Jessops News

dinorock said:
can,t believe you said that who would work in a camera shop and not be interested in photography:shrug:
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I work in insurance and have absolutely no interest in the industry whatsoever.

I bought my D60 from my local Jessops (Kingston) despite the sales assistant not being at all convincing when trying to explain the differences between that and the A350 (I knew sod all other than how to shoot a P&C at the time, seems he knew even less as he sold me completely the wrong filter sizes). I was looking to buy a couple of lenses a few weeks later but they had no interest in matching a price that was just £20 less, and they came across as having a couldn't care less attitude.

There's only one person in there who knows his onions, but the problem with these stores, like many other retail outlets, is that the sales staff don't care. It's not a long term job for most of them as they're just earning a bit part time while at college etc, and if you get the wrong type of sales assistant, it can put you off the whole brand for good.
 
Looks like Jessop is even deeper trouble and now handed there shares over to HSBC

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Intesting that PC World should be mentioned, Jessops in PC-World just seems like the obvious solution to both their businesses to me, the two are so closely linked.
 
Shopping in jessops can be very expensive. They seem to be going the same way as Woolworths did. This is a typical example (£33.00 land hood)http://www.jessops.com/online.store...roducts/Canon/ET-67 Lens Hood-10890/Show.html
Who would pay this when its far cheaper on the net. Personally i would rather go a buy from Jessops but at these prices they have got no chance. And they wonder why they go bump. You cannot keep the prices the same in a recession and need to adjust to your prices to the current market climate and keep YOUR CUSTOMERS in mind.
Thats my rant i supposed. Just hope they realize before it’s too late.
 
if you're complaining about highstreet prices, then it's not just Jessops... LCE sell hoods for 20 quid.
 
PC World would have the typical customer walking out with a Packard Bell powered by a hamster in a running wheel, but that's a whole other story.

Jessops is being killed by things like phone cameras, high overheads, the internet and uncompetitive pricing. The staff are more clued up than DSG staff (whom I wouldn't expect to be experts on fridge freezers to TVs) but their prices are by in large poor. With customers being more price savvy than ever and price sensitive Jessops just won't be able survive in its current guise. I understand its internet sales are up, but too much retail overheads will drag it under in the long run.
 
No not at all, jessops is not the only retailer thats guilty of this. Others are guilty aswell.
IMO if you want to take good photos get a camera (Not a mobile). Cameras on mobile phones are ok to keep the image on your phone but when you upgrade you either swap them to the new phone instead of printing them off because the quality is poor in many cases.
 
What worries me about Jessops is that with some of their credit lines being severed, is that we may see a proportionate amount of stock within their stores which are 'returns' and 'demos' that they hope to offload onto unsuspecting customers. It looks like something very similar happened when they tried to offload their Sigma stock and my main fear now is that anything you buy from Jessops as time goes by may be SH stock. They're hardly going to return this stock to their suppliers as the suppliers will withold the stock from Jessops until the retailer starts paying back what they owe.
 
I went to buy a canon from jessops in the Meadowhall, it was my first camera, and knew very little about camera's but I think I knew more about it than the young lad was looking after me, ended up getting a better deal and lots of help from John Lewis, gave Jessops another chance in Chesterfield, the staff could not have been more helpful (tripod), but last week I called in Chesterfield branch again for some bits and to ask about ordering a canon lens hood, they were embarrassed to tell me they had none in stock, none at central warehouse, and couldn't guarantee getting me one.
 
razor777 said:
Blimey I hope they havn't lost their credit account with Canon otherwise they are in deep deep trouble.
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don't think its that bad, just small items are not a priority to those upstairs anymore, I believe all there small items, step rings and the like were sold off for a song to a rival shop 100 yards away....allegedly..from a good source
 
Lots of people buying from companies outside the EU don't realise that they are only cheaper because VAT and Import Duty isn't being paid or at the correct rate it should be so are party to a crime as well as having no warranty. As Jessops and companies like them are losing sales to foreign companies for the above reasons they should make more of a big thing with the government to clamp down on the illegal non VAT and Tax paying imports. Only when this problem is eradicated will they face a brighter future.

Personally, I have an extremely low opinion of people who go into a shop like Jessops with no intention of buying from them, ask all the questions to a competent member of staff (yes, they do have them), test the equipment and then go and buy on the net. As far as I'm concerned this is theft. People like this are stealing sales people's time and time is money. If you don't like the price then don't waste the sales staff's time.
 
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miurasv said:
Lots of people buying from companies outside the EU don't realise that they are only cheaper because VAT and Import Duty isn't being paid or at the correct rate it should be so are party to a crime as well as having no warranty. As Jessops and companies like them are losing sales to foreign companies for the above reasons they should make more of a big thing with the government to clamp down on the illegal non VAT and Tax paying imports. Only when this problem is eradicated will they face a brighter future.

