higher. I said 'I want that telly, but at the internet price' The guy said there was no way he could do that, so I proceeded towards the door, and was halfway up the car park when the assistant in question caught up with me to offer me the TV at the price I wanted - by all accounts the assistant manager had berated the poor b****r and sent him after me, as they couldn't turn down a £750 sale on a quiet Wednesday in January!

 

[HoppyUK]

Forget about haggling........ All of the staff at jessops have now been told that they have to take £30 each profit, every day as a target or they face the leather chair, and continued failing of this target will mean disciplinary action being taken.
So, spare a thought for the poor staff.
As if they have'nt got enough to worry about already.

It's not often that staff get exposed to the sharp end of business like that, but that ultimately is the name of the game. No profit, no business, no job, the end.

Sparing a thought for Jessops sales people won't help. Go and spend some money there. That's the problem!

Bottom line - if people were prepared to pay Jessops prices, they would not be in a pickle. Their prices are a bit higher because that's the cost of buying locally on the high street.

Anybody that buys mail order from the internet is responsible for the demise of Jessops. Those people that have tried stuff in Jessops and then bougt cheaper from the web need to have a word with themselves. And I bet that includes a lot of people who have posted on this thread :nono:

 

[candlestick]

PS When I bought my 400D, their price was comparible to online retailers and Jacobs etc, so I parted with my cash at Jessops (without any discussion). 12 months later when I upgraded to the 450D and they were a full £100 out in price at least, on the 450D packages available, and I couldn't be bothered taking a trip to town on the off chance that they MIGHT be able to come down in price, so I bought from Amazon instead!

 

[strumstrum]

Their prices are a bit higher because that's the cost of buying locally on the high street.

yep agreed, but ill take the Sony A200 as an example, 3 high street stores, Argos £259.99, John Lewis £259.99, Jespps £288.97.. okay lets put Argos out of the equasion as they are only okay if you know what you are after and put it down to service/knowledge, camera guy at my local John Lewis (Leicester) knocked the 2 I spoke to in Jessops for 6 on that score..

IMO if your current prices are higher than John Lewis's, they are too high...

saying that I know someone that has just bought a Sony A300 from Jessops (not Leicester) and got a good price with money knocked off.. so maybe Leicester Jessops is a poor example of the chain..

 

[SuperAP]

A bit higher? Since the last round of price rises, Jessops have been more expensive than a lot of other retailers. They're hammering nails into their own coffin IMO.

 

[markta]

At the end of the day, the bottom line is price with the price difference between online and shops being for overheads, whilst still making a profit.

That is the way of the UK people, me included. I would make an exception if the price was a little more (within 5%) of the online price, but Jessops are nowhere near this, so I buy online.

Harsh but I have to balance up the savings with other factors, but leans in the way of online shopping...

 

[cyclone]

And as for deals Cyclone.... the profit margin is so small, that there is never any room for negotiation.

Really? Take a sandisk ultra II CF card. £29.99 in Jessops, £9.99 on 7 day shop. 7 day can do 2 for £9.49 each, delivered. p&p what? £3?
So if 7 day make no profit, the cost price is £8 each.


£29.99 minus vat at 15% is £26.08, minus the cost price of £8 = Gross Profit of £18.08

I suspect that is a conservative amount.

Ask for a 20% discount the price becomes £23.99.

£23.99 minus vat = £20.86. take off £8 cost = £12.86 GP.

I'd rather sell 2 a day plus something else e.g. a camera than none at all and miss target.

 

[Flash In The Pan]

Really? Take a sandisk ultra II CF card. £29.99 in Jessops, £9.99 on 7 day shop. 7 day can do 2 for £9.49 each, delivered. p&p what? £3?
So if 7 day make no profit, the cost price is £8 each.


£29.99 minus vat at 15% is £26.08, minus the cost price of £8 = Gross Profit of £18.08

I suspect that is a conservative amount.

Ask for a 20% discount the price becomes £23.99.

£23.99 minus vat = £20.86. take off £8 cost = £12.86 GP.

I'd rather sell 2 a day plus something else e.g. a camera than none at all and miss target.

7day work from one (?) warehouse in a tax haven, Jessops work from 211 expensive, leased high street shops plus they have warehousing and also have considerably more staff and therefore far more in the way of wages to pay. Some stores will be making a healthy profit, some just scraping by and I'm sure, even after the recent closures, there are still quite a few stores running at a loss, plus you need to allow for the amount of gear that goes walkabout when you have retail premises....

Factor that little lot into your equation and I'll bet the margins are probably near identical....

 

[foodpoison]

The thing you don't get cyclone is that the staff in-store aren't given a 'cost' price to deal with. they're given a 'trade' price, which in my experience is usually the cost price with a bit added on to line the top of the pyramid's pockets.

