Tower Records Wicklow Street Royal Ripoff

10000maniacs

Dropped into Tower Wicklow Street to buy a few blu-rays, namely Resorvoir Dogs and 2001 A Space Odyssey.
The Resorvoir Dogs blu-ray was €35.00 and the 2001 A Space Odyssey blu-ray was €24.00. There are no Blu-Rays less than €24.00 in Tower.
I complained about the pricing to a Till operative. "Are Tower even trying to compete with other stores?", I asked him. He just grunted something sarcastic and walked away. (I think thats why they are called till-grunts.:D)
I managed to get Resorvoir Dogs for €11.99 in HMV and and 2001 ASO for 11.99 in Game Henry Street which is acceptable value IMO.;)

Kintarō Hattori

Tower Records has ALWAYS been expensive. Nothing new there.

eth0_

I really don't understand how Tower are still in business. They're ridiculously over-priced, which is baffling considering they must lose a lost of business to HMV.

RayCon

Im always baffled how that place is still open .... the rent can't be exactly cheap in that neck of the woods either so I honestly don't know how they're turning over enough to stay in business ....Ive always found them over-priced .. who buys there ?

KevArno

They have a fairly decent selection of punk/metal/alt stuff that you would find it hard to source elsewhere (excepting the internets here), in saying that I still haven't bought from them, I find the staff to have surprisingly elitest attitudes, as if they straight out of High Fidelity or something...

the groutch

10000maniacs wrote: »

I complained about the pricing to a Till operative. "Are Tower even trying to compete with other stores?", I asked him. He just grunted something sarcastic and walked away.

I don't blame him for walking away, the pricing is nothing to do with him,
he is merely trying to earn a living (or some extra college money if a student, as your post implies), an you have the nerve to make smart-@rse comments like that to him?

Xterminator

the groutch wrote: »

I don't blame him for walking away, the pricing is nothing to do with him,
he is merely trying to earn a living (or some extra college money if a student, as your post implies), an you have the nerve to make smart-@rse comments like that to him?

the store person is supposed to be in 'customer service'. perhaps thats your opinion of what customer service entails, but IMO expecting someone to be polite is not expecting too much.

college student or not.

Nu-Centz

tower has always been like this.. in its defence (i think)..they did used to have a great selection of hard-to-get or imported cds..(which were even more overpriced)..the internet put an end to being forced to buy overpriced cds in a big way & Tower is one place i do not feel sorry for in the slightest.

10000maniacs

the groutch wrote: »

I don't blame him for walking away, the pricing is nothing to do with him,
he is merely trying to earn a living (or some extra college money if a student, as your post implies), an you have the nerve to make smart-@rse comments like that to him?

What smart arse comment was that?:rolleyes:
It was a civilised question about pricing (or over-pricing).
Do you work in Tower or a similar establishment? Are you this guy in Tower? You seem to know a lot about him.:rolleyes:

rubadub

10000maniacs wrote: »

"Are Tower even trying to compete with other stores?", I asked him. He just grunted something sarcastic and walked away.

10000maniacs wrote: »

It was a civilised question about pricing (or over-pricing

Seems to be a rhetorical and slightly sarcastic question to me. What reply were you expecting? Would you have been happy with ANY reply? In other threads people have gotten articulate & completely reasonable responses from companies and still bitch & moan.

KevArno wrote: »

They have a fairly decent selection of punk/metal/alt stuff that you would find it hard to source elsewhere (excepting the internets here), in saying that I still haven't bought from them, I find the staff to have surprisingly elitest attitudes, as if they straight out of High Fidelity or something...

They do seem like that, they do have a wide selection and last time I went in my mate picked up 3 real bargain music DVDs, and we had seen none of the DVDs before and were quite surprised since it is bands whose catalogue we would know. Other stuff was very overpriced.

10000maniacs

rubadub wrote: »

What reply were you expecting? Would you have been happy with ANY reply? .

A good reply would have been:
I am aware that our prices are high for these items. The prices are set in our London office. However I will register the concerns you expressed into our customer feedback database which will be read by the people who set the prices. Do you have any other questions?
Please come back to our store and have a nice day.

Third_Echelon

KevArno wrote: »

They have a fairly decent selection of punk/metal/alt stuff that you would find it hard to source elsewhere (excepting the internets here), in saying that I still haven't bought from them, I find the staff to have surprisingly elitest attitudes, as if they straight out of High Fidelity or something...

Yeah, its more for alternative stuff that I would go there. I have to say I like the store as it has some great stuff in it. The book section at the back is good as well.

