Behind the scenes: A visit by OzBargain to CatchOfTheDay's HQ where employees have a gym, baskeball court, free snacks &drinks

Yesterday we were invited on the NORA Expedition to visit some companies in involved in the retailer space. CatchoftheDay was definitely the highlight of the expedition.

From the outside, the building is among many nondescript businesses in the area. However upon entering the premises, you are greeted
by this sign and this slide
Catch Sign slide.

Work environment

The building used to be occupied by Adidas which is how they inherited the slide and basketball courts. Lots of the Adidas branding is still all over the building.

gym bball

The break room contains a pool table,foosball table a tv (with an Atari hooked up to it), loads of free snacks everywhere (Groceryrun stuff), and drinks. Funnily enough the top shelf of their fridge was packed with Rekorderlig Cider which has appeared on OzBargain a few times.

room

To cancel out the unlimited food and drinks, they do have the gym and basketball/soccer courts but also have bicycles by all their entrances. Employees are encouraged to take a bike ride or have a walk.

Employees are also welcome to bring their dogs to work. There were 3 or 4 cute dogs roaming around with nametags.

dog dog

I also spotted a couple of employees playing Mario Kart for N64. Right next to it was Goldeneye. Awesome!

cart

Everyone appears to be treated as an equal and there are no job titles that start with a C (CEO, CFO etc.). Employees are free to take breaks whenever. As long as all the work is done, then everyone is happy. Imagine if your boss walked into your office and you were playing Mario Kart. No one blinks an eye at Catch.

As the Catch guys said, they spend more time at work then with their families so they want everyone to be as healthy and happy as they can. I suppose that is true for most workplaces.

Canvas Prints

They have many of their own custom canvas prints scattered around the office. Given they've advertised cheap canvas printing services many times on their site, I'm guessing that's why they have many of them. Here is the one from the famous Hungry Jacks deal:

hj

They also had a similar canvas for their Baskin Robbins deal.

Photo Shoot

All the product photos you see are done in house. When we were visiting, they had 3 different photo shoots going on simultaneously. The one picture below is for this Johnson Brothers Dinner Set so not much time between taking the photo, editing photos, and putting them on the web.

china

Yes, that is real food they are using.

Customer Service

cust

The most asked question they get: "Where is my package?". I think shipping times are one of the biggest complaints from OzBargainers. Most of the time OzBargainers get their items within a few days. However sometimes there are big delays in shipping. I should have asked them about this (I asked them loads of questions!).

They have recently added live chat to their customer service so this may be useful to those who have issues. Throughout their customer service office they have phrases on the wall like honesty, ownership, and other quips to constantly remind staff that the customer is very important.

sign

On the wall in their Scoopon section, they had conditions of deals written on the board. For example, on a particular travel deal they listed conditions of the sale like charges per person and other fine print. They also had a wall of coupon codes. Unfortunately, they were all old and not working (last one from ClickFrenzy) otherwise you may have seen a deal posted. ;)

On OzBargain

Very similar responses to Kogan and other big retailers. They love it and they hate it. OzBargain is a great channel for many companies to promote goods. Some of them enjoy reading about deals on this site. However, what they (and others) don't like is the rudeness and negative comments by some members. We agree and this is something we have been trying to tackle for many years however no silver bullet yet.

Unfortunately, qqq was not there.

ACA/Today Tonight

Today Tonight has been axed and apparently ACA is not doing as many consumer stories anymore. So how do businesses get on these shows? Well, COTD used to pitch to the producers themselves but now use a PR company. Speaking to other businesses there, it seems to be the same deal. Pitch a story that can be easily told and enjoyed by that media outlet's audiences and they will air it. If they won't, they will keep you in their database if they need to run a story later on. Do we want OzBargain on there? Don't know.

Catch took a few years to build their customer base up to 70,000 members. After an appearance on one of these shows, overnight they went up to 100,000 members.


A very interesting day overall. I'll write a part 2 about the other places we visited and other companies that are bargain related. I probably forgot a whole bunch of stuff so ask any questions. I might be able to pass on some of the questions to Gabby (perhaps have an IAMA?).

P.S. Check out Lifehacker, CatchoftheDay Facebook, or our Twitter for more pictures.