And in my experience, drop the price below that 'trade' price, you might as well hand in your resignation.

 

[CrazyJay]

They had two stores in Basingstoke for years, I never quite understood why. No other company felt the need to have two locations in one small town centre. Commercial suicide.

There was probably very good reasoning behind that.

Originally there was Link Cameras at the bottom of town, Wellington Cameras up near the top, then Fisher Photographic a little further up the same street.

By buying out Fisher Photographic, Jessops were able to secure existing staff who were already very competent photographically, and by having a second store at the bottom end of town they effectivley pincered Wellington Cameras. That would ensure that anybody shopping around for prices by trawling the towns options would invariabley end up very close to one of the Jessops branches when they had seen all the options.

If prices are close, people seldom want to walk all the way to the other end of town again, to save a couple of pounds. This strong positioning eventually led to Wellington Cameras decline, and quite possibly contributed to the eventual closure of Link Cameras.

This of course left Jessops operating the only 2 remaining camera shops in town, and there was no longer any need to continue competing against themselves.

 

[smithphoto]

7 day shop is based in Guernsey! No vat!! No comparison!!
It's also argueable whether or not 7day stock is actually UK stock aswell? Maybe someone could answer that one?
When I said that there is no room for negotiation,I meant, when a sales advisor is confronted with a customer in the store whether they can throw in/discount a product, not the high st versus web business battle.

 

[markta]

A recent example is the 8GB Sandisk Extreme 4 UDMA card, £52.48 at Amazon and £99.99 at Warehouse, plus whatever Jessops want for them...

Unreal difference really and a prime example of why I go online most of the time....

Re the Jessops staff, I really feel sorry for the huge pressure put on them and if this is the case, the undoubted bias towards a particular brand rather than a personal choice.

I'd hate to be in their shoes. No doubt the majority of staff there work bloody hard and genuinely offer the best advice, based on what the customer wants, but this appears now not to be good enough

 

[cyclone]

7day work from one (?) warehouse in a tax haven, Jessops work from 211 expensive, leased high street shops plus they have warehousing and also have considerably more staff and therefore far more in the way of wages to pay. Some stores will be making a healthy profit, some just scraping by and I'm sure, even after the recent closures, there are still quite a few stores running at a a loss.

Factor that little lot into your equation and I'll bet the margins are probably near identical....

That's why I didn't remove vat from the 7 day price and am talking in gross profit not net profit. Net profit is near impossible to calculate and you have no chance without having access to each companies accounts.

The thing you don't get cyclone is that the staff in-store aren't given a 'cost' price to deal with. they're given a 'trade' price, which in my experience is usually the cost price with a bit added on to line the top of the pyramid's pockets.

And in my experience, drop the price below that 'trade' price, you might as well hand in your resignation.

Believe it or not foodpoison, I do get it. I thought that would be obvious really.
However Jessops management need to understand that lying to their staff about cost prices will only harm the business and result in potential business walking out of the door.
I have worked for a retail company that lied about cost prices and still does, so I know the situation all too well.

 

[cyclone]

7 day shop is based in Guernsey! No vat!! No comparison!!

Again, that's why I didn't take vat off their price.

 

[foodpoison]

I'd rather sell 2 a day plus something else e.g. a camera than none at all and miss target.

It seemed to me that you implied that if you were a member of store staff...

I totally agree, Jessops management are useless. I believe that extensive equipment training should be the first priority for Jessops management when hiring new staff.

 

[bonsyde]

is there any insentives for staff based on sales targets.. i really feel for these guys, they must be pretty down in the dumps.. but on the other hand i visited a store at south gyle, just outside Edinburgh, now what i wanted was a remote for the 400d, none in stock.. so the guy took my number and ordered me one... this was about 8 months ago and im still waiting for the call.. within 20 miles from my house there must be 6 jessops stores, surley one had one in stock.. i think before they do anything they must get the store staff right..

 

[Matt]

we dont know where 7day shop buy stock from either, they could be getting it via the backdoor somewhere rather through approved channels...approved retailers will have a MRSP that the stores are to sell at, giving them a maybe 20points, that isnt a lot to play with. If 7day are buying from sandisk in China then they will be getting them very very cheap.

 

[cyclone]

It seemed to me that you implied that if you were a member of store staff...

Yes that was my intention

I totally agree, Jessops management are useless. I believe that extensive equipment training should be the first priority for Jessops management when hiring new staff.

To clarify.
If I was a member of Jessops staff, I'd rather sell 2 items with some profit in the deal than no items at all.
It would be the same if I worked for any retailer.

 

[cyclone]

we dont know where 7day shop buy stock from either, they could be getting it via the backdoor somewhere rather through approved channels...approved retailers will have a MRSP that the stores are to sell at, giving them a maybe 20points, that isnt a lot to play with. If 7day are buying from sandisk in China then they will be getting them very very cheap.

