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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If there is a product that you know your competitor is doing a big discount special, would you warn or hint to your customer to buy it elsewhere?
Not usually. Most of the time we are on that stuff and either match or try get as close as possible. Depends on company’s and what not. If there is something that’s a ridiculous price we would’ve told customers to go get it as it’s too good of a deal to miss.
What do you think of those highly expensive, Japanese fridges by Mitsubishi and Hitachi? I'm building a new kitchen and am tempted by there large amount of room for their footprint, but geez they are exi.
I wouldn't call the Mitsubishi Japanese fridges highly expensive. Sub Zero is highly expensive. If money wasn't an object, I'd get Sub Zero .
I paid $3.5k for my 743L Mitsubishi 2 years ago. Expensive but good value IMO. 5 years warranty standard.
It's been brilliant. Chills quickly and is very very quiet. I can't remember the last time I heard the motor running.
The only thing it doesn't have is a plumbed ice maker. You have to fill a 1L or so water container and it will make ice for you.
Bear in mind it's a very deep fridge, so consider building at 700mm deep cabinets/bench-tops to suit. 700mm is much better than the standard 600mm regardless of fridge choice.
any HN store that whole range is completely supported by HN not by sub contractors or sub businesses?
As a former HN employee also (whitegoods and kitchens), i think the OP's franchisee was holding out on him or he wasnt great at his job/slow store. I have worked with plenty of HN sales people who make over $100k - in those departments, if you werent making 60-70k you were probably doing something wrong….
Agency brands (AEG, Miele etc) would generally pay btw 2-5% commission, sometimes with additional cash incentives if you sold a package with 3-5 items. (extra $200 for 4 items as an example). On a 10k sale (even a 5k one) that is quite a bit. Depending on the franchisee, there were also plenty of individual set commissions that rotated each month/6 months. For instance, sell that F&P washer at $999, get $50 (plus whatever % you normally get), sell it at $949, get $20.
This all being said, i would NOT wanting to be working in retail these days (unless i was casual/at unit etc). Awful environment…….good luck with your next step.Was a small regional store. So couldn’t be much profits made. But some months were good where as most were not huge.
Yep, can be VERY tough in small regional stores - although , depending on the location, it can also be good (less competition, online not always an option etc).
Unfortunately we still have a lot of competition and online is still huge. So it’s still tough.
100k per year seems quite good for sales. What qualifications do you need?
Most of the time nothing. You get training in store and from brands and you learn as you go.
Thanks!
What qualifications do you need?
Need to be good sweet talking to the customers obviously.
Harvey Norman have lost a lot of my business over the years because of how the sales team are always breaking their necks to secure a sale. I'm not one to be pushed around or pursuiaded in any way. I've done my research and 95% of the time know more about the product than the sales guy.
I avoid the place but if need to go in there for some rare bargain I'm very quick to tell them to leave me alone.
Vampires…
Yeah it can be annoying. Some staff just want a sale on something different. In our store I just let a customer have what they want when they ask for it.
Yep, plenty of staff are awful, however i also hate when i go to a retailer and there is no one to help, the staff seem disinterested and dont actually WANT the sale!
I found that with my local JB. They have no staff or all the staff stand in TVs talking.
What year did your store get rid of its dot matrix receipt printer? Up until I reckon 2012 the fountain gate store still used theirs 😂
There was still one in use at Erina in 2016 in the warehouse.
Around 2017-2018, the group started to roll out laser printers to replace must existing printers. All toners supplied by HP direct. This was because there were so many random printers, it made the job a lot harder for IT support etc.
With so much hate for harvey norman and most of the people choosing to buy elsewhere..how has this brand survived for so long ? What is the average income of the franchisor after all the cuts
Look at the share price/sales year on year…
Harvey Norman does get a lot of hate. But there are people who still hate TGGs and JB. They still have a good share of customers and businesses.
They have the extended care deal, plus their "interest free" period deals that are actually bizarre to me. So, they do know about customer care and warranty.
Also, I know who handles their insurances, and I've been told they're very profitable so, there is that.
Spin, spin, and more spin for everything else honestly.
Interest free we wouldn’t make money unless we signed someone up. Product care we would make money of course. But product care is actually very well worth it. Other company’s do offer their own extra warranty. Along with interest free.
how has this brand survived for so long
You hear that a lot of Harvey norman advertising on radio and TVs. I don't see JBs/ TGGs advertise as much as Harvey. I swear when I drive to regional for work, on the radio I heard so many "Go Harvey Go" ads!
Do you get told to try and push old outdated products (ie get rid of old stock) when older (less aware) customers come to shop for electronics?
Of course. We try push old stock out. Not on old customers but on all customers. Always try and show old stock that we have to clear it out as we want the new stock in the shelf.
what is the percentage of profit the store making from appliances?
Depends on the appliances. Can’t really give exact numbers. Different brands are different profits.
Do many people walk in to see what the products look like in real life and then go home and buy them from appliances online for cheaper, free delivery and taking away the old item?
Not really. Because most people who want to buy online will just do so.
thats makes two of us as i prefer to know what i’m buying before it’s at my doorstep…
i did buy my fridge from hn recently. was a new model they stocked
Is Gerred Harvey as much of a c**t in real life as he appears to be on tv
I’ve said to multiple people. Multiple times in this thread. I’ve never met him as me has nothing to do with the stores anymore. Hasn’t for years.
I have a few questions. Thanks
How does stock sourcing work in HN? Does the HN main office provide stock to all franchises?
