Maplin Galway

TabulaRasa22

padi89 wrote:

Dont take this the wrong way but i would say the staff were avoiding your dad not because they were "terrified" or "scared" but because they couldnt be arsed dealing with someone for two hours looking for discounts.No offence, he is quiet intitled to bargin and fair play for getting it, but its normally customers like this that get on your nerves.

No offence taken, and I agree with you in most situations. I've worked tech support in a variety of businesses in my misspent youth, and an unruly customer isn't helping himself or anyone else. Still gotta smile and suck it up, though. And tbh, I was more than a little surprised at the lengths he went to. In the case of PC World it was well and truly deserved, however. The staff in there have a superior,"we're doing you a favour by gracing you with our presence" attitude that I would sack any of my own sales staff for taking with a customer. Why? Because it pisses off the customers, and if you do that, you lose customers. Doing it often enough means you lose your business. For reference see CompuStore. I wonder if any of those lads got jobs again in Galway? Although there were one or two good ones in there, as I recall.

Oh and it was fear alright. You could smell it.

arrianalexander

ok putting things into perspective...its a shop!

if you don't like it for whatever reasons..don't shop there...

if you feel you have a valid complaint about a particular shop whether it is PC world or Maplin write to the store or their customer service... I seriously doubt PC World or Maplin have told their customer service staff to be checking boards.ie for customer issues..i think they might look after the people who ring them up or write them a letter/e-mail to them. I don't know maybe i'm wrong..

but either way i don't think any retailer in the world would care what people like ye have to say...

and please don't be so pathetic as in to point out the irony to me..and for those who can't get the irony of this...my opinion of ye is proven!

TerrorFirmer

sgthighway wrote:

Just my opinion. 12 Years experience in maintaining them = the sense.
How long does a battery last in a Notebook with a 17" Screen?

It depends on the components. Some of the newer notebooks can have up to 5 hours, even though with multimedia orientated hardware like the new geforce 7 cards and larger screens. My mother has an expensive "business" laptop from work. I have a sony vaio for gaming which has a much better gpu and a bigger screen. The battery life is roughly the same on both.

Unless you're willing to spend a good wad of cash - like over the average what someone would spend on a laptop - there is no distinction to make between what might be a multimedia or business laptop....

raheeny

I've never been In Maplin's Galway, but I have been in the Jervis St. branch in Dublin, and a few computer stores in Cork City. I have often thought "I should be working here, these guys haven't a clue". So now I suss out what I want on the net, go to forums like this one to see if the product is any good, or if it's suitable, then I can just go to the shop and buy it without asking any questions, which they don't know the answers to anyway.

redmouse

why do people think that sales staff should be a licka**e???? i cant speak on behalf of maplin but i do know that pc world pay sales staff F all. i know someone who worked there. loved the job cause he was a self confessed computer geek. he left though cause of the condesending, patronising customers. some customers expect the sales person to bloody kiss their feet.
i also know that a laptop sale worth a grand for example has very little effect on the pay packet at the end of the month.

JohnCleary

A place like maplin should have both sales assistants and technical assistants, and the badge on the person should clearly state which is which

padi89

redmouse wrote:

loved the job cause he was a self confessed computer geek. he left though cause of the condesending, patronising customers. some customers expect the sales person to bloody kiss their feet

Tell your mate to stay out of All retail jobs then.;)
You get more good than bad to be honest but the bad do cetainly make their mark.

Rasputin

TabulaRasa22 wrote:

No offence taken, and I agree with you in most situations. I've worked tech support in a variety of businesses in my misspent youth, and an unruly customer isn't helping himself or anyone else. Still gotta smile and suck it up, though. And tbh, I was more than a little surprised at the lengths he went to. In the case of PC World it was well and truly deserved, however. The staff in there have a superior,"we're doing you a favour by gracing you with our presence" attitude that I would sack any of my own sales staff for taking with a customer. Why? Because it pisses off the customers, and if you do that, you lose customers. Doing it often enough means you lose your business. For reference see CompuStore. I wonder if any of those lads got jobs again in Galway? Although there were one or two good ones in there, as I recall.

Oh and it was fear alright. You could smell it.

Am just so you know some of the people who lost their jobs in compustore are now happily employed in Maplin and PC World. Possibly the cream of the crop and the only perk to the job (for us) was working with those funny b4st4rd5

stevecrow74

padi89 wrote:

Im sure they have a pretty big turn over off staff too,

they do at that... i was one of the lackies that worked there for 5 months last year.. handy shop for bits you think you dont need but cant live without

the pay i there is very good though.. with the odd bonus thrown in...

i could go on....

some of the items are quite dodgy but most are high quality.. its just knowing what to pick....

Psychobiker

grimskull_99 wrote: »

9) The staff are good, each to their own area of interest, everyone cant know everything in the shop, theres over 14,000 I dont think that NUIG has an I.T/electronics/consumer law/E10lectronic engineering/sound and vision/automotive electrics/TV and radio engineering course last I checked.

GMIT does mate .

I absolutely sympathise with everything Grimskull has posted, I'm in there weekends and the occasional weeknight. The christmas period has been absolute hell, not only on the go in a retail sense, but standing up for eight straight hours in smart shoes does one's heels in :rolleyes:. But, I'd prefer to maintain as much a professional appearance as possible, that's just my take on things.
Should I nip off to Boston Scientific, I'd make in 3 days what I make in a month, but they aren't as flexible and it's only to keep petrol in the car/various niceties until I graduate and then...different story.

