It probably serves me right for gloating about getting a bargain. 2 weeks later and my Sony HD TV still hasn’t arrived. When I agreed to buy the thing the salesman told me 2 days. After I handed over the money I was told 1 week and a bit, Thursday to be precise. So I wait at home Thursday (last week) for it to arrive. Nothing. I ring them Thursday 3pm, I’m told it will definitely be there the next day (Friday). So I ring Bunbury Retravision at 10am Friday, am told that yes, TV is on the truck on the way to me. Wait all day for the delivery. Ring at 3:30pm. Told again that the TV is on the delivery truck and will be with me very soon. Mind you, Thursday I’d packed up the old TV and put it away, ready for the new TV, so at this stage I’ve only viewing TV via small sets (to this day). 4:30pm Friday I get a phone call from the original salesman: the TV still hasn’t been shipped to Bunbury. I flip, big time. He offers me a free DVD player for my inconvenience. I accept but I still want the f*cking TV, he promises that it’s on its way, Monday, Tuesday at the latest.
It’s now its Tuesday, no phone call, no delivery, it’s now exactly 2 weeks since I paid for the thing, in actual folding cash based on a good price and despite the fact that EVERY OTHER electrical retailer had the TV in stock, and could have it to me the next day. So I ring Retravision at 4:30pm, they’ll get back to me, they call 15 minutes later, cant say when the TV might get here, manager will call me in the morning. I’ve rung The Goodguys Bunbury, they haven’t offered as good a price, but they’ve got the TV is stock. Even if it ends up costing a couple of hundred more, if I can have it there and then…
The story will continue tomorrow. For now, Retravision Bunbury: NEVER, EVER AGAIN. The only decision is to shop elsewhere with a retailer with staff that don’t lie continually for a living.
BTW: feel free to link to this post with the words Retravision Bunbury. I’m already the 1st result in Google for The Goodguys Bunbury, lets see if we cant make Retravision Bunbury have the same result 🙂
Update: phone call this morning from Retravision: maybe Friday, maybe next week on the TV. I got my money back, drove less that 1 km down the road to Good Guys, asked them to match the price, and walked out with the TV which is now setup and in my TV room. The Manager rang to apologise, I accepted the apology but I’ll still be hesitant to ever shop there again.
Tags: Retravision, Retravision Bunbury
I just want to know what happens when the truck turns up with the “free” DVD player and no TV !
Duncan’s head promptly explodes.
Can I add Retravision Punchbowl (Sydney) to the list of NEVER AGAIN. Sold me a router based on an outright false statement about the product’s capabilities and then would not refund my money.
WELL GUYS I HAVE GOTTA SAY THAT WE ALL HAVE HAD BAD EXPERIENCES WITH RETAIL STORES AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER BUT I HAVE TO BE FAIR TO RETRAVISION, THEY HAVE ALWAYS LOOKED AFTER ME WHENEVER I HAVE BOUGHT ITEMS FROM THEM.
With regard to the purchase of your Sony LCD TV from our Bunbury Retravision store. I would like to first of say that the service you received was not our normal standard and there were several errors made one after another I will outline these below. Thanks to your account of the events we have identified some areas of failure and changed our systems to prevent these problems occurring again. Your set was not available at the Bunbury store as they had sold there stock very quickly and Charles (our salesperson) noted that one of our other stores had two units and believed he would be able to get a unit from them, unfortunately at almost the same time our O?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢Connor store sold the unit they had in a box this only left the display model, we would not ship a display model to you. We have improved our training and business rules with regard to inter store transfers so hopefully we will not fall into this trap again. The units from Sony were actually shipped from Sydney, our order was for three but only one arrived in Bunbury and Sony with their freight company have a policy to not deliver part consignments. We were advised of this problem but our warehousing held this information and Charles continued to provide to you information from Sony sales as he received it but Sony sales were no more informed than Charles resulting in your LCD TV sitting in a depot in Bunbury for several days . Our warehouse manager did request Sony logistics to release the unit and they eventually did. A new process has been introduced to ensure that any part consignment are checked against outstanding customer orders and the sales person is advised. Finally the delivery of your LCD TV or rather lack of, we have discovered that our electronic delivery system is difficult to use and has caused sales staff to on occasion make an educated guess. This is simply not good enough; we have had our software support company build a simple web tool that shows staff immediately what is on the truck, we hope to never see a repeat of this problem.
All in all at many stages our service was found wanting, I would like to apologize for the inconvenience caused. I understand that our ware house manager has also sent you an email and like many of us he is proud of the many times we get it right and deeply concerned that we got it so wrong in your case. I also understand that Drew our store Manager presented our offer to pay the difference between our price and what you eventually paid at a competitor?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s store. We strive to the best we can but above all else we care. I hope that you may consider us in the future but I would understand completely if you never visited our store again
David Dorsett-Lynn.
