What is your preferred appliance store?
We surveyed over 3500 Australians about their experiences buying electrical appliances online and instore to reveal the best and worst appliance stores, ranking retailers based on factors such as customer service, range of products, and value for money.
You can read a summary of the findings here:
More details are also available here, select ‘compare all’ to see additional details.
Any possibility to filter the physical store results on state or location?
Just noting I’m resident in Queensland.
E&S Trading Is not an option. It is only found in Victoria - acknowledged in the review by Choice. Retravision likewise is very much a WA concern. Winnings Appliances has just 2 Queensland stores - both found in Brisbane. Bing Lee is very much a NSW retailer - although it’s online business has distribution centres in Brisbane and Melbourne.
My take on the results (compared/averages nationally) is Beta Electrical is the top Queensland physical store - considering it has stores spread across the state. Although the stores are more focussed (limited) in what they have on display and in stock.
Our experience of having moved around the state is the Good Guys stood out before the loss of franchisees and JB Hi-Fi takeover. It would be informative to know how Queensland shoppers now rate TGG, JB and HN against Beta Electrical. Nationally the three first mentioned appear to rate very much the same, however is that also true for Qld. Beta Electrical is also more common as a regional retailer in Queensland which introducers another factor to how it might rate relative to the other 3 regionally.
The Choice results as presented suggest Queenslanders are poorly treated by the retailers compared to NSW and Vic. Not necessarily a reliable assessment without some further analysis state specific. The lowest common denominator appears to be the very mediocre scoring TGG, JB and HN?
Thanks @mark_m. The survey hasn’t been broken down to state and territory level, but I’ll pass on the suggestion and your comments 
In South Australia I’ve had good service and competitive prices from JB HiFi and The Good Guys, but when it comes to whitegoods and household appliances, Spartan Electrical lead the pack by a country mile.
Appliances ONline (owned by Winning) every time. They arent always cheapest (in which case one waits for a price drop) but they have great service, IME. I like that I can get free shipping, next day delivery, free removal of old appliances… all of which have to be paid for as a separate cost with many retailers. I imagine some of that is built into the pricing, but still… all good.
For travelers to Victoria where there is an E&S, you almost owe it to yourselves to visit one. The one on Chifley Dr (Preston) is awesome and with impeccable sales service. There are photos of the showroom via google.
We have bought many things from them over the years and only one product was ****. After the manufacturer abandoned us (you can only fix something so many times and the saga went for almost a decade!) E&S stepped in to make it right.
In our experience they are as good a bricks and mortar business as it gets. Online with E&S? Don’t bother. They have a way to go with that presence.
Winning Appliances and Appliances Online are the same organisation. In the Winnings store they will match the Appliances Online prices and any of the online offers.
I am in rural NSW and have either Harvey Norman or Betta Electrical to choose from as major electrical appliance suppliers (and Bunnings, bigw and Kmart) - I choose Harvey Norman. If I had the choice of all suppliers here in my town I would definitely prefer The Good Guys over any other supplier, as I had great experience with them and best prices.
The free removal is a huge plus for me. I bought a new column heater from them last year and they took away two old ones. Getting accurate delivery times is also great.
Don’t have one.
We shop based on what we need and what is value for money. We take buying things as a transaction rather than relationship building. As a result we will buy from any appliance store, as long they can do what we need.
100% agree. The Tuesday before the official “Black Friday” sale we ordered a side x side plumbed fridge. We chose this particular fridge as it was $500 cheaper than the nice to have model we had been looking at, and the differences whilst useful (Craft Ice maker not so useful 
) were certainly not worth $500. On Black Friday after all the shops closed my husband was looking at the sales and saw the nice to have model for $121.00 more than the one we had ordered, but of course the Black Friday sale finished at midnight. I rang E&S on Saturday morning and even though the BF advertised price had disappeared they were more that happy to change the order. Their price includes free delivery & installation, removal of old appliance if required and take away all the packaging. Apart from all that, their after sales service is excellent should something go wrong.
