I know a lot of people on here don’t like Harvey Norman. But I want to see what people want to know. Or if I can help people understand anything. I worked there for 4 years. In sales and in the back end for a bit.
[AMA] I Was a Salesperson at Harvey Norman. Ask Me Anything. I’ll Do My Best to Answer
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I Was a Salesperson at Harvey Norman. Ask Me Anything. I’ll Do My Best to Answer
What colour underwear are you wearing?
Mostly black or grey. Do have some pink and orange when I’m feeling fancy.
I think the question is for right now.
cotton or satin?
My understanding from speaking to some staff is that new stores are always share owned and managed by workers from older stores. How is this pitched to you? Is it a big carrot?
All stores are separate franchises. Like there is a Franchisee for electrical. 1 for computers 1 for furniture and so on and so on. Some stores have managers training to be a franchisee so both the Franchisee and manager in training will run the store so the manager gets experience.
Does that include the Auburn store?
Auburn is a big store. So that’s a tough one to answer. My understanding is yes but most of the 2IC can be running the stores along with the franchisee because they are a big store.
Why are tv's displayed often with terrible colours?
Some brands are like this. Bad panels or processors. It’s usually just the company’s TV being bad. Or the spitters we use mucking up.
HN are happy to display a bad sample of an item that they are trying to sell? More like staff just don't really care or are poorly trained.
Usually we have head office wanting the products pushed still. Even the franchisee wants it pushed. A lot of them don’t care. Our store was actually not bad for doing this. We had spots where to our TVs that weren’t as good as others.
Some brands are like this. Bad panels or processors. It’s usually just the company’s TV being bad. Or the spitters we use mucking up.
This still seems to me more about the care/ability of the staff setting up the display. I actually had the experience of showing a staff member where to look for the settings on a TV that was displaying incredibly wrong colours - his response was "wow I better show the boss how to do that"
@Grunntt: In the store I was at all the TVs were on the same setting. Not one was different. The manager would get annoyed if they were different. We can change them to show customers but not have them stay in different settings.
@Rudy2000: You're saying that every single TV, of every brand, of every technology type has the exact same settings? I think you are demonstrating the lack of training that I was referring to above.
How long was the training to teach you how to dodge customers and generally be invisible?
I remember going into HN stores and feeling like I was the only one there. Just me and some random girl at a payment desk who also didn’t seem to know where anyone was.
Some stores are actually very bad at this. Our store was very good for service. Our boss wouldn’t be very happy if a customer wasn’t looked after. But unfortunately some stores do give all of them bad reputations. One of the stores that’s not Harvey Norman local to us is awful for service. That’s from my own experience also.
Wow - I walk into my local HN and by the time I get to the TVs at the back I've usually been asked if I need help by anywhere from 3 to 6 staff - not exaggerating, it gets annoying if you know where you are going and don't want it!
what was the turnover rate for staff @ HN? we staff fired for not reaching KPI's?
Our store was very lenient on this. We may have got a warning after not hitting targets for a few months. But in my department no one has been fired for not hitting targets. In others in the 4 years I worked. I knew 1 who never hit a target in about 6-8 months.
Fwiw I didn’t hit a target in 3 years other than turnover (which no one cares about).
Does the break room have sunlamps, to accomodate the cold blooded employees?
Haha. Not usually. The cold blooded ones i worked with have a spot on the roof to lay in the sun.
What are you thoughts on the escalating tensions on the Russian/Ukraine border?
Op,
Tomato sauce: fridge or pantry?
Pantry. Fridge is weird
What type of customers do you normally try to avoid? (E.g walk towards a different direction when you see them approaching)
When working there you actually end up finding the time wasters or the customers that come in all the time. So you will recognise them. Over the time I worked we had a few that come in over those 4 years and probably still do. For me I didn’t try and stay away from customers.
What does a good salesperson make each year at HN ?? I know some good salespeople at JB do $80k a year
Honestly you have to be a very very good salesperson to make that much. A lot of people I know are 40-50k but decent salespeople are 60k or more. But 80k is realistic for a good salesperson.
Does HN train their technology sales staff? I find their product knowledge is generally poor, and they push simplistic spin lines like you’d read on an advertising brochure. Asking simple questions about RAM, storage, resolution, etc sends them off googling, but often ending with no answer as the customer has typically already tried that. Some improved product ticketing would help.
Yeah they are trained. A lot of them don’t show interest in computers or certain tech. So that will show why a lot of those staff members don’t know much it sometimes you’ll get a staff member that knows quite a lot. I know in the area I work I enjoyed the products and wanted to know more. Where as some staff showed no interest in learning the products and just wanted to job.
To what extent are they trained? When I was in retail we had ongoing training sessions to keep our product knowledge current - every new product meant another in depth training session.
Yeah we would have training even month or so. We Would have a yearly training for all the new products but a refresher training is every month or so. Or we can called our representatives for the company to help answer questions
@Rudy2000: Where I worked they did it the other way around - new products as they turned up and refresher training 6 monthly. Not much point in having 12 monthly new product training seeing as they are no longer 'new' products.
