News - DSGi to become Dixons Retail as profits jump

[cameronlite]

Jimbo,

I think you are going a bit over the top, they must cover the cost of having the store open, that is why stuff online is usually cheap. I'll admit the service in PC World is varied, some people think it's great, and it's definately improving.

Behemoth said it, very low margin, a lot of stores rely on these services among others. You pay for the store as a whole, you pay for the service 'package'.

You have to look at the whole system, not just sections. I dislike Apple, but i also congratulate them for their success and the innovation in their products.

The tech guys are very skilled - it's a bit like being a fireman, you're saving cats stuck in trees for 6 days of the week but on day 7, the hospital sets on fire. You're not paid for the easy stuff, you're paid for the overall knowledge/skills you have, whether it's easy or hard.

As usual, it's managements fault when it comes to cost.

[finlay666]

10 mins absolute maximum and that's with validation. PC World is just a con, I saw nonsense like £300 laptop repair last time I was in.

Every ran a full Memtest validation? Takes a lot longer than 10 minutes

£300 laptop repair? For sourcing the parts at short notice (premium cost) and the manual labour, insurance, guarantee of workmanship, I can understand it being that price, given a replacement mainboard can easily cost over £100 just in parts, then it is time to find the faulty piece, replace and test.

You are the same people who I bet moan and complain about laywers fees, bankers pay and MP's expenses yet it's different when it comes to lining your own pockets.

It takes less than 2 minutes to change a couple of memory sticks, sure you can 'validate' it but thats the same kind of nonsense the aformentioned groups have been using for years to justify their overblown payments. If you charge £25 and take 30 minutes to change a stick of RAM, you aren't a professional you're just greedy like they are.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bargain...5&in_page_id=5 - bang goes the 'professional' theory. I just learned that PC World now charges £30 for upgrading memory. A 150% increase in 5 years? No wonder they are making record profits - by scamming people.

Nope, I don't complain about lawyers fees. I had an issue with the banking bonuses given how unsuitable they were. MPs expenses were in some cases fraud. The actual wage of any of those professions I have no issue with. It's supply and demand, people supply their skills and due to the low number of people capable of those skills they can demand a higher salary than a member of staff in McDonalds.

It's a business. If they kill the RAM or PC when installing the equipment their insurance has to cover it. Given the cost of some machines it's not unreasonable to require that much. working at a basic rate of £10 an hour that covers the overheads and returns profit. They wouldn't do it if they couldn't make a profit by doing so.

[Kumagoro]

Let's not forget the time taken talking to said person who may go on for ages talking bollocks,
then having to book them in on a system, writing in some comments about the work you have
done, producing an invoice and taking payment etc... Then there is the fact its taking time away
from you fixing more profitable jobs.

[Jimbo75]

http://osterley.hounslowchronicle.co...r-lapto-1.html

A Sky News reporter was charged £230 and told his laptop required a new motherboard when, in reality, the only remedy required was pushing a chip back into place - a few-second job that other shops did for free.

"I'm really quite shocked. It's a big abuse of trust. If you were expert in computers you wouldn't have to hand in your machine to be repaired. They know that."

Enough said. This company is systematically abusing the trust of it's buyers.

[dave87]

http://osterley.hounslowchronicle.co...r-lapto-1.html

Enough said. This company is systematically abusing the trust of it's buyers.

One of the problems in life is it is very hard to prove something is absolutely true.

So if your hypothesis was PC World never gets it wrong, then you'd be right. But that is either a meaningless or petty hypothesis.

The hypothesis you've put forward is that systemically, PC World is abusing its customers. Now to have a vague hope of proving that, you'd need to prove it applies to the majority of the branches (or granted, a significant minority) a majority (or granted, a significant minority) of the time. The evidence you have so far adduced relates to at most 40-50 visits to a chain that serves thousands of customers a day.

To put it another way, that is akin to seeing 10 cars reverse into parking spaces and then saying cars can only get into parking spaces backwards. Jibberish.

[Jimbo75]

If you read the link I posted it's clear that PC World's policy on laptop repair is it costs £230 no matter the fault.

If you had to pay £50 no matter what you ate at McDonalds, or had to pay £100 no matter how far your taxi ride was, would you think that was fair?

These places have overheads etc too right?

[directhex]

Having worked at a PC World, I think people are being a bit quick to defend the company as offering a valuable service to some people, when in reality they don't. PC World operate on a confidence trickster basis - they sell the illusion of competence, based on *sounding* sure about things.

[dave87]

If you read the link I posted it's clear that PC World's policy on laptop repair is it costs £230 no matter the fault.

If you had to pay £50 no matter what you ate at McDonalds, or had to pay £100 no matter how far your taxi ride was, would you think that was fair?

These places have overheads etc too right?

One presumes you use that service if there is a high likelihood that the part that has gone wrong is more than £230. Otherwise you'd get them to provide one of the other services listed.

TBH, £230 for a cracked screen/broken motherboard isn't bad going...

[Behemoth]

Having worked at a PC World, I think people are being a bit quick to defend the company as offering a valuable service to some people, when in reality they don't. PC World operate on a confidence trickster basis - they sell the illusion of competence, based on *sounding* sure about things.

