I spent some hours in tech stores yesterday. Quite legitimately, I wasn’t spying or anything. Honest. I was trying to leave copies of the latest Auscam magazine at the camera/camcorder counters for the staff and or to sell/giveaway as they wished. For free too.

But my time in these stores, shall we say ‘The Big Four’ rather than name names, was an eye opener. Disturbing. Shocking even. And I learnt why these companies keep complaining about losing sales to on-line, web sites and the like. And it’s very, very complicated so please listen carefully.

Their staff doesn’t know how to sell.

I know! Scary isn’t it? Who would have thought?

Example One:

I stood at the counter for ten minutes with staff buzzing all around, a couple of them two arm’s lengths away from me the whole time before being served. Other customers came and went and I was utterly ignored until finally one assistant turned, saw me and said “Yeah man?”

Let me stress I had nothing and was doing nothing to suggest I was there other than to shop. I’d had a shower, cleaned my teeth, used deodorant and had my best trainers on and everything.

Example Two:

Same shop, same counter (while waiting). A customer walks up with two Lowepro camera bags and asked about one. The sales assistant said something like “… this is a good bag. I have one myself” as she tried to find the zipper location. (sigh). The customer then showed her the second and the instant retort without even a question was “… this one is more expensive of course…” They bought the “cheap” one.

Example Three:

Different store. Waited so far fifteen minutes at the camera/camcorder counter. The other side is for digital recorders, microphones and the like. There is one sales assistant there and the shop floor is crawling with them. A woman comes up to the one on the recorder counter and asks if they have a “tape” recorder / Dictaphone. She is advised they are no longer made. When she asks why, she is shown a Phillips Digital Recorder and assured it works exactly the same. When asked why this is better, the assistant replies “because it is digital.” When asked what that means, she is told “I’m not really sure”. The next question was “can I store recordings from it on my computer?” Reply; “I don’t know”. “Are they MP3?” “I don’t know”.

No sale.

I never did get served after twenty minutes so walked out, came back with the magazines and plonked them on the counter with a note.

Example Four:

Two young girls wanted to buy SD cards for their digital camera. They ask for the Verbatim brand and are told “we only have Sandisk in stock” and are then allowed to walk out.

No sale.

See what I mean? If you have never been in sales, you may not, but these simple, and as exact as I can remember, examples break every single basic rule of selling ever made. These are not sales staff! These are order taking staff.

In my time in the stores, I added up approximately $1000+ of missed opportunity but very easy sales.

It was interesting in going from store to store (they are all within 200 metres of each other) how many potential customers there were I had seen in previous stores, looking for something, but more importantly I’d suggest, looking for someone, anyone, to SELL them something!