I deliberately gave 7 day no profit and didn't take vat off them. I'm sure Jessops get a good price on this stuff.

 

[Matt]

dont be, if they are on sale or return then they wont get that good a price. having dealings with china myself as well as uk based distributers, I know that if you are willing to shell out a little cash to the chinese manufacturers you will be getting a huge amount of very cheap stock.

if jessops buy from a distributer, that distributer has added their markup, and import tax, 7 day dont have that at all

 

[foodpoison]

To clarify.
If I was a member of Jessops staff, I'd rather sell 2 items with some profit in the deal than no items at all.
It would be the same if I worked for any retailer.

And so my point still stands, you clearly don't get it.

If we cut the price down to the trade price, it is usually 1 or 2 pounds. In which case we make no 'profit', and potentially get a disciplinary for dropping the price too low.

 

[Flash In The Pan]

That's why I didn't remove vat from the 7 day price and am talking in gross profit not net profit. Net profit is near impossible to calculate and you have no chance without having access to each companies accounts.

I know that, I double-checked your calculations

 

[HoppyUK]

There was probably very good reasoning behind that.

The reason for Jessops headlong expansion into hundreds of High Street shops was primarily based on high property values building equity into the business so the company could be floated on the stock market and the key people would make a killing. This was after the Jessop family sold the business.

This seemed like a good idea at the time, like ten years ago. High streeet retail was doing well, nobody had any idea that the internet would change the fundamentals of retailing for ever, and the likes of Argos, John Lewis and other big players were (apparently) not interested in photographic, not the enthusiast end anyway. Ebay barely existed, ditto 7-Day Shop, Amazon only sold a few books and Warehouse Express hadn't been invented.

Of course we now know that there was a flaw in the plan, and that management regime was quickly ousted, but the damage was done and Jessops is now lumbered with a huge property portfolio that it cannot get rid of, and it needs higher prices to fund it.

TBH, and although I hate to say it, I cannot see that Jessops will survive. It will certainly never get back to its former glory. The world has moved on, and depsite the likes of us lot liking to try expensive kit before we buy it, when push comes to shove we will go to the cheapest supplier, and that can never again be Jessops. Forums like this give us enough confidence to buy stuff unseen. Regular consumers will happily buy from Boots, or Tescos, or Currys, Argos, John Lewis etc etc. The lucrative developing and printing business has evaporated.

The guys that have got it right IMHO, are the likes of Warehouse Express and Park Cameras. Big mail order business, driven by web and magazine advertising, low-cost-high-volume business model, plus a huge shop-showroom where, if you make the journey, you can try absolutely anything before you buy, at good prices.

It's not even more convenient to buy from a local shop. Right now, I could make a phone call and have whatever I want on my doorstep tomorrow morning. It will cost me £5 postage, but that's less than the petrol and parking of going to town.

In the end, price drives everything, and ironically, that is exactly how Jessops started. I've siad this before, but 20 years ago Jessops was exactly like Warehouse Express, so they know how it's done

 

[cyclone]

And so my point still stands, you clearly don't get it.

If we cut the price down to the trade price, it is usually 1 or 2 pounds. In which case we make no 'profit', and potentially get a disciplinary for dropping the price too low.

When did I say cut down to trade price?

I know that, I double-checked your calculations

Sorry, maybe I'm being thick, but I don't know what you're trying to say?

 

[Flash In The Pan]

Cyclone, I think what you're missing is that the majority of Jessops' profit comes from the likes of memory cards, filters etc. If they cut their prices on these items down to the bone then where does the money come from to run the business.

Remember, this isn't Tescos - Jack Cohen's pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap ethos might work with baked beans, but it doesn't work in a high street retail envirnoment with 2gb Sandisk CF cards....

 

[cyclone]

FITP.
I think you may be missing that I said somebody asks for discount. I'm not suggesting a company wide 20% price slash on all accessories, that'd be silly.

What I'm saying, and maybe I should have been more clear about it (after all we are on the internet) is that if you need to discount an item to close a sale then do it, you'll sell the next at full price anyway.
If this happens twice over the course of that day then that's most of the £30 target done, easy peasy.

 

[cyclone]

foodpoison,
I think I've worked out what you think it is that I don't get.
Is it that they tell you there is little profit in everything? Yes, I get it.

What I'm saying is that I have shown there is profit in the gear, regardless of what lies they tell you it's there.
If they fail to realise this then they will kill off the business fast. I cannot help what they tell you, but you can, you work there.
Yes I understand you've had enough of it, but you could raise the point right?

If we can agree that they lie to you about the quantity of profit in the stock, then we can also agree that giving the "sales assistants" or whatever title Jessops choose to give you guys the ability or authority to offer a discount in order to close a sale, that will benefit the business and increase profit.