Personally, I have an extremely low opinion of people who go into a shop like Jessops with no intention of buying from them, ask all the questions to a competent member of staff (yes, they do have them), test the equipment and then go and buy on the net. As far as I'm concerned this is theft. People like this are stealing sales people's time and time is money. If you don't like the price then don't waste the sales staff's time.
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Fantastic post and I agree with every word. (y)
 
miurasv said:
Lots of people buying from companies outside the EU don't realise that they are only cheaper because VAT and Import Duty isn't being paid or at the correct rate it should be so are party to a crime as well as having no warranty. As Jessops and companies like them are losing sales to foreign companies for the above reasons they should make more of a big thing with the government to clamp down on the illegal non VAT and Tax paying imports. Only when this problem is eradicated will they face a brighter future.

Personally, I have an extremely low opinion of people who go into a shop like Jessops with no intention of buying from them, ask all the questions to a competent member of staff (yes, they do have them), test the equipment and then go and buy on the net. As far as I'm concerned this is theft. People like this are stealing sales people's time and time is money. If you don't like the price then don't waste the sales staff's time.
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Excellent post and could not agree more. The other thing about getting it cheaper off the net is, if it goes wrong you then have the cost of shipping it back to the place you have brought it from then they have to ship to the manufacture they then ship back to the retailer then they ship back to you ( this is presuming you have brought it from one of the many foriegn retailers) I would rather pay a little extra and have the uk warrenty.

This all reminds me of a customer I had when I was in retail who came into the shop that I ran spent saevral hours with me over a week along advice handling stock etc etc then when it was time to buy said that he could get it £30 cheaper on the internet ( this was an item that was £1000) I appologiesed and said that I couldnot match the price ( was only making £50 on it at our price) so he went and purchased off the internet. When several weeks later it went wrong, you can guess where he came asking to have the warrenty repair done. Not a problem I said it wil be £15 carriage and if it is not warrenty the manufacturer will charge you £15 carriage to return it plus the cost of the repair. At which point the customer accused me of trying to rip him off. I pointed out that all I was doing was covering my costs of returning the product to the manufacturer that had not been brought from us. I did suggest that he returns to where he brought it and claim the carriage costs back, his reply was that it would have cost him over £30 to return it and the company had told him they would not re-emburse the carriage costs. Moral of the storey support your bricks and mortar shops because when they close down you will be the ones complaining that you cannot pop in and buy that it you just need today.

Getting off my soap box, I make no appology for the rant but this is something I feel really strongly about
 
miurasv said:
Personally, I have an extremely low opinion of people who go into a shop like Jessops with no intention of buying from them, ask all the questions to a competent member of staff (yes, they do have them), test the equipment and then go and buy on the net. As far as I'm concerned this is theft. People like this are stealing sales people's time and time is money. If you don't like the price then don't waste the sales staff's time.
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Could not agree more, happens to all retail stores now. My local running shop has people come in, try shoes on use the treadmill get there gait assesed and then bugger off to the net to save £20 quid. Completley wrong in my opinion but plenty of people seem to have no issue with it at all :thumbsdown:
 
miurasv said:
Personally, I have an extremely low opinion of people who go into a shop like Jessops with no intention of buying from them, ask all the questions to a competent member of staff (yes, they do have them), test the equipment and then go and buy on the net. As far as I'm concerned this is theft.
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a little harsh maybe. if the store cannot entise the potential customer to purchase with them rather than going off to buy online/elsewhere then they - in my opinion - dont deserve the sale.

and yes i do work in the retail industry, it pays my salary.
 
I know how Jessops could cut their overheads and still reach a large percentage of their customer base without giving up a "high street" presence..;)
 
neil_g said:
a little harsh maybe. if the store cannot entise the potential customer to purchase with them rather than going off to buy online/elsewhere then they - in my opinion - dont deserve the sale.

and yes i do work in the retail industry, it pays my salary.
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I think the word "intention" is the key here though.

To be honest, for higher priced items, Jessops are normally on line with everyone else - it's the additional bits and pieces that their prices are just downright ridiculous. £44 for an old style Extreme III 4GB card? That's 120% more than Amazon!!! (Not to mention the Amazon is the new 30MB/s and the Jessops one looks like the 20MB/s from the pic)
And before someone mentions it, I know that Amazon have lower costs etc etc, and I would expect Jessops to be slightly higher priced - but that's just not realistic. I would think that £25-£28 would be a more down to earth price.
 