Related Stores

Catch.com.au
Catch.com.au
Marketplace

Comments

  • +3

    Very nice office. Looks like an awesome day :)

    • +2

      glad you agree scotty! and on that note, i am looking forward to a 'behind the scenes' look at ozbargain too ok?

      • +2

        Probably not as interesting as we all work from home (or a Regus lounge) however I have 2 cats roaming around.

        • Do you employ the always changing phone people that all have the same generic name and when you recieve large boxes charge you for handling but don't have a loading bay anywhere near having to bring everything to move it with you.

        • +4

          are they union cats or contract labour? lol

  • +2

    Haha the comments at the end of the lifehacker article are pretty amusing…

    Ah, now I know why Catch of the Day take so long to despatch orders! They are too occupied with all these "toys"! I deal with many online stores - here and overseas - and Catch of the Day are the slowest there is! It's about time management had a good look at their work ethics, rather than providing "toys" to wile away their time.

    Also

    Shame about their declining customer service.
    I'd made 30+ orders with them over the years, but a recent shocking customer service experience has meant I never bother checking their sites anymore.
    Not that they'd care. They're obviously making a ton of money.

    • Their warehouse is separate from their corporate HQ. Would be interesting to see how they process orders in the warehouse. While there were employees playing, the majority of them were working when we were there. Design department was photoshopping images and doing 3 simultaneous photoshoots. Customer service was going through tickets and other employees were working on other random stuff.

      Oh just remembered. I asked them about CrashoftheDay. They obviously don't want their site to crash as it means they aren't taking any orders. They've tried to make their site as lightweight as possible but inevitably if everyone is ordering at the same time, something has got to give.

      As for the amount of items they have at these sales, they don't just have 2 iPods in stock. They do have adequate stock however with the demand they quickly sell out. They get something like an order every 3 seconds. I suggested taking a photo of their stock as proof but they jokingly stated that OzBargainers would think it was photoshopped. LOL.

      • Design department was photoshopping images and doing 3 simultaneous photoshoots.

        any kensington monitor arms? :)
        https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/134846#comment-1858547

        btw thanks for the great report :)

      • -1

        They do have adequate stock

        your/there idea of "adequate" and mine seem to differ quite substantially…

        I suggested taking a photo of their stock as proof but they jokingly stated that OzBargainers would think it was photoshopped.

        caus there is not really the stock they claim and they would have to 'shop it to make it seem like theres more than one idevice? i call shenanigans

  • Wow has a sort of a mini google/zappos feel from the photos.

    They even have a squat rack just wow…

  • +1

    Never knew Today Tonight had been axed. Here's to it on the West Coast.

  • Geeez, I'm moving down to Sydney from Queensland just to get a job at COTD. What an environment to work in!!

    • +1

      You would be disappointed because they are actually in Melbourne. Any good retailer office in Sydney?

      • Thanks Scotty. Alright I'm moving to Melbourne.

    • They're missing a cafeteria if they want to follow in Google's footsteps.

      It all looks good from the outside and these 'toys' make for good distraction but you're more likely to spend more (un)paid time at work.

  • I like that they can bring their dogs. Maybe I should apply for a job there.

  • I ordered a couple of items two weeks ago, it was despatched the very next morning and arrived in a couple of days, previous ones have been slow.

  • Never had a problem with the company - even though we're in Perth. Goods arrive in a good time frame. It would be more user friendly though if an invoice was also in the delivery instead of having to go back through orders to check it off yourself.

  • That slide is lethal

    • Yes! I have a cut on my elbow. Did you end up going down the slide?

      • I wimped out after seeing my friend go down and hearing the loud bangs

  • What's the game.com.au reference about? Did they buy the domain/name?
    http://edge.alluremedia.com.au/m/l/2014/01/COTD01.jpg
    http://edge.alluremedia.com.au/m/l/2014/01/COTD27.jpg

    Update: just came across this Did they say if they were planning to do something with it?

    • +1

      No mention of it. I would have thought that if you had gone to the lengths of putting stickers on a window that there would be a site ready to go.

  • Haha nice work guys :)

  • Spend more money on the website and bandwidth - so the site can cope with the super specials instead of freezing within minutes of being placed on sale

  • My, my… and I thought Gerry Harvey would be the first in line to buy Ozbargain.

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