I buy a lot of music and when I lived in town I'd buy a good bit of stuff from Tower. On average they were no dearer or cheaper than HMV.. and I did price the same records between the two stores before buying..

Example... Tower Records would have the Vampire Weekend album for €14, and the Seasick Steve album for €16. HMV would have Vampire weekend for €16 and the Seasick Steve album for €14.. It would generally work out that way. There was only a rare occassion where Tower would be more than €3 or €4 more expensive on a particular item than HMV.

They also have some very good prices on back catalogues etc for €10 and stuff like that.

RayM

10000maniacs wrote: »

A good reply would have been:
I am aware that our prices are high for these items. The prices are set in our London office. However I will register the concerns you expressed into our customer feedback database which will be read by the people who set the prices. Do you have any other questions?
Please come back to our store and have a nice day.

If you were looking for that kind of reply, then you should perhaps have framed your question in a more constructive manner. Your question, "Are Tower even trying to compete with other stores?" was sarcastic and rhetorical, and therefore did not merit any constructive answer. The answer your question really deserved would probably have got him sacked.

If I'm looking for something obscure, I usually buy/acquire it online, but I have chanced upon the odd bargain in Tower. A couple of years ago, I bought "Brass Eye" on DVD there for €12.99, when it was priced at €24.99 in HMV.

RaoulDukeHST

Completely agree, I can't imagine they shift many Blu-Ray. The prices are way out there. e.g. I saw Stephen Fry's America there for €60. Its available on play for €39. Their CD pricing can be similarly extreme, I am not sure how they decide the pricing. The original Tower chain in the US (bankrupt 2006) was very reasonable but the Dublin stores are a franchise.
HMV can also be odd on pricing. I think the best idea is unless it is something you must have there and then, shop around. Online is almost always cheaper but sometimes HMV have the odd bargain..

10000maniacs

RayM wrote: »

If you were looking for that kind of reply, then you should perhaps have framed your question in a more constructive manner. .

Horse manure, there was nothing wrong with the way I "framed":rolleyes: the question. Anyway the customer is always right.
Another till grunt perhaps.:)

sceptre

10000maniacs wrote: »

Horse manure, there was nothing wrong with the way I "framed":rolleyes: the question. Anyway the customer is always right.
Another till grunt perhaps.:)

See, I managed to take your complaint above seriously, despite your usage of the term "till-grunt", and then you started throwing it at your fellow site-users because they had an opinion that didn't completely coincide with yours and I completely lost interest in what you had to say. Nul points I'm afraid.

rubadub

10000maniacs wrote: »

A good reply would have been:
I am aware that our prices are high for these items. The prices are set in our London office. However I will register the concerns you expressed into our customer feedback database which will be read by the people who set the prices. Do you have any other questions?
Please come back to our store and have a nice day.

If they had actually spoken those words you probably would have been on saying "wait till you hear what the patronizing, condescending, sarcastic little bast*rd said to me"

jahalpin

RaoulDukeHST wrote: »

Completely agree, I can't imagine they shift many Blu-Ray. The prices are way out there. e.g. I saw Stephen Fry's America there for €60. Its available on play for €39. Their CD pricing can be similarly extreme, I am not sure how they decide the pricing. The original Tower chain in the US (bankrupt 2006) was very reasonable but the Dublin stores are a franchise.
HMV can also be odd on pricing. I think the best idea is unless it is something you must have there and then, shop around. Online is almost always cheaper but sometimes HMV have the odd bargain..

If you bought the boxset from play.com you would have to pay VAT and duty and An Post service charge on top of the price which would bring the price to around 55 euro.

A 5 euro price difference can be explained by the additional costs of very high rent, rates, wage costs, public liability insurance etc.

I think Tower offer student discounts which is around 10%

10000maniacs

sceptre wrote: »

See, I managed to take your complaint above seriously, despite your usage of the term "till-grunt", and then you started throwing it at your fellow site-users because they had an opinion that didn't completely coincide with yours and I completely lost interest in what you had to say. Nul points I'm afraid.

The reason that I am getting annoyed is this is supposed to be the Rip Off Ireland thread and I was pointing out that Tower prices are up to three times the price of other retailers in some cases for Blu Ray, and posters like you and others cloud the issue making points that are irrelevant to the main core of the thread.
How I phrased the question to the attendent is irrelevant. And you wern't present so how do you know the full context of the situation.
He was a till operator and he grunted something intelligible so do the math.:)

rubadub

Many of these threads would be FAR better suited to the Ranting & Raving forum.

In there you will face no opposition to your irrational complaints, as people who disagree with you would be banned.