I've just escaped for the sister company (Curry's) and I do admit that there are things they do get wrong, and there were at times when I did not agree with some of the ideas that people higher up had for the business.

That said there are worse companies out there whose customer service is far worse than whats offered by DSGI.

[badass]

You are the same people who I bet moan and complain about laywers fees, bankers pay and MP's expenses yet it's different when it comes to lining your own pockets.

It takes less than 2 minutes to change a couple of memory sticks, sure you can 'validate' it but thats the same kind of nonsense the aformentioned groups have been using for years to justify their overblown payments. If you charge £25 and take 30 minutes to change a stick of RAM, you aren't a professional you're just greedy like they are.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bargain...5&in_page_id=5 - bang goes the 'professional' theory. I just learned that PC World now charges £30 for upgrading memory. A 150% increase in 5 years? No wonder they are making record profits - by scamming people.

Great. Another communist nutter
No point in even entering into discussion with you and your warped view of the world based on a total lack of understanding of how services work.

P.S. If you look through previous posts, I was defending bankers bonuses prior to the crash, have never complained about lawyers fees and fraudulently claiming expenses is a little different to arguing about pay

[Behemoth]

Great. Another communist nutter

I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking that !

[Jimbo75]

Typical, resorting to personal attacks when you lost the argument completely.

[dave87]

I fail to see where the argument has been lost? I do however see people beginning to get exasperated at a lack of an understanding on how companies have to operate to be successful - ie turn a profit. It is largely immaterial if you think the way they do that is immoral because their duty isn't to you but rather their shareholders and employees.

Of course if you object to companies making a profit are you living akin tto the good life? Because even when you shop for groceries you are enabling someone else to make a profit....

[Jimbo75]

I fail to see where the argument has been lost? I do however see people beginning to get exasperated at a lack of an understanding on how companies have to operate to be successful - ie turn a profit. It is largely immaterial if you think the way they do that is immoral because their duty isn't to you but rather their shareholders and employees.

Of course if you object to companies making a profit are you living akin tto the good life? Because even when you shop for groceries you are enabling someone else to make a profit....

I've posted multiple links showing that PCW operates under very questionable rules.

I've posted links showing that the average PCW staff isn't experienced or "professional". Others with first hand work experience of PCW have said the same.

I know for a fact that it doesn't take 30 minutes or is worth £30 to change memory. Under no circumstances. Believe me I know exactly what the circumstances are, because I'm in that position to charge whatever I want, with no competition too. That is exactly why PCW gets away with what I consider to be fraud due to the lack of real competition and proper regulation.

As for being a communist, I guess my eyefinity setup and multiple pc's is enough proof that I'm not quite ready to take up the hammer and sickle yet.

There is a big difference between greed and simple decency and I know what my work is worth. Could you comfortably do the job of these so-called "professionals" at PCW, ie charge £230 for a bios chip, a disconnected SATA cable etc?

Not one of you countered my McDonalds point, or my taxi driver point. It's different because it's PC World? Scamming is ok in IT because it's what you are involved with?

You know what this is really like? It's like a taxi driver taking you the "scenic route" and charging 2x-3x more because you don't know the area. That is exactly what it's like, and if you charge £30 for memory insertion and claim "validation" as the reason why, that's you. You are the IT taxi driver taking the long route to a short journey and charging more than what you are worth and it's got fack all to do with being a "professional". They probably think they are "pro" taxi drivers too.

[finlay666]

I know for a fact that it doesn't take 30 minutes or is worth £30 to change memory. Under no circumstances. Believe me I know exactly what the circumstances are, because I'm in that position to charge whatever I want, with no competition too. That is exactly why PCW gets away with what I consider to be fraud due to the lack of real competition and proper regulation.

That is entirely subjective, someone with no knowledge of computers may see the £30 as a reasonable amount to pay.

In fact they must, otherwise it wouldn't be that price.

You know what this is really like? It's like a taxi driver taking you the "scenic route" and charging 2x-3x more because you don't know the area. That is exactly what it's like, and if you charge £30 for memory insertion and claim "validation" as the reason why, that's you. You are the IT taxi driver taking the long route to a short journey and charging more than what you are worth and it's got fack all to do with being a "professional". They probably think they are "pro" taxi drivers too.

So you blindly get in a taxi without asking how much it is to your destination? If so then I worry to how much you get ripped off elsewhere.

They provide a price in advance for the work, it's not a "as long as it takes" it's a flat rate, it's not like you can get the work done THEN disagree with the price as it's advertised plainly. Don't like it? Take your business elsewhere

And as this thread is going this way as it is....

[Jimbo75]

They provide a price in advance for the work, it's not a "as long as it takes" it's a flat rate, it's not like you can get the work done THEN disagree with the price as it's advertised plainly. Don't like it? Take your business elsewhere

Yep you missed the point. For many people there is no "elsewhere".

Oh, and for those that do have that option, we get people like you and "badass" claiming that they are somehow less professional, and not worth risking paying sometimes less than half what PCW charges.

If you've got any sense at all, you'll take your PC to somebody local instead of this bunch of bandits.