I can see why HN staff have absolutely no knowledge when it comes to a lot of their products.@Grunntt: Yeah I mean the new products come out we would get trained when they come out. But mostly now it’s every month or so. It’s a lot harder at the moment with Covid. They’re mostly zoom calls and stuff which sucks.
We Would have a yearly training for all the new products
Yeah I mean the new products come out we would get trained when they come outHmmm… so how do those two statements reconcile?
Are you sure this is how it works?
@Grunntt: Probably has changed but with Covid it’s been harder to train in person as most of the trainings used to be. But now I find brands like Samsung will run training quite often that you can join. Mostly every 2 weeks Samsung would do something.
Yeah this was my burning question too. I am surprised by the response that there is frequent training.
I remember over hearing one HN staff member telling someone that the higher the megapixel of a camera the better the camera. I nearly fell over in shock. Either they weren't trained or couldn't be bothered explaining camera features.
Yeah. A lot of the computers staff I worked with were not the best. They either were really young and didn’t understand computers or they showed no interest in learning.
is this question in relation to product training, or sales training.
what's the most depressing thing about working for HN?
Do you get customers that return to blame you(personally) that it only lasted up until the warranty finished?Pretty much. A lot of customers don’t understand that we have a procedure. We can’t just swap/refund you because something isn’t working. Like do you think I want to argue with you all day. If I could I’d just swap it over. But it comes down to the manufacture wanting to assess the product. I had a customer with a 8 month old TV wanting it swapped over. I argued with the husband and wife for a good 2 hours on the phone explaining why I can’t. The other thing is people either misread or don’t understand the consumer law then I have to explain it to them only for them to tell me I’m wrong.
Can you spot these customers these when purchasing? what's the most laughable/saddest excuse for returns?
People usually say I can’t get certain features to work. No most of the time it’s customer error are the ones we have a chuckle or feel sorry for.
Is that in the HN manual? Do you ever consider that just maybe you actually are wrong and the customer may know a little more than you?
No. Most retailers are like this. If you have something that’s months old the manufacturer has to assess the fault before any action or refunding or swapping the product comes in. As I said I wish I could just swap things over to save the argument. There are cases where the customer is right. But we still have a right to asses the unit to make sure it is a fault and not user error. The store I worked at actually was very good with this. If the product was reasonably new we Would just swap it. Some brand have got a money back guarantee.
@godofpizza: I actually find vacuums come in so much. Because people don’t realise you have to clean the vacuum every now and then. This results in small appliances staff having to clean customer dirty vacuums or send them off to be fixed because they’re to messed up by customers.
@Rudy2000: It's always the dirty filter that needs cleaning or changing that people don't know about.
For me the most depressing thing was when I sold someone a complete Wii bundle for $1500 it included heaps of games and just about every accessory under the sun, being a $399 console at the time, it was a crazy amount to spend on top of it. They came back and bought a laser printer off me about 3 months later and I asked them about the Wii console and they said they played it once and it went in the cupboard… At the time I managed the games section so immediately took down any advertising of the high end bundle, it was a store specific one anyway but there was no way I was going to recommend it again.
Stuff like that can be sad. It’s not a huge thing I’ve seen in my years working there. But I understand.
at the time I managed the games section
I co-ran the games section too for most of my time there and it was always just THE WORST bundles ever.
JB always had awesome bundles but we'd have some random thing like for $100 you can pick your choice of 4 shovelware games.
TBH I see no issue there. Cashed up people can spend their cash any which they want. Hopefully you sold it to a over 18, not a child. :)
What is the pay for a typical salesperson excluding commission.
What happens if you don’t hit targets?
No commission at all is about 750 after tax. If we don’t hit targets some stores are very very harsh but others don’t mind. Depends on the boss you have.
750 per week? or 750K per year?
Oh lol. Week. A year probably like 38k or something.
750 per week for 40hrs, after tax?
32-38 hours a week yes. No commission. If you get technical it can be about 800 average. But for sales staff this is why sales are big for some salespeople. They want to push for as much money as possible.
@Rudy2000: What was your best week pay? I'm talking about a week where you made a lot of commission selling stuff.
@plasmoske: You can get $1200 on a good week. This is why a lot of salespeople can be pushy. I’ve seen some people $1500 a week
Why did you leave HN? Had enough?
Tell us the secret, is there a way to cheat the paid extended warranty in getting some credit back or old for new machine ?
Just wanted to move onto another job. Nothing wrong with HN. I think with extended care is well worth it. I’d usually just ask for a better deal on it. If you read into the terms and conditions of product care there is a lot of benefits. The product care HN offer is new for old replacement on majority of the products. Sounds like a scam but if you read into it, it covers a lot.
couldn't agree more on this. so many times when my tablet/pc/microwave stopped working it was replace or credit giving straight away no hassle. it;s worth the extra dollars, but it's worth haggling on the price on it.