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neil_g said:
a little harsh maybe. if the store cannot entise the potential customer to purchase with them rather than going off to buy online/elsewhere then they - in my opinion - dont deserve the sale.

and yes i do work in the retail industry, it pays my salary.
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Hi Neil - but how do you quantify knowledge to a customer as a commodity asset? In the above post DaveC spent time with this customer giving advice and expertise in order to help the 'customer' make their purchase and then they purchase from the internet all because the item was 30 pounds cheaper elsewhere? It would seem that the so called customer put no tangible 'value' on DaveC's advice.

Now personally I have no qualms about buying from the net for certain purchases but I sure as hell wouldn't use a brick and mortar shop's time and resource as part of making that purchase - it is theft pure and simple.
 
I am very impressed with the level of service from the Maidenhead branch of Jessops. I haven't bought all my equipment from Jessops but do buy things there from time to time and try to for the reasons given below. I was looking to buy a Canon 30D a couple of years ago and I was advised by the store assistant to wait a few weeks a buy the new 40D. It was good advice. I still bought the 30D as I needed it immediately for a trip to New York but I appreciated the advice.

For the majority of amateur photographers who are clueless about taking photos but want an easy point and shoot digital option and do not know where to start, Jessops is a great place to go.

If you know exactly what you want and want the best price, then online is often the better option
 
miurasv said:
Personally, I have an extremely low opinion of people who go into a shop like Jessops with no intention of buying from them, ask all the questions to a competent member of staff (yes, they do have them), test the equipment and then go and buy on the net. As far as I'm concerned this is theft.
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So if I go in there and they fill my head with rubbish and incorrect information, is that theft of my time? How am I to know as an unsuspecting member of the public that the person I am speaking to is competent or not?
 
OutLore said:
So if I go in there and they fill my head with rubbish and incorrect information, is that theft of my time? How am I to know as an unsuspecting member of the public that the person I am speaking to is competent or not?
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If you go in there knowing the above to be true you've wasted your own time. You may have had a look whilst there at the equipment you're interested in though and would have had your curiousity satisfied to some degree so you would have received a free and unpaid for benefit provided by the store stocking the item.
 
Well I have to defend Jessops to some degree.

When I first went in there a few years ago to buy my first DSLR I was thinking of buying an Olympus, but when I looked through the viewfinder the screen was very coarse and I didn't like it at all especially being used to the type of screens SLR film cameras used to have.

So I went back to the Internet to check out more cameras and finally thought the Canon 350D looked like it might be what I was looking for.

So back to Jessops for anther check and this time when I looked through the viewfinder I was almost sold.

But I wanted to do some final research on the 'net so off I went again.

Finally I decided that the 350D would do me well so back to Jessops.

At that time they had a "Buy now - pay in 10 months deal" so I went for that.

During all this time the staff were very good and very helpful.

So I ended up with a 350D for 10 months free ( I also bought a CF card, UV filter and extra warranty - all included in the deal) and just before the 10 months was up I paid the money in full to the credit company - without having to pay a penny extra.

Mind you if I hadn't paid up in full the deal was pay it off over 3 years at approx 30% per annum!

Unfortunately Jessops hasn't repeated that deal but if they did - I'd probably be there right now inspecting the 7D!

Since then I've bought several other items from them and have always been well treated.
 
Davec223 said:
So every person who works in retail has an interest In what they sell, I don't think so.
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Thanks for the back up Dave :)

Just for the record i worked in a specialist shop. It was a family business and the owner was very knowledgeable in Leica & Hasselblad, his son worked in the shop and didn't have much interest in photography and two other people i worked with didn't either other than taking snaps on holiday.

People primarily work to earn money I'd say a high percentage may have an interest but one in three probably don't.
 
razor777 said:
Hi Neil - but how do you quantify knowledge to a customer as a commodity asset? In the above post DaveC spent time with this customer giving advice and expertise in order to help the 'customer' make their purchase and then they purchase from the internet all because the item was 30 pounds cheaper elsewhere? It would seem that the so called customer put no tangible 'value' on DaveC's advice.

Now personally I have no qualms about buying from the net for certain purchases but I sure as hell wouldn't use a brick and mortar shop's time and resource as part of making that purchase - it is theft pure and simple.
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well yes i do agree that for the sake of £30 on a £1000 item was a little anal to go off and buy online.

i also agree with outlore, i went into the basingstoke store today and their 7D price was pretty much even to warehouseexpress. but things like bags, memory cards and other accessories their prices are extorsionate.
 
miurasv said:
If you go in there knowing the above to be true you've wasted your own time. You may have had a look whilst there at the equipment you're interested in though and would have had your curiousity satisfied to some degree so you would have received a free and unpaid for benefit provided by the store stocking the item.
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But surely it's the salesperson's job to convince you and sell you the item you're looking at? Even if your intention when you went in was to simply look at it?

