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October 2004: PAUL SMITH - The fool rushing in where independent PC retailers fear to tread.
It was Sun Tzu who originally said, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”, in his book, ‘The Art of War’. Only in Mandarin. With that thought in mind, this month I visited some places you might not feel welcome, or even want to see. I’m talking about the arch nemesis of the humble Indie. Your only natural predator; The High Street Multiple.
Dixons is off my local High Street in a busy cut-through-to-the-market-square shopping centre. It was clean, tidy and well stocked. There were only a couple of gaps and the lighting was good. With limited space amongst the TVs and Sky deals there were four desktop and eight laptop PCs on display, along with a good range of printers, scanners and other accessories on lower shelves. No approach was made but only because the three salespeople were busy with other customers. 6/10
The Computer Shop (formerly Tiny, formerly Time) has a dull name but is in the same attractive retail development. The lone member of staff looked bored to death, slumped in a chair in the corner, but soon reanimated as I looked at systems. Even though he had more metal hanging off his face than an incompetent arc-wielder he knew his stuff and politely corrected me when I called Hyper-Threading ‘Multi-Threading’. He also pressed some info sheets onto me - something no other salesperson did. Pity then that the look of the shop and arrangement of the displays was more ‘Fruit and Veg’ than ‘Boutique lifestyle shopping experience.’ 7/10
Currys was the worst shop I visited today on almost all criteria. Several flo-tubes were out, giving the PC department a gloomy half-life feeling only matched by the zombies staffing it. Even though I spent ten minutes looking at PCs and obviously making notes they avoided my ‘Please Help Me’ gaze. Perhaps in the dingy, messy surroundings they just didn’t see me? I imagine the phrase “face up” has not been uttered here for quite a while. The ink cart boxes were scruffy and the display appeared to have been visited by Hurricane Ivan. The cable wall was even worse and the glass cabinet in the corner contained more dust than stock. No literature to take away crowned this as the biggest turd of the day. And it smelt of B.O. 2/10
PC World’s similar out-of-town-retail-park unit possesses the sort of floor space mere mortals can only dream of. The result was a very welcoming store with a bright colour-scheme and lighting plus the only background music I noticed. Not sure about the choice of Prog Rock but it wasn’t intrusively loud. Thank God. With all that room to play with you’d expect wide isles and huge range but one nice surprise was themed displays of Roxio and Summer Holiday related items. Still no staff approach though. 7/10
My town now has just two independent PC retailers, and one of those is really only for business. In the past there have been three others I can think of off the top of my head. There again, we used to have branches of Rymans, Calculus, Powerhouse, Argos and some dodgy German outfit I can’t recall the name of right now on the bandwagon too. So perhaps the playing field is level and it’s just harder than ever to make money out of PC sales?
Paul Smith - Urbane Warrior - still seeks employment Nirvana. Please e-mail him at info@snapsandbytes.co.uk with your offers.
555 words on guilty High Street pleasures, Ali. I hope you enjoyed them.