I buy it on everything. Even no longer working there.
@Rudy2000: So do I, Especially below $400. My Surface comes up to expiring in October, time to upgrade, no questions asked.
Does HN sell used hard disks as new? I once noticed some Orico portable hard drives on sale. Since Orico only makes disk enclosures, how do we know if the hard disks inside were new?
Not that I know of as I wasn’t in that department. Sometimes manufacturers will test them or open them. Sometimes even the warehouse will accidentally open them not realising. I’ve known some products that have been returned by a customer we sell as ex display but we inform customer it’s fine as we have checked it upon returning it.
I actually asked specifically if they contained new hard disks and the answer was "Yes".
Hmm I’m not sure then. Did the packaging look new or old?
@Rudy2000: Looked new. In original boxes but not sealed.
I also two bad experiences with the same store:
1) Bought a drone on sale and found a screw missing when I tried to insert batteries into the controller.
2) Bought baby monitoring cameras in a box. Found a piece of something missing (can't remember what it was now). Took a bit of arguement to get my money refunded. No apologies.I always suspect they actually used (or just tried out) those two products and re-sold them as new.
@BendBridge: Sometimes we would open a product for customers to have a look at because they want to see something. Hard disk sounds dumb I know but some people want to see it.
Drone one can happen. Some companies have robots packing things and a screw or bit and pieces can be missed.
Same with the baby monitor. Can happen. I’ve had a TV that didn’t come with legs at all and the customer argued that it didn’t come with it and we said did you throw it out? Only to find that some of them actually were missing legs.@Rudy2000: Hmmm, I could accept if that really was the case. But I was treated as if I lied. Not nice.
Since then, I switched to JB and Officeworks and I haven’t encountered similar problems like that.
@Rudy2000: One more question, I once went with a friend to buy a notebook PC, this salesperson at HN kept trying to sell her a copy of OpenOffice. Isn't OpenOffice free? Why did he try to sell it?
@BendBridge: Usually there is more bundles or extra features you can get. I don’t fully understand the computers add ons. But it definitely is an add on you can get from computers. Not fully sure why.
@BendBridge: This sounds like someone has purchased it and then returned it, with the store then putting it back on display as new. It happened a bit in the store I used to work in
The store I assume upgraded the PC with a larger SSD, then put the 'new unused' hard drive into the enclosure, and formatted it. Realistically, it should be sold as a factory second.
Car salespeople use specific mind-manipulation techniques that ensure a high percentage of sales.
What have you been taught?
Honestly just talking up the 1 product you trying to sell. If customer wants something else just tell them the difference between the 2. Mostly when you’re being talked to about 1 product that’s usually what they’re tryna sell you.
Car salesperson = jedi?
Who gets the commission if you don’t get any help from a salesperson and just go straight to checkout
The cashiers at my store used to get the commission split between them. I would say some franchisees bank it and others split it, depends on the franchisee
Usually is split across the sales staff in that department or just kept for the company.
Can you buy stuff for me so I can get staff discount?
Surely I could.
Looking at specific examples:
https://www.harveynorman.com.au/samsung-7-5kg-front-load-sma…
This is $599 at harvey norman and probably $50 on delivery.a. How much would be your commission? What is best you think can be done on price here?
What about this more expensive item: $2999 fridge
https://www.harveynorman.com.au/samsung-649l-7000-series-fre…Seeing that the price has gone up on the washer recently good chance that was a lowest price. I said to someone earlier that usually if you scout out online and look at prices and delivery costs from each company you’ll find some that are 50 bucks less and that may be the cheapest. Fridges are trickery. Some have no money and some have a good margin in them.
Varies from company to company. The washer probably $5 and fridge maybe $30. Depends on manufactures
How many "gold plated" HDMI cables did you manage to sell?
Mmmmmooonster Cable!
Quite a few. Some of the cables can be worth the extra but I agree some were overpriced and stupid.
What is the protocol for sharing customers/sales between salespeople and do you take turns sharing clients/sales results around when everyone is trying hard?
I went into a HN just before Xmas to buy gifts for family members, I was approached by 4 salespeople who each asked if they could assist, the service was outstanding (as an Ozbargainer this was the opposite of what I was expecting) - I asked the 1st and 2nd staffer a few questions about various items then fobbed the others off - when I had decided on the 5-6 items I wanted to purchase (water floss, massage gun, vornado, $100-200 category of products) the 2nd sales person put the sales through for me - I felt a little guilty about the others that had tried their best to help but ultimately salesperson 2 processed all sales but many had tried pretty hard to be as helpful as possible and may be jaded.
But yeah. I find when I got along with a customer I was generous back. But being demanding doesn’t help.
Edit- also get prices from local company’s. Quotes are you best friend for good prices. Always ask for a quote and say you need to confirm with a partner or someone. Then check competition and show them the quote.