However, I do agree with you to a certain extent - although not about the theft part. But, IMO, shops in this day and age either need to negotiate better prices where possible or be prepared for people to browse looking for the cheapest prices. It would be the same if you went in to one store to look at something and then bought it from the shop next door knowing they were cheaper there....
 
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OutLore said:
But, IMO, shops in this day and age either need to negotiate better prices where possible or be prepared for people to browse looking for the cheapest prices. It would be the same if you went in to one store to look at something and then bought it from the shop next door knowing they were cheaper there....
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nail on the head.. in my opinion.
 
"Under the debt-for-equity swap Jessops will be sold to a new company 47% owned by HSBC and 33% by the retailer's pension fund, which is in deficit. The remaining 20% stake will pass to an employee benefit trust that will eventually be allocated to the retailer's management as a long-term incentive. Two key beneficiaries are likely to be Jessops' new chief executive, Trevor Moore, who joined the business two weeks ago, and David Adams, who is staying on as chairman.
HSBC is providing a £54m loan to the new company to acquire Jessops and will immediately write off £34m – leaving the retailer with a debt of £20m. Shareholders will receive just £100,000. There are just over 100m shares in issue."

Chairman David Adams, who was brought in two years ago to try and save the ailing business, said the deal was "a good result".

A good result for who I wonder?
 
OutLore said:
But surely it's the salesperson's job to convince you and sell you the item you're looking at? Even if your intention when you went in was to simply look at it?

However, I do agree with you to a certain extent - although not about the theft part. But, IMO, shops in this day and age either need to negotiate better prices where possible or be prepared for people to browse looking for the cheapest prices. It would be the same if you went in to one store to look at something and then bought it from the shop next door knowing they were cheaper there....
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If the salesperson has failed to convince, create desire or satisfy the need then they have failed and the prospective buyer votes with their feet.
 
Everyone seems to think Jessops are in the poo becuase of how the Internet and retailing has deminished, but an article published by the Guardian says

Adams said Jessops' dire financial situation was not the result of the recession but of over-ambitious debt-fuelled growth plans which left the retailer owing HSBC some £60m. The retailer, he said, had pursued a "growth at any cost" business plan that was unrealistic.

They grew too fast and are now paying the price for it. Yes the recession hasnt helped, however they borrowed too much and didnt have a valid payback method.

Recenly i have recieved fantastic service from the Swansea store, however it has not always been brilliant.
 
OutLore said:
And is then guilty of theft according to you ;)
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I was referring to a genuine prospective customer above and not someone who purposely goes in to a shop knowing he's going to buy on the net and uses a knowlegable salesperson for all the info possible, tests out the equipment and then buys it for a fiver less on the net.
 
miurasv said:
I was referring to a genuine prospective customer above and not someone who purposely goes in to a shop knowing he's going to buy on the net and uses a knowlegable salesperson for all the info possible, tests out the equipment and then buys it for a fiver less on the net.
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I know - I was just messing (y)... Personally I don't see the point for small amounts, but I can kinda understand it if its a fair chunk of cash...
 
I know you were messing. I know a car salesman who was giving a test drive to someone who told him during the drive that he was going to buy a car on the net. The salesman told him to stop the car and told him to get out of the car 15 miles from the showroom.
 
Some of their staff though, I don't think can be bothered.

My attitude to shops/shopping, I look online, and try and get advice as to what is suitable.
Then when I get to town, I try and go in whilst it is busy. I don't like being bothered by a salesman, whether they want to be there or not. I check the prices and decide whether I am going to buy or not. Most of the time I don't mind paying a bit extra.
So today, I went to town, I wanted to get a spare battery and an eyepiece extender for the 7d.
One salesman caught us in Jessops, asked whether I needed any help. I asked about the battery, he knew which one it was, but not the price, he went to scan it, and I bought it, even though I could get it postage paid cheaper elsewhere. I was there, I don't want the hassle of getting it somewhere else.
Then as I left, I remembered about the eyepiece. So I went back in, waited by the till, and another gentleman asked whether he could help. I asked for an eyepiece extender for the 7d. He continued his conversation with his colleague briefly, He then turned back, asked whether the 7d was a new camera, and if so, did it have a different eyepiece to the standard Canon ones. I answered yes, and he suggested I bought it online instead.
I am surprised that he didn't even try to look it up on their sales system. If he had tried, I might have purchased from them. Now he has advised I look online, so what incentive is there for me to purchase from Jessops?
 
miurasv said:
I know you were messing. I know a car salesman who was giving a test drive to someone who told him during the drive that he was going to buy a car on the net. The salesman told him to stop the car and told him to get out of the car 15 miles from the showroom.
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:LOL:
 
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