 

[cyclone]

stupid double post!
AAARRRGGGHHHH!

 

[markta]

This is a really interesting topic!

When I used to shop in Jessops, I got the impression that staff genuinely believed that the trade price keyed into their computer was exactly that.

I agree, I think they bait customers into buying the DSLR and lenses etc. and realise that they are a one stop shop and sell memory cards etc. so the customer gets the whole lot from them...I think it used to work, but people are really getting more price savvy nowadays, especially with the recession.

Jessops' strategy seems to have changed in that the memory cards are still sky high, but DSLRS and lenses have now increased in price. As to whether in real terms sales have slumped only people like Foodpoison will know, but word does get around about prices and what goes around comes around as they say

I wish the staff there the best of luck, as I feel they are being made scapegoats for the Companies' troubles.

As for my example; the 8gb Extreme IV CF memory cards, presumably Amazon get theirs direct from China, thereby missing out the middlemen...wouldn't Jessops do the same?

 

[HoppyUK]

foodpoison,
I think I've worked out what you think it is that I don't get.
Is it that they tell you there is little profit in everything? Yes, I get it.

What I'm saying is that I have shown there is profit in the gear, regardless of what lies they tell you it's there.

Cyclone, last month Jessops announced a £5.9m loss (before tax) on the last six months trading (ending in March 09).

Where is the profit in that?

 

[cyclone]

That's what happens when you don't move stock and it sits there taking up retail space.
You only make profit if you sell the stuff.
I did say I've worked out GP not net profit, you're quoting net losses.

I'm surprised I've had to answer that to be honest.

 

[foodpoison]

But it's not making profit because you have to take into account all the overheads.
7dayshop have minimal overheads in comparison.

No offence mate but it feels like I'm talking to a brick wall here!

 

[strumstrum]

But it's not making profit because you have to take into account all the overheads.

yes but if you take my earlier post into account, IE Argos & John Lewis Sony A200 £259.99 Jessops £288.97 then Jessops are not even competing with the High Street.

 

[foodpoison]

yes but if you take my earlier post into account, IE Argos & John Lewis Sony A200 £259.99 Jessops £288.97 then Jessops are not even competing with the High Street.

No, but then they sell all manner of things, so they can make more of a profit on things that generally aren't easily available to the non-tech savvy customers.

 

[Flash In The Pan]

yes but if you take my earlier post into account, IE Argos & John Lewis Sony A200 £259.99 Jessops £288.97 then Jessops are not even competing with the High Street.

Equally, when I bought my Panasonic p+s Jessops were £140 (50% of the price) cheaper than the nearby John Lewis store....

 

[Splog]

I don't get this thing about Jessops prices being high due to their overheads? Jessops are not a charity case, they have to be profitable and competitive, if they can't match or beat other retailers or even the Internet then they are doomed to failure as a high street store :shrug:

From my point of view I could never have loyalty to any retailer and I'm certain they would have none for me as a customer :| They are in business to take as much money from me and to make the most profit they can! and as a buyer I'm going to get the best price I can and if that means buying over the Internet, then so be it.

 

[cyclone]

But it's not making profit because you have to take into account all the overheads.
7dayshop have minimal overheads in comparison.

No offence mate but it feels like I'm talking to a brick wall here!

The feeling is mutual.
It's a very simple idea. Sell more, increase profit.

I don't see what is so difficult to grasp. It has nothing to do with overheads, it's GROSS PROFIT.
Cutting overheads is the responsibility of the management.

Sell something for £1 GP, that's £1 out of your losses. Don't sell something, that's nothing taken out of your losses.

I know 7 day shop has much lower overheads, that's why they sell things at 1/3 of the price 66% cheaper. Not the 20% I plucked out of the air for an example.
I even gave Jessops a head start by assuming 7 day make no profit!

I'm not even suggesting that Jessops need to compete with 7 day, they dont. I used their price to work out a reasonable cost price.

Can I make it any clearer? Sell stuff and make profit. Don't sell anything and everybody has to look for a new job.

 

[Flash In The Pan]

Can I make it any clearer? Sell stuff and make profit. Don't sell anything and everybody has to look for a new job.

That's fine in theory but slashing profit margins (as they have already done with camera bodies) doesn't necessarily equate to more profit, it may mean more turnover, but turnover doesn't pay the bills, profit does.

 

[blue max]

I used to buy milk from a milkman. Then I saw it was a fraction of the price in a supermarket.

Some people still buy from a milkman, but they have a particular need.

The mass market has changed their buying habits.

Retail businesses DO have to compete with online sales, like it or not. If you are quoted or see a horrendous price for something in a shop, you know it's not going to be competitive.

So you don't bother looking again.

Just remember that any business is only there to make money. That is the capitalist system. But he who lives by the sword...

Graham