Managing Director.
Dorsett Retail Pty Ltd.
Well, first I must say that my local retravision store here in George Town has never let me down. In the last three years I have spent more that four thousand dollars, on computers, cameras, washing machines and such and got excellent service and great prices.
But I will never ever wander from my local guys again….While shopping in Launceston central city, Tasmania. I popped into the city Retravision store to see what was on offer. I walked amungst the computers helping myself, for well over half an hour, with out so much as a hello, from any of the not so busy staff, who were to busy catching up on the weekend gossip. No assistance offered, nothing. As i walked towards the door however, all the staff took turns staring at me, watching me leave. One step out the door and a middle aged woman staff member grabs my arm and stops me. ” Were you looking for anything inparticular?” she asked..I pushed her hand off me and kindly suggested that they do not man handle potential customers, and then told her that she and her fellows had missed out on a substantial sale. I then told her politely, I would “Take my money and custom else where” to which she replied “well if thats the way your going to be” and she bolted away.
The next day at my old mates store, Tuckers Retravision in George Town, I got the computer I was looking at in the city store, delivered same day, and would you believe it, at two thirds the cost.
it is interesting to know that all the retravision stores are individually owned and operated. So you can have completely different experiences in different stores. So just because you had a bad experience at one store it probably wouldn’t happen at a different one.
I know i might sound biased but i am an IT manager at a retravision store in Tassie (and luckily i have had no bad comments here).
But i know if i had someone come in with Hugo’s case as my staff would have lead you on i would of given you an apology and a full refund, and assure you that the staff member in question would of been retrained.
ooh and phillip if i saw one of my staff initiating physical contact with a customer, i would go off my rocker at them. I find that just creepy.
And in David’s case we would of offered you the display unit, and would of told you at anytime you are welcome to a refund if you do wish so. Unfortunately some of these suppliers do give us a run around. If they had to call the customer and let them know it would be a different story,
So not making excuses just trying to show that different things happen in different stores!
Thanks Guys
Hey Sean, understand your point re individual owners. It’s probably unfortunate that a few bad ones can tarnish a potentially good name. Thanks for joining the conversation.
yeah well i suppose every franchised company ‘is in the same boat’. Dammed if you do dammed if you don’t. May i ask what the salesthing lied about hugo?
Sure Duncan, i hadn’t bought many routers in my time and i wanted a router/wireless combo (receive adsl 2+ and distribute it wirelessly in my house). I knew that some just boosted signals or acted as the wireless distributer for non-wireless units but could tell at all from the packages which was which. So i asked a number of times if the unit i ended up buying that day would be both adsl modem and wireless access point. I was continuously assured it was. I get home my doubts got greater so i jumped on the net and foud out it just acted as a wireless access point.
Fair enough, most router boxes talk a lot of crap and it was a tough question but at least then give me a refund.
how long ago?
This was back around April.
Just writing this in response to Sean’s mention of Retravision being a franchised company.
Unlike franchises like McDonalds where the assets and stores are owned by the head office, Retravision is a buyers group where each store is individually owned.
The owners of the stores pay to become shareholders in the group. They can then profit from group marketing, centralised administration and buying power with our suppliers that individual stores would not otherwise have.
The group administration office in each state/country (I work for the New Zealand one in IT support) does not own a percentage of the profits of the stores like in a franchise arrangement. Rather, they are paid fixed costs by shareholders for group membership and for services rendered.
So really, Retravision stores are quite disconnected from each other, from a management perspective.
Aside from that, as an IT support person, I know that not all sales staff are as technology literate as they, perhaps, should be. In New Zealand, we attempt to provide as complete information as we can to our stores but often this comes from supplier product launches and we cannot enforce attendance by store’s sales staff.
We also have an internal weekly e-mail bulletin that we send to all stores which usually has this sort of information.
An additional consideration is the number of products/models that our stores have. In New Zealand, or current price book has 13,386 active products. With those sorts of numbers, lapses in product knowledge can happen to even the best of us.
To all the above, I hope you future purchasing experiences are better, regardless of who you buy from!
Good Guys Bunbury RULE!!!!!!
i want to read the comments
OMG i am with you!!!
i will never shop at retravision bunbury again, i bought and paid for a tv and sound system to the tune of $11,000.00 and when they came to install it speakers were missing the tv unit was dodgy, so they installed what they could, 3 months later after phone call after phone call they came and installed the rest of the speakers but still no tv unit!!! it took them over a year to get me a tv unit always complaining that they didnt have a truck big enough for the tv unit!!!
You would think after spending $11,000.00 in there shop they would treat me a little better but NO as soon as i paid for everything they didnt want to know me!
