So, our clothes dryer died, and we ordered a new one from The Good Guys, who were doing an online promotion at the time which said you’d get some in store credit if you spent x amount of dollars with the maximum amount being $80 of credit.
After we made our online purchase, which we would have done even if the promotion wasn’t happening, the Good Guys automated response was that we’d get our credit via email when the promotion ends on the 1st of July.
Well, we got our email and a bar code with a pin number, which gives us $80 worth of credit, but we also got an expiry date. The voucher is good for a whole week and we have to use it before the 8 July 2020.
Luckily the Mrs checked her email account today or we’d have even less time to do something with the bonus credit.
Not complaining, because we can go out and get something for nothing, but 7 days to use the voucher? Not everyone I know checks their emails every day, so some people might miss out completely.
I didn’t read the fine print about the deal when I made my purchase, and it certainly wasn’t spelled out in large friendly letters where you could easily see it.
Anyways, we’re off to see what we can get for our $80 voucher seeing as we have to use it now…
Oh, and just as an added bonus, instead of supplying the voucher as an easy to print attachment, they’ve embedded the graphics into the email in a way that makes it print so small, the bar code blurs into a small grey smudge on the page. Had to enlarge the graphic on my laptop so I could take a screenshot to print instead.
Pretty ridiculous voucher time frame in my opinion. It almost has the shape of a bait and switch promotion, although I’m not alleging that is what has technically occurred here.
We had some fairly short fuse ‘rewards’ from TGG some years ago, and used the vouchers for every day cleaning products (eg laundry detergent and dishwasher tabs) they sold. It has been a while since we have been in, but I expect they still sell such things to get traffic in the door.
I bought a microwave in Feb at TGGN in
Feb and never received the advertised voucher.I
Was going away and could not enquire. When
Go there again will tell them.
Trish
I would say extremely ridiculous…it appears that they are counting on most customers not redeeming the credit…or alternatively impulse buy something more than the credit value and something the customer doesn’t really need.
Isn’t that businesses proven recipe of ‘free gifts’ and ‘valuable vouchers’? If it were not they might just lower the price a bit to keep it simple.
Rebates? They attract customers but many never claim so it becomes cheap advertising. As a cost of business they may also be an ‘economical’ strategy come tax time?
It’s a rubbish situation for sure but they know what works and what doesn’t. It’d be interesting to know what proportion of customers end up using their voucher, and also what the marketing psychobabble says about whether your decision to got to a store is influenced by the voucher offer but the intent to actually do anything with it disappears after the purchase.
@BrendanMays agree it’s not bait and switch, prob just bait left in a bucket in the sun ie it’s fishy and stinks. Any chance of an article or series of articles on marketing ploys and pitfalls like this? Or if it’s been done already, something on marketing tactics and research might also be interesting (see above re vouchers). I suspect many folks aren’t aware of what a carefully (albeit dumbed down to look innocuous) construct they confront every time they read promotional material or walk into a shop eg the placement of confectionery near checkouts so kids see it and bug their parents incessantly while waiting in line.
Marketing being what it is, a well honed science, consider that one can buy ‘the product’ for $100, or sometimes buy ‘the product’ for $100 and get a voucher worth say $15 that has lots of caveats for use. The probability you can buy the product any time soon for under $100 is small but real. At some point it might be on sale for $85, no voucher involved, but.
How many would have bought the product for $100 just because of the voucher? How many would have bought it now rather than later because of the voucher?
Conclusion, the voucher is nothing more than a tool and at the end of the day probably costs less than most mass advertising campaigns.
FWIW Coles offers a similar slight of condition. Spend $130 per week in one spend and after 4 weeks get 10,000 flybuys points (worth $50) or $50 off a future shop. The points do not expire unless there is no activity for 12 months and can be converted to flybuys dollars and spent on groceries or a few other places, but the $50 off your future Coles shop expires in 30 days. How many grab the $50 discount? While groceries are regular purchases the 30 days might not matter in practice, appliances are not, but it reflects similar marketing concepts as TGG.
These vouchers are built in to the prices. The customer can chose to use them or not, and they are what they are, ‘no extra cost’ inducements to buy now not later, often replacing sale discounts.
Well, we went in to have a look around our local Good Guys with our $80 voucher in hand, with 2 days left on the thing, the only Good Guys in the whole of Tassie mind you, and we were presented with shelf after shelf of yellow post it notes all saying Sold Out on just about everything. Apparently they haven’t had any stock in for months due to the pandemic and we got a lovely long talk from the shop girl telling us how lucky she is to even be in a job still. She then tried to get us to blow our $80 on detergent because they had a lot of that in stock. Of course we could always use it as a deposit on a back order providing we ended up covering 20% of the purchase price on whatever we wanted using the voucher and some extra cash if necessary, and then we’d have to hope for the best when it came to the stock actually arriving anyway.
We settled on a cheap toaster and kettle, which is basically all they had in our voucher’s price range apart from display stock for just about everything else, and even though they had absolutely no stock for just about anything, the expiry date on the voucher had to stand as is and couldn’t be extended. Most useless voucher we’ve ever gotten our hands on.
