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Jessops announce closures & job losses


Guest Metroman

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Guest Metroman

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They have announced this morning that they are to close 81 stores and cut 550 jobs.

 

BBC link: Jessops to trim shops and workers

 

They have been struggling for awhile and even this may not improve matters in the long run. Have to say the couple of times I have gone in and asked for stuff I have been met with blank looks. The most memorable was: "What's Perceptol?". Followed by: "I can't help you the Manager is on his lunch break."

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Remember almost 30 years ago when Jessops was one of the first price slashing retailers ... and customers would travel miles to Jessops Leicester and queue in the street for their Canon AE1 or Nikon FM outfits ... and was similar story with Tecno (subsequently taken over/merged with Jessops) ... and 'grey importers' eg McKewan's were undercutting everybody ...

 

Jessops expanded and became the biggest photographic chain in UK ... and then twenty five years on internet trading started ... and then the digital revolution with new cameras becoming obsolete within months .. and even more aggressive price slashing.

 

There have been a number of big name photographic dealers go to the wall over the past few years ... So difficult for retailers in such a competitive buyers' market.

 

Jessops overheads with all their stores and staff must be terrific.

 

Jessops .. and that means those responsible within the Company ... made a big mistake i.m.o. years ago when their IT bods failed to respond to the need for on-line interrogation of their stores' secondhand prices ... the items were listed (if you looked hard enough) but there were never any prices!! So, having traced a s/h item via the internet any prospective purchaser then had to find the telephone number of the store(s) and then phone the store(s) to find out the price(s) !! It was often a long-winded procedure .. especially when their staff did not answer the phone .. and when they did answer there was no guarantee they could find the item. They must have lost many customers (including me) because of such inefficiency .... and then they announced a couple of years ago that they were withdrawing from the secondhand camera market because it was uneconomical and secondhand sales were falling. But ... secondhand camera sales are still thriving elsewhere and other retailers are still in business .. other photographic retail chains can and do list all their stores' s/h stocks on-line (eg London Camera Exchange) . It used to be a pleasure browsing Jessops windows for secondhand bargains ... now they just have new stock ... and not very well displayed.

 

Also Jessops probably did not realise just how successful Ebay would become ... especially the ease of 'out of hours' trading via the internet ... with no parking or travelling.

 

It is interesting how other camera dealers have risen to Ebay and participated with it ... probably more successfully than Jessops have.

 

And ... the BBC has got it all wrong when they say "Jessops has been struggling because digital photography has affected its traditional film business " ... as if Jessops have not been selling digital ... typical ignorant news editor's logic ...

 

Dunk

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And ... the BBC has got it all wrong when they say "Jessops has been struggling because digital photography has affected its traditional film business " ... as if Jessops have not been selling digital ... typical ignorant news editor's logic ...

 

Almost incredible the statement of BBC, expecially for Jessop is clearly a typical case of high assets/high costs discount retailer hard struck by E-commerce.

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Guest Metroman
Soon I will be able to buy all my photographic images on line and will be able to spend more time in front of the box relaxing and drinking beer.:(

 

Incase you miss it you will probably be able to buy a can of Air Freshener with the 'Great Smell of Fixer' to remind you of the good ol' days.........................

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Almost incredible the statement of BBC, expecially for Jessop is clearly a typical case of high assets/high costs discount retailer hard struck by E-commerce.

 

BBC journalism isn't what it was even 5 years ago.

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Once upon a time Jessops used to stock interesting 2nd hand equipment and their stores were generally staffed by at least a few photo enthusiasts who knew what they were talking about. It used to be worth going to their stores but they've shifted to staffing with entry level staff who couldn't tell you the difference between any of the models they stocked and generally add no value compared to an online box-shifter. I think this dumbing down of the staff is one of the worst aspects of the whole Jessop's survival strategy.

 

There are definitely challenges in selling retail but if they actually differentiated themselves in terms of products offered, service, pricing and in-store printing services then it might be worth visiting them. They need to find a compelling reason why customers will return to the stores otherwise it's RIP for good.

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I stopped using Jessops a couple of years ago, for all of the reasons that they are failing now, I'm just amazed they've actually hung on this long.

 

I think the administrators will be taking over shortly, just can't see how they can turn around this business in its current state.

 

And as for the film comment Grrrrr! Jessops made an obvious decision to concentrate on the digital market and scaled their film product range right back. They ditched their traditional market and customer base by adopting more of a Dixons approach and its failed big time. They expanded massively and floated the business, but failed to consider where the sales would come from (4 stores in Croydon alone?).

 

Unlike Dixons, Jessops only sell cameras. They don't shift LCD's or PC's or iPods. As a business model that's a very limited market these days. As we all know the typical consumer buys a P&S 5MP camera and is happy with that, they aren't going to trade up every 6 months for the latest model, and more and more people are just using their phone camera's now that they are 2MP +

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I stopped using Jessops a couple of years ago, for all of the reasons that they are failing now, I'm just amazed they've actually hung on this long.

+

 

They've hung on so long because if they had gone down, they would have taken Canon UK with them, requiring Canon Corporate HQ to put serious money in to avoid that happening.

