Harvey Norman

[Ivor]

Harvey Norman confuse me.

Last weekend I walked in the Harvey Norman to buy a combo DVD video player. I was standing in front of a particular model that had the price of $299 in rather large red numbers on a sign. A sales guy shows up and starts telling me all the wonderful virtues of this piece of machinary. I then asked was it on sale and he immediately said that if I bought it there and then he would give it to me for $269. I politely said that I would think about it and went to the computer section to buy some software that was on sale.

I took this to the desk and asked if I buy this software and the DVD/video player would I get a further discount, I am not normally that cheeky but I thought I would give it a go. The sales person said "yeah sure I'll give you the DVD player for $279", he was a different person to the first sales rep.

I thought I might as well buy both the software and the DVD/video player and walked up to the cashier and said, "that guy over there said I could have the DVD/video player for $269" and she said okay without checking.

I am confused about how Harvey Norman work, surely if the sign says $299 it should go for that and why do two different sales reps give two different prices. And why did the cashier just accept my blatent statment that I could buy this DVD/video player for $269. I keep thinking what would happen if I said that the sales rep said I could have it for $250.

So what gives, any help in understanding how these guys work would be apprciated

Ivor

[ozwinner]

JB Hi Fi, do a simular thing.
I was looking at a new sound system for me truck, the one I liked was $1400, I kept looking for a while then the sales person said," I can sell it to you for $700......What The........
I didnt buy it, too many flashing lights for an oldish bugger like me. It sounded good though.
Cheers, Allan

[Grue]

Harvey used to use a code number on the price tag. The code had a letter that indicated where the decimal point went. The number then read from right to left. This was the lowest the sales person could go to get the sale. I don't know If they still use it but worth a look to try and break their code. "shopping hackers"

Glenn

[Eastie]

Went to JB on the weekend to buy a new TV for my old man’s 70th birthday. Found one that was marked down from $1200 to $899, looked good so I asked the sale assistant how much cash I would have to hand over. He did some sums on his calculator and came up with $750, $149 off the marked sale price and a $450 saving on the RRP which is on the net and I'd seen earlier in the day at another retailer.
I guess that they have sales targets, some of which are $’s based, others are based on the amount of stock going out the door.