Oh, and apparently when we phoned to enquire about our new clothes drier last week and were told it would be in today, that was just someone telling us what we wanted to hear to make us go away. They have no idea when they’ll be getting the thing in for us. Initially they said it would be 10 days. That was over 3 weeks ago. So, we’ve not even got the product we ordered that gave us the voucher in the first place. No shops anywhere we looked had the dryer we wanted in stock in Tassie and they all said it would be ordered when we paid for it. So we went with The Good Guys because they were slightly cheaper, and they had the voucher. Hopefully the local franchise won’t go belly up before we see the thing.
Well, the stock that was supposed to be here on Monday is now expected on Tuesday next week. Looks like we picked a bad time to have our old clothes dryer pack it in. Not much we can do about it. like I said, no one has stock at the moment. Just a waiting game. We do have a nice new toaster and kettle though, not that we were planning on getting new ones.
You could have gone for about 2 years (?) of laundry detergent and regularly reminisced about your good fortune getting same as a bonus, keeping an image of a Good Guys shop with the smiling franchisee over the washing machine
Detergent was never an option with our skin allergies and the overly scented brands they sell.
So after all that phoning up this morning to find out we won’t be seeing the dryer until next week at least, we just got a phone call to say it will be delivered on Thursday this week. Monday’s truck load of white goods must have finally arrived. Only a day later than expected, but well over the 10 days we were initially told we’d have to wait for it.
Thanks for posting this - it’s useful information. I used to make The Good Guys my go-to for white-goods and electronic products (washing machine, fridge, air conditioners, mobile phones, tablets etc) but had one bad experience a few years ago and shifted my focus to other suppliers that offer a better customer experience.
TGG is now owned by JBHifi (4Q2016). Prior to the acquisition each store was a ‘joint venture’ where the store was 1/2 owned and operated by someone with his own dollars in the game and TGG Corporate (Muir family) owning the other 1/2. Each TGG could deliver a different experience dependent on the co-owner when something went bad for a customer. My fav TGG store was stellar and my ‘go to’ for appliances, but as the JB takeover evolved they are only one of many now, all pretty much the same excepting I try my best to avoid HN for similar reasons to your own.
Since the acquisition JBHiFi has modified management towards the JBHiFi model. Priorities evolved from what was essentially a large family style business that ‘shared the wealth’ to corporate profitability as it seems. JB is buying out the co-owners over time as well as ruffling feathers (as some see it) or building the business (as some see it) as it goes, moving toward a fully corporate owned model.
We have always had excellent experiences with JB and are hopeful TGG will be no worse as all the dust settles.
It’s always useful to know which stores give good service from first hand experience.
We have used TGG Warana and Lutwyche. Home deliveries as well as pick up. Both operators have been great to deal with. The other TGG stores at Bald Hills and Morayfield I’d rate lower, in particular the second which we now avoid based on the quality of service. Each store is different depending on the Manager and franchisee where applicable.
As every shopping trip for white goods involves a day trip we try to get around as many of the retailers as reasonable. The walk in big name options seem to be more limited these days. TGG/JB, HN/JM, Myer, DJ’s. There are a number of smaller and one off retail stores including Betta (in the back blocks), who tend to be more limited in product choices. If you can pick the right sale price several Myer stores might make the cut too. HN is off the list, which really limits the options to considering online, assuming you know what you want!
I purchased my wall oven from Appliances Online - on the basis of specifications and my online research. It arrived within a couple of days and they removed the old oven at no additional cost. I’m very happy with it. Similarly, with mobile phone purchases since I spat the dummy with TGG, I purchased them online from JB HiFi and had them delivered. In situations where I have a good idea of what I’m after, I find online purchases much more convenient, even for bulky items.
I have to say that at this time I am very pleased with our local Good Guys. We have been having problems with our fridge…bought November 2016 and has already had the ice-maker replaced three times! On the last visit the technician shone his torch on the top of the fridge, photographed mould and told us the fridge could no longer be repaired. We then contacted Samsung and they were not in the least concerned by our problems and told us that if we bought a replacement directly from them it would only be delivered to the door…no takeaway of old one, no help with any possible changes to the water connection and unwilling to pay any out of pocket costs even though we were considering buying a different Samsung fridge from the company. We decided to check what Good Guys might be prepared to do if we bought our replacement from them. Well, they were prepared to take on Samsung with each of our complaints and assured us that as well as giving us a better price than Samsung offered they would ensure that there would be no “out of pocket expenses”. Currently the new fridge is out of stock but expected in a week. We await the delivery with anticipation! Maybe Samsung will not work with Good Guys but they certainly have more leverage than we do! Here’s hoping!
She then tried to get us to blow our $80 on detergent because they had a lot of that in stock. Of course we could always use it as a deposit on a back order providing we ended up covering 20% of the purchase price on whatever we wanted using the voucher and some extra cash if necessary, and then we’d have to hope for the best when it came to the stock actually arriving anyway.