Believe me i have learnt my lesson NEVER EVER will i set foot into retravision bunbury
Katie
I would like to invite you to contact me regarding your blog, the store has no record of the issue below and we have implemented very strict resolution procedures since the original incident with Duncan. We also offer a fast resolution email address wecare@dorsett.com.au . I can be contacted on 08 97224175 week days .
David Dorsett-Lynn
Bunbury RetraVision.
Why in the name of “Perry Cox ” would you ever consider buying a digital TV in Bunbury.
As I'm writing this it is nearly April 2009. We have been promised digital Win and GWN for 4 years now, and the latest I heard was we won't see either until at least 2013. I don't think anyone currently in Bunbury will still be alive by then (No nothing special, it's just a long time).
So, (I often start a sentence with “so”) we've had a digital stb for over 12 months now and recently bought a new digital LCD TV (Not from Retra…). What I'm trying to say here is “WE STILL HAVE NO DIGITAL WIN OR GWN” unlike the rest of the country including many very small isolated communities not in WA. What was I saying??
I'm curently watching GWN that looks a lot like it did in 1979, good one corporate where ever.
My point here is Retra..lack..of vis.. in Bunbury is obviously confused by the fact that anyone would even buy a tele here……..
blhghg….
I am also aware of, “it will be here in a couple of days”. I am sick and tired of large store like Retravision and Harvey Norman.. that take advantage of their customers. DOn't they realise that if we aren't happy, we WILL go somewhere else?? I have had the same problem with Dick Smith Bunbury!
Wow, It appears I'm not the only one who is wondering about digital GWN and Win in Bunbury. I've tried emailing both companies more times than I can remember, never a response!!! They really don't care. Does anyone else remember that GWN started in Bunbury?? Now they broadcast digital to half of Australia but not here.
It's a good thing they only show crap anyway!
That's pretty sad about Retravision in Bunbury, here in Kalgoorlie it's the only place we buy our whitegoods/appliances/electrical stuff from. What I tend to do is go to Harvey Norman to check out what is available as they carry a large amunt of stock, then go to Retravision who will order it in if they don't have it and match the price or at least come to with $10 difference. The service is great, probably due to the fact that the staff are all mature adults who don't seem to be chasing you like sharks trying to get a commission.
With you all on the digital TV problem as well. I read somewhere on the net about someone actually contacting the company in charge of GWN, I think it's “PRIME” or something, and they pretty much said that they don't care about broadcasting digital in WA due to the low population per area meaning they have to spend more to set up and broadcast in order to reach everyone and at this stage they are focussing on reaching the higher populated Eastern States.
I say that the ACMA should turn off the analogue now instead of cntinually postponing it, that way GWN and WIN will realise that noone can watch their channels, and unless they can get the signal up quick smart they will lose more money from advertising than it will cost to transmit in digital.
That's pretty sad about Retravision in Bunbury, here in Kalgoorlie it's the only place we buy our whitegoods/appliances/electrical stuff from. What I tend to do is go to Harvey Norman to check out what is available as they carry a large amunt of stock, then go to Retravision who will order it in if they don't have it and match the price or at least come to with $10 difference. The service is great, probably due to the fact that the staff are all mature adults who don't seem to be chasing you like sharks trying to get a commission.
With you all on the digital TV problem as well. I read somewhere on the net about someone actually contacting the company in charge of GWN, I think it's “PRIME” or something, and they pretty much said that they don't care about broadcasting digital in WA due to the low population per area meaning they have to spend more to set up and broadcast in order to reach everyone and at this stage they are focussing on reaching the higher populated Eastern States.
I say that the ACMA should turn off the analogue now instead of cntinually postponing it, that way GWN and WIN will realise that noone can watch their channels, and unless they can get the signal up quick smart they will lose more money from advertising than it will cost to transmit in digital.
That's pretty sad about Retravision in Bunbury, here in Kalgoorlie it's the only place we buy our whitegoods/appliances/electrical stuff from. What I tend to do is go to Harvey Norman to check out what is available as they carry a large amunt of stock, then go to Retravision who will order it in if they don't have it and match the price or at least come to with $10 difference. The service is great, probably due to the fact that the staff are all mature adults who don't seem to be chasing you like sharks trying to get a commission.
With you all on the digital TV problem as well. I read somewhere on the net about someone actually contacting the company in charge of GWN, I think it's “PRIME” or something, and they pretty much said that they don't care about broadcasting digital in WA due to the low population per area meaning they have to spend more to set up and broadcast in order to reach everyone and at this stage they are focussing on reaching the higher populated Eastern States.
I say that the ACMA should turn off the analogue now instead of cntinually postponing it, that way GWN and WIN will realise that noone can watch their channels, and unless they can get the signal up quick smart they will lose more money from advertising than it will cost to transmit in digital.