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Boom_Bap

10000maniacs wrote: »

The reason that I am getting annoyed is this is supposed to be the Rip Off Ireland thread and I was pointing out that Tower prices are up to three times the price of other retailers in some cases for Blu Ray, and posters like you and others cloud the issue making points that are irrelevant to the main core of the thread.
How I phrased the question to the attendent is irrelevant. And you wern't present so how do you know the full context of the situation.
He was a till operator and he grunted something intelligible so do the math.:)

RayM wrote: »

A couple of years ago, I bought "Brass Eye" on DVD there for €12.99, when it was priced at €24.99 in HMV.

RayM has shown here that Tower offers cheaper prices than other stores depending on the item in question, so I wouldn't exactly call them a rip off.
From personal experience, i would often compare prices between Tower and another store and buy where the item was cheapest. This has been Tower alot of times, sometimes it has been some of the other well known shops, other times it's the indy record shops.
In this instace, they items you where looking for where cheaper elsewhere.

As for the til jockey grunting something sarcastic, what exactly was said by him??

d'Oracle

10000maniacs wrote: »

The prices are set in our London office.

That would just be a lie.

10000maniacs

d'Oracle wrote: »

That would just be a lie.

Just an example of how to give good customer service. I don't have any inside knowledge of Tower.

jahalpin

Tower Records in Ireland consists of only 2 shops, the one in Wicklow Street and the one in Easons, O'Connell Street. As such, they wouldn't be able to get the same deals as a large multiple such as HMV. That being said, they seem to charge similar prices to HMV for most non-sale products, which is quite an achievement

The rest of the Tower Records shops around the world (with the exception of Japan and one or two other countries) closed down a few years ago as the parent went bankrupt.

Sofiztikated

10000maniacs wrote: »

Horse manure, there was nothing wrong with the way I "framed":rolleyes: the question. Anyway the customer is always right.
Another till grunt perhaps.:)

This is where I'll jut in.

I've found that the customer is rarely right. However, they are still the customer.

I have found Tower Records to be quite off in their pricing though, but making bitchy (And yes, it was bitchy) comments to a lowly member of staff (See, how I didn't insult him?) will do nothing to change prices.

Yes, he is essentially customer services, but very unlikely that he gives that much of a **** about what one person says to him about a Bluray price.

Darksaga87

I had a look around a couple of times, the prices are mad!!

I seen band of brothers on blu ray for 69.99, in HMV its 29.99, i just had to take a pic of it on my phone, absolutly stupid prices. I would never buy off them and ill be glad to see them become a distant memory of the recession....

RayM

10000maniacs wrote: »

Horse manure, there was nothing wrong with the way I "framed":rolleyes: the question. Anyway the customer is always right.
Another till grunt perhaps.:)

"Horse manure" "till grunt". There's a bit of a pattern here, isn't there? The customer isn't always right. In fact, sometimes "the customer" can be an obnoxious cretin.

Kintarō Hattori

I lost interest in this thread after seeing the OP moaning at his fellow posters because they didn't agree with him. Shame really.

BostonB

Dunno about the rest of their stuff. Some of their headphones seem very expensive. But in fairness, Tower records has the higher end Sennheiser ear buds like the MX760/660'swhich I couldn't find anywhere else in Dublin. Also a pack of foam covers for earphones was something like €2 for 5x2 (I think, maybe more) whereas everywhere else wanted €5 for 1x2.

Like all shops in Dublin you have to shop around. Simply walking across the street could save you 50% or more. Thats also true in the shopping centers.

CopperFinger

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

I lost interest in this thread after seeing the OP moaning at his fellow posters because they didn't agree with him. Shame really.

Interestingly enough, I placed an order for the Robinson Crusoe TV series DVD about a year ago in the same shop.
The guy who placed the order was ok. I came back a week and a half later, and asked for the order.
Another guy in the shop was as rude as hell to me for no reason.
It must be the Tower environment.
I think that if people in shops are rude, it should be pointed out. (Maybe not on this forum)

Darksaga87

BostonB wrote: »

Dunno about the rest of their stuff. Some of their headphones seem very expensive. But in fairness, Tower records has the higher end Sennheiser ear buds like the MX760/660'swhich I couldn't find anywhere else in Dublin. Also a pack of foam covers for earphones was something like €2 for 5x2 (I think, maybe more) whereas everywhere else wanted €5 for 1x2.

Like all shops in Dublin you have to shop around. Simply walking across the street could save you 50% or more. Thats also true in the shopping centers.

You can pick up reasonable priced sennheiser in Currys.