How does the HN online work with the franchises? Do the franchises split profit with the online department?
I bought a washing machine from HN online few weeks ago and managed to haggle another 5% discount. Which offers better discount from haggling, online or instore?
Do all franchises agree to minimum sale prices so they don't compete against each other?
When is the best time of the month to buy from HN? End of month as some salesperson need to met the quota?
Those big a*s TV with ~$10k price tag, how often do they get sold before they are heavily discounted?
Returned items and warranty claims, do you send those items back to the suppliers for the cost refund or you guys just cop that as normal business expense?
What is the weirdest "item return" have you ever seen in your career?Each franchise is in control of their own stock. They order direct from suppliers and have to manage their own stock. There are some cases when head office would order some stock for us but it wasn’t massive.
Online is basically like it’s own franchise. They use stock from the store that is closest to you.
Head office/ suppliers run the prices. No matter what company you go to. That’s why TGGs and JB are also the same prices.
I find end of month is usually when salespeople are trying to get certain targets. So it can be a mixture. I’d go with earlier in the months of like June, January and even December.
Big TVs can be tough. I was in a small store and we had to discount it down from 11k to 8k just to sell it. But some stores have no issues.
So we can’t usually just swap things over because the supplier will need a damn good reason as to why we swapped it and why we are sending it back. Other wise it is at our cost. Which if we just did this all the time. It Would cost HN loads of money.
I saw a customer try and return a DVD player because it wasn’t working. Checked it in store and the customer was putting his DVD in upside down. He was certain that’s how he was meant to do it and when I explained that’s not right it can’t read the DVD. Finally convinced the customer. Took some time.
Also a customer tried to return a hair dryer because it wasn’t drying there pubic hair. That was an interesting one.Depends on the department.
When it comes to computers, head office control a lot of the buying these days. HP may goto HN Head Office, and say we have 500 of model A. They try negotiating a better price, rebate, advertising, etc and then allocate to all the stores across Australia based on their current Sales % of business. At some point, the Supplier may allocate funds to markdown the stock to increase sales, due to poor sales (Acer may have similar model, cheaper etc). A lot goes on behind the scenes that most employees don't understand.Sometimes, a supplier may have a new game (for example), and each store, may have a suggested order qty, that they can say yes or no to, or increase/decrease the quantity.
Stores also have the ability to order most small items from the store, or as a Customer order. It's very rare these days that sales reps walk in as regularly as they used to, especially after CV19. During lockdown time all reps were not allowed into the store.
When Domayne (and Joyce Mayne) first opened up @ 22 years ago, there was a great deal of competition in some areas, especially where 2 stores were near each other. ie Bundall, Auburn, warrawong, Newcastle etc. There was no real other competition other than OW in some areas, then JB and TGG expanded. Then the company decided to start closing non-performing stores, or rebrand them as HN or DM.
Need clarifications. I bought a pack of air-tag through pre-order and later refund it in HN store as I don’t actually need it. HN gave me a store credit which is fine. I tried to use the store credit to buy a fan and was told I cannot use the store credit in appliances section as computer and appliances sections are owned by two different companies or something like that. I got totally confused…… why would HN have sub-owners in each store? This shocks me….
Each Department has a different franchisee. Sometimes each franchisee may not get on with a franchisee in the other dept, or sales may be down. Each franchisee is a 'glorified manager', and some of them think their —— don't stink. Some are arrogant and real c——-, yet others can be really nice. I've had both, one of which pushed me to the point of a nervous breakdown and I quit.
Ask for the credit to be put on a gift card. If they say no, complain to head office. They’ll send an email to the proprietor telling them to fix it within 24 hours.
My old prop used to pull this credit is only applicable to my department stunt too.
I remember buying an iPad at Harvey Norman many years ago at broadway (Sydney). I bought it online for pick up. The ratbag staff would not let me go unless I bought an extended warranty. They tried to make it seem as if it was standard and the fact I was not doing it was unheard of. He said he had to get a supervisor to approve buying one and quizzed me why I did not want it. Disgraceful experience. Of course I did not buy it. Reading this thread it seems this is where they make their money.
Reading this thread it seems this is where they make their money.
I bought a Switch from one of there sales . Never heard boo from them for a couple months and had to chase the refund hard . Pure Baiting
They make good money from cheating people who do not chase refunds .do you guys buy large quantities of stock when there is a very good deal available and tell the customer sorry we sold out?
No. Never have had this happen. Sometimes the warehouse can miss calling a customer. Which can hurt but no.
what’s your best and worst experience with a customer?
Best would’ve been when I caught up with someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. Worst probably when I had a lady scream at me on Boxing Day because she hadn’t received a call about her product being in stock. Wasn’t my fault it was the warehouses fault. They’re meant to make the call when stock arrives. But she was fuming.
it’s always the karens’ isnt it 😬.
Best would’ve been when I caught up with someone I hadn’t seen in a long time
Hmm, interesting. That’s really good of you. Didn’t know sales floor staff at home appliance centre cares too much about returning customers or remembers them for that matter.
Nah we do build good relations with customers.
Why do they advertise and imply a sale price when it’s just the same as the shelf price if you look under the sale tag?
Every supplier does this. I’m not actually sure why. Mostly I’m the store I worked in tried not to do that. But then again our ticketing system did it mostly for us.
Some pricing errors are when our online team uploads it wrong then online has to honour it. Not the store but online. So when some stores honour it they take it back to online or head office. But if it is an error we Would try not to do it.