 

There's debts of £60m to Canon and Nikon reported. A credit controller's nightmare - feeding sufficient new stock to keep the Jessops business afloat, but "when can you make a payment".

 

It must be very diffiicult for retailers to put the right skills in place in a consumer goods based store. I recently spent £4,500 on DSLR gear with my local Jessops branch. Did a quick review of best available prices on the web and found a £1,500 difference in component prices and then phoned the store and asked if the store manager if he wanted the business. I needed no information, no training as experience and internet allow me, and others, to quickly gain in-depth knowledge on any specific piece of equipment I'm interested in.

 

What chance has a retail employee got with the hundreds of enquiries he handles each day? We require no information from the internet warehouse sites other than price and stock availability.

 

Rolo

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Once upon a time Jessops ........ stores were generally staffed by at least a few photo enthusiasts who knew what they were talking about. It used to be worth going to their stores but they've shifted to staffing with entry level staff who couldn't tell you the difference between any of the models they stocked and generally add no value compared to an online box-shifter. I think this dumbing down of the staff is one of the worst aspects of the whole Jessop's survival strategy.

Indeed. The ordinary staff are paid only the minimum wage...

 

What are the current rates of the national minimum wage?

There are three levels of minimum wage, and the rates from 1st October 2006 are:

 

£5.35 per hour for workers aged 22 years and older

A development rate of £4.45 per hour for workers aged 18-21 inclusive

£3.30 per hour for all workers under the age of 18, who are no longer of compulsory school age.

 

from HM Revenue & Customs site

As the old adage has it, pay peanuts, get monkeys.

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Just found a Jessops double sided A2 size price list No. 119 dated 17 Aug. 1987 ... do you remember them?? Jessops used to issue a credit card size Fresnel magnifier to use with them ... some of the prices quoted were:

 

Leica M6 body £1188.13, M4P body £940.00, R4 S Mod 2 body £680.00, R5 body £972 54, R4 with 50/2R £1040.39, R4 S with 50/2R £778.81

 

Canon F1 High speed £6848.00, Canon T90 body £412.00, Nikon FE2 body £307 , Pentax LX body £479, Pentax P30 with 50/1.7 £168.50

 

The list was so useful in those pre home PC days ... think I just had an Amstrad PCW word processor back then with a very noisy daisywheel printer ...

 

Happy days ... and spent a lot more time in the garden then.

 

And last month I bought a s/hand Pentax P30 with 50/1.7 and a Pentax flash in British Heart Foundation charity shop for just £12 .. and it still works perfectly.

 

Dunk

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Another sad aspect of Jessops stock policies is that it becomes next to impossible to get anything outside of their limited price list. A friend of mine destroyed his lens recently and the insurance company paid him out with Jessop's vouchers. Unfortunately it's next to impossible to get a replacement via Jessops without waiting months. (Hold on, that sounds familiar ... :eek: )

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Soon I will be able to buy all my photographic images on line and will be able to spend more time in front of the box relaxing and drinking beer.:(

 

I'd put the network of London Big Brother cams online, and let you download snapshot to your home PC for printing. Better yet, let the police partner with Jessops to print the snapshots you take with their cameras.

 

You'll never have to move from your couch again. Ever.

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They've hung on so long because if they had gone down, they would have taken Canon UK with them, requiring Canon Corporate HQ to put serious money in to avoid that happening.

 

There's debts of £60m to Canon and Nikon reported. A credit controller's nightmare - feeding sufficient new stock to keep the Jessops business afloat, but "when can you make a payment".

 

It must be very diffiicult for retailers to put the right skills in place in a consumer goods based store. I recently spent £4,500 on DSLR gear with my local Jessops branch. Did a quick review of best available prices on the web and found a £1,500 difference in component prices and then phoned the store and asked if the store manager if he wanted the business. I needed no information, no training as experience and internet allow me, and others, to quickly gain in-depth knowledge on any specific piece of equipment I'm interested in.

 

What chance has a retail employee got with the hundreds of enquiries he handles each day? We require no information from the internet warehouse sites other than price and stock availability.

 

Rolo

 

When you can buy direct from the factory (Olympus for example), at a price hundreds less than what a Fry's Electronics sells for (and Fry's has no batteries in the display cams anyway 'cause all the batteries are stolen or lost), why buy retail at all?

 

Not good for retailers.

 

I went to Fry's the other day 'cause I was really Jonesing for an L1. Really. There was no battery in the camera. Retail drone boi high school dropout put a battery into the cam he thought would work. I told him it would get stuck. He put it in anyway. It got stuck.

 

Drone boi resorted (much like a badly trained minkey) to pound the bottom of the camera on the display tale to get the battery out.

 

I made him go away and talked to a nice woman there, who seemed more intelligent.

 

Was it the only L1 they had?

 

Yes.

 

Would they sell it at all?

 

No. They don't sell the only display unit on the shelf.

 

Would they get any more in?

 

No one knew.

 

So... I went home, got on Ebay, and bought a two lens E-330 kit for $530 ($580 after taxes and shipping). The camera arrived yesterday, Wednesday, seemingly in great shape, and I went to Cord and bought a CF card, and last night I took it to a birthday party and shot with it, and last night I uploaded the party shots to Flickr.

 

Now THAT'S what the 21st century is about. :cool:

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