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Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Hard Sell
This last weekend should have been relaxing but I experienced the most frustrating sales pitch of my life.
Basically, I went in to EB Games for a browse - I usually do this on a weekend to see what's new and I often end up walking out of the store with something. In this case I walked out with Sonic for Wii (which, by the way, is an odd mix of total disappointment and surprising freshness).
I paid for the game but that wasn't the end of it; the guy behind the counter (who was also the store manager) decided to start chatting to me about PS3:
EB Guy: Did you know PS3 is coming out in a couple of weeks?
Me: Yep.
EB Guy: Are you interested in buying one?
Me: No.
EB Guy: Oh, I've got to tell you, I've seen Blu-ray movies and I'd never go back to regular DVD! Have you got an HD screen?
Me: Yes.
EB Guy: Oh really? You'd be crazy not to watch movies on Blu-ray, it's going to replace DVD.
Me: Er, well, I'm happy with DVD and I don't really watch many movies at the moment anyway. I think it's too early to buy Blu-ray.
EB Guy: Oh!! Blu-ray has already won! You can buy it everywhere here, you'd be nuts to pass up the opportunity to see HD movies! And with PS3 you can play your old PlayStation games.
Me: I don't really care about Blu-ray at the moment. PAL gamers got screwed with backwards compatibility, didn't we?
EB Guy: Actually the games are going to be emulated rather than hardware-driven, which is good for us because they can upscale old games to HD this way.
Me: Oh, I see. I didn't know that. In any case, I'm on my fourth PS2; I don't trust Sony's product quality. I will wait a year or so to see how many problems they have.
EB Guy: Oh the error rate is down to 2% from 5%! It was only the first batch that had those problems.
Me: Nevertheless, I'd rather wait and see. Besides, I don't think $999 is reasonable for a game system.
EB Guy: Oh but it's so much more than that! Movies, games, Internet...and you have to expect to pay that much for such advanced technology. Sony are making big losses to sell it for this price!
Me: I don't really care how advanced it is; I won't pay a thousand dollars for a PlayStation. It's just not worth that much money.
...
So this went on for ages. I think I was standing there for 45 minutes or so. Despite all my comments saying "I don't care", "it's too much money" and "I'm not interested", this guy kept on going! I was getting ready to give back Sonic and ask for a refund, with the comment that I would never shop at that store again.
I know that EB staff have to make a sales pitch. Seriously though, a sales pitch that tough (and annoying) is only going to alienate customers. As a result, if I ever do buy a PS3 and games...I won't be buying them from EB Games. In effect, this store manager has just lost a customer - at least for his branch. He wasted that much time and it only had a negative effect (plus several customers were getting angry that he was taking so long). Unbelievable stuff.
Have you ever faced a sales pitch that harsh before? And did it turn you off buying a particular product?
RaR: You know, I haven't yet played Gears of War on the new TV. For a while I was using my dad's LCD TV but it's not a terribly good model. The only thing that looks good on it are games, but the response time isn't perfect so it's noticeable to me.
The TV I just bought is superior (and it really shows). So far I've been playing Lost Planet and Dead Rising most of all (the latter was difficult to play on the older CRT display - the text was too hard to read most of the time).
Kei-chan: Heheh, thanks. I guarantee that the new stuff will be cooler than the old stuff. ~_^
SunfallE: I hated setting everything up but now that it's all ready, I feel very relieved! It's all working beautifully.
I hope you're doing well, by the way!
CosmicSailor: The beauty of the screen I chose is that it has a very fast response time and a great viewing angle - LCD really has come a long way! I was thinking of getting plasma, but honestly I didn't think it was worthwhile. The fragility was another issue.
Charles has kindly agreed to run the Otakupedia site, so I'm very very happy!
Aaryanna: Yeah it's good to give things a shake-up! That's what I'm all about, with both furniture and web sites! Heheh. Hope you're doing well too and thanks for your PM!
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