And I though the current staff was bad... :eek:

April 4, 2007 — Circuit City announced last week that it would fire 8.5 percent of its retail-floor staff and hire replacements at lower pay. Savor the insane panache of the press release: "The company has completed a wage management initiative that will result in the separation of approximately 3,400 store Associates. The separations...focused on Associates who were paid well above the market-based salary range for their role. New Associates will be hired for these positions and compensated at the current market range for the job." Said CEO Philip J. Schoonover: "We are taking a number of aggressive actions to improve our cost and expense structure, which will better position us for improved and sustainable returns in today's marketplace."

This begs questions. Will firing knowledgable workers and replacing them with less knowledgable ones really position Circuit City for "improved and sustainable returns"? Or will it drive away customers frustrated by lack of expertise on the sales floor? The move comes as other chains attempt to lure consumers with the promise of savvy sales staff. Most notable example is none other than Circuit's arch-rival Best Buy, which has been pushing its Magnolia stores-within-stores in a splashy national TV ad campaign in which budding home theater buffs practically fall into the loving arms of wise and helpful BB staffers.

The biggest beneficiaries may be (eternal optimist that I am) a/v specialty retailers who employ genuinely knowledgable and passionate help to sell the kind of product you won't find in a big chain store. Oh, almost forgot. Circuit says the fired workers can re-apply for their old jobs at reduced pay within a few weeks.

If I needed serious A/V, Computer, or other electronics advise, the last place I would expect to get help would be Circuit City or Best Buy. I have no doubt that there are some capable employess, but I certainly wouldn't expect any of them to be at my local Circuit City. As far as A/V specialty retailers go: people who need the help and don't mind the cost already use A/V specialties and will continue to do so. People who care more about the cost than the service will continue to patronize the big box stores. So, I don't really expect this will have a huge impact either way.

What bugs me more than the sales people are the people who decide inventory. Who wants a $35, 3' optical cable? Raise your hands!

Or wait, how about a broken speaker demo room, or buzzing subwoofers, and sound systems cranked to 11 (when they really shouldn't go past 7)?

It's frustrating that stores continue to be polarized towards either bulk (e.g. the Wal-Mart mentality) or full-service (e.g. the Runco mentality). I have no problems paying a reasonable surcharge for being able to demo equipment or at least have a pleasurable buying experience, sales droids aside.

I will never forget the time I went to a custom dealer to look at projectors, and inquired about the price of some Runco DLP model. The salesman leaned in, and practically whispered about what a great price I could get on it, and wrote down a figure on the back of his business card like it was some kind of state secret. I left, checked the price online, and he had written down the unit's full MSRP!

Hard to imagine dumbing the staff down any further

Yesterday I was to drop over 1000 dollars cash on a Sony HC-5 HI Definition Camcorder at Circuit City and the salesperson (daytime staff) - then tells me they require hi definition Mini DV tapes - which cost about 30 dollars each

Now this is crucial - because the new Panasonic Hi Def camcorders are just out for few hundred more and run via (removable) SDHC cards - generally around 40 to 80 dol;ars each and will soon be dropping in price further

So this was a crucial issue - yet the "expert" didn't know what he was talkling about

In fact after I insisted that he review the spec sheet, he confirmed yup 6 dollar min-DV tapes work fine w/o any problems on these units

Its a grea camcorder and for once i added the 4 yr warranty - because there are moving parts and it will get heavy use in different locales

CC will be out of business in a few years anyhow. They show no signs whatsoever of figuring out why BB is kicking their ass.

In these big stores what they are selling is the extended warranty/service plan.
This makes product knowledge irrelevant.

And I though the current staff was bad... :eek:

April 4, 2007 — Circuit City announced last week that it would fire 8.5 percent of its retail-floor staff and hire replacements at lower pay. Savor the insane panache of the press release: "The company has completed a wage management initiative that will result in the separation of approximately 3,400 store Associates. The separations...focused on Associates who were paid well above the market-based salary range for their role. New Associates will be hired for these positions and compensated at the current market range for the job." Said CEO Philip J. Schoonover: "We are taking a number of aggressive actions to improve our cost and expense structure, which will better position us for improved and sustainable returns in today's marketplace."

This begs questions. Will firing knowledgable workers and replacing them with less knowledgable ones really position Circuit City for "improved and sustainable returns"? Or will it drive away customers frustrated by lack of expertise on the sales floor? The move comes as other chains attempt to lure consumers with the promise of savvy sales staff. Most notable example is none other than Circuit's arch-rival Best Buy, which has been pushing its Magnolia stores-within-stores in a splashy national TV ad campaign in which budding home theater buffs practically fall into the loving arms of wise and helpful BB staffers.

The biggest beneficiaries may be (eternal optimist that I am) a/v specialty retailers who employ genuinely knowledgable and passionate help to sell the kind of product you won't find in a big chain store. Oh, almost forgot. Circuit says the fired workers can re-apply for their old jobs at reduced pay within a few weeks.

You assume that higher paid = more knowledgeable in their stores.

Many times, and in many businesses, that assumption is false.

Several conditions may give rise to it being incorrect. Such as in any business where pay can increase solely or largely based on tenure and not on performance. The same may arise where there is a collective bargaining agreement in place that provides for regular annual increases for all employees.

Other businesses, and I don't know if CC is one of them, follow the same pattern and give regular increases to entire classes of people.

Another factor might be that CC went through a minor boom period along with people spending more on the home due to home prices rising (taking out HELOC's to buy things for the home - See Home Depot and Lowe's for examples). In that market, they may have had to pay more to attract any qualified sales talent against stores like Best Buy (by qualified I mean CC's definition of qualified which may have no relation to A/V knowledge or sales skill and more to do with other factors such as schedule, etc.)

All in all, I wouldn't assume this will matter to the quality level of the sales staff. The level of sales expertise has more to do with the training and guidance CC is committed to providing to it's staff.

Splotto

Correct - basically its all about selling extended warranties - that is where pratically all the profits are - as this article from Bus Week affirmed a few years back

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_51/b3913110_mz020.htm

strangely enough I've spent approx 3200 dollars combined in recent weeks at Best Buy on 3 different purchases a Velocity Micro computer, Klipsch towers, and a PS 3 60mb - and amazingly enough - they only asked once for each purchase. Now I used cash, but maybe they are backing off the hard sell a bit more

In Circuit City the other day, as noted above, I actually asked for the warranty with the Hi Def camera- because I am concerned about using it outside of the house and with moving parts it has in that casette loader for mini-DVs, it looks a bit fragile - and I don't want to end up with a 1000 dollar piece of junk

Circuit City is going to 7-11 convenience store level - (apologies to 2nd job earners helping their families,) but in general convenient mart employees are ultra high turnover semi-illiterates

More reason to do all the homework yourself before buying anything

Circuit City is going to 7-11 convenience store level - (apologies to 2nd job earners helping their families,) but in general convenient mart employees are ultra high turnover semi-illiterates
That sounds horrible and "classist" but it's probably true. It's hard not to notice that most people working at such stores cannot count change without the register. I'd guess that applies to 80% of them. Any time I pull a $10 bill out and they type in the $10 and then I keep looking in my pocket so I can pay a bill that's say $3.48 by handing them an extra 50 cents (along with the $10) so they can give me $7.02 back they immediately get confused and start to pause and there's an awkward moment of embarrassment (for them) and I quickly tell them how much they have to give back to me help them. It got so common I now hesitate to change the amount once they have entered it because I know almost without exception they will get confused.

I'm sure many others have encountered the same.