AAMOF, the only thing keeping me there and not to abandon it and lose my lifestyle vices is the crew who man Galway. Top bunch to work with!

At all times I try to strike a balance between following procedure and pleasing customers, it's a very rare occasion I'll get someone narky, whom I usually seek to calm down quickly to avoid any heated discussions/pelting them with hard drives/general shop-floor warfare and it's grand from thereonin.

Day-to-day running of the store definitely can have an influence on what sales staff are available on the floor at xx:xx hours, again, procedure. Actually, the summation of it all is in fact, procedure.
procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure procedure, so if you have an issue, take it up with Maplin UK, as they are the only people with power to change anything.
I'm not sure I'd like to work in the UK end of it at all, at least Ireland is still raw and there's no 'hewmin rooits' bull****, requiring written permission from the entire upper corporate echelons for something as trivial as the emission of post-BLT flatulence, for God forbid it offend some ethnic/religious minority by being of greater than expected tangibility or volume . It's only a matter of time before Ireland follows suit, it was hell when I lived in Bristol!

mckevittmartin

Anytime i go into maplin to buy something i always seem to be told that i could get it cheeper online. On 2 occasions i was even supplied with a web address of a specific supplier. Great buisness practice!!

muppetkiller

mckevittmartin wrote: »

Anytime i go into maplin to buy something i always seem to be told that i could get it cheeper online. On 2 occasions i was even supplied with a web address of a specific supplier. Great buisness practice!!

Well to be fair maplins staff are saving you a few bob there..most of the tech they have in the Galway shop is so outdated and way over priced they should be arrested.
I've seen Geforce 7 series cards in there for nearly 200 Euros still !!
The last time I saw they had a good deal and was buying a harddrive when they asked 'Would I like to buy there catalogue for only 7 euro' haha I nearly cried laughing...why the hell should I pay for a catalogue ?

Bass Cadet

behy wrote: »

Any one been in maplin galway this week. Is it just me or do they know anything about what they sell in there. I wanted to buy a pro sound speaker. ( I know there **** but they are cheap) asked the guy (who I think was an assissant manager, a red neck anyway) what wattage the speaker was and he looked at me :eek: and said " you dont plug them into the power they'll be fine for ya" this aint the first story about dumb maplins anyone want to share there not so great experiences.

Funny this topic has just come up...Was in there on Saturday and myself and a queue of 5 people were left for about 10 mins before anyone came to the till to take money from us, the place wasn't even that busy (around 5pm). Staff in there do seem sound though to be fair to them

By the way, they are a complete rip off. I paid €30 for a simple usb multi port dongle. Could have got it for a tenner online. was an emergency though...

DeadSkin

Came across an ignorant idiot working in there about 4/5 months ago. Asked him about a charger[via USB] for me mp3 player, he tells me he's too busy and to ask him over there. Ignorant fuck.
They're all clones of Professor Frink.

ScumLord

I thought the staff where very knowledgeable. They knew their stuff when it came to Motherboards anyway.

fifib

i went in there with a circuit breaker looking for new one after guy in Atlantic Homecare told me to try there in case they had some...anyways guy behind desk took a look at it and said what colour would you like? he thought it was a printer cartridge!

Psychobiker

fifib wrote: »

i went in there with a circuit breaker looking for new one after guy in Atlantic Homecare told me to try there in case they had some...anyways guy behind desk took a look at it and said what colour would you like? he thought it was a printer cartridge!

I ROFL'D!!!!

L

Lockstep

There's a lad who works there, young enough, stubbled etc.

He seems to know his stuff when it comes to computers. Had a good auld chat with him.

I've seen some pretty good deals there now and then but unless something is specifically on special offer, the prices there appear pretty shocking.

Discodog

Maplin are a life saver & if you choose wisely they can offer good value. The web pricing is an issue but nothing like rip off merchants Argos. I have never had any problems returning unwanted/faulty items.

SalthillGuy

Discodog wrote: »

Maplin are a life saver & if you choose wisely they can offer good value. The web pricing is an issue but nothing like rip off merchants Argos. I have never had any problems returning unwanted/faulty items.

I agree, they are well trained and the after sales service is excellent. I go there regularly.

MattKid

I'd be worse off without Maplin in Galway, we've completely rewired our stage in the last few months and it's been so handy just to nip down the road for xlrs and stuff

SalthillGuy

Hopefully, companies like this are not going to struggle in the recession.

johnnyboy4711

SalthillGuy wrote: »

I agree, they are well trained and the after sales service is excellent. I go there regularly.

good for cables and blank dvds etc but i wouldnt buy anything of value as i feel that they are substandard.
john

Psychobiker

johnnyboy4711 wrote: »

good for cables and blank dvds etc but i wouldnt buy anything of value as i feel that they are substandard.
john

That, as an employee, I will back you up 1000%.

I have seen XLRs that just...don't fit into Neutrik-branded XLR (IMHO the industry standard) jacks. Come on!!

battlestar

They seem to be the only place I can still buy a floppy disk to make a back up disk when I need to flash my BIOS

Discodog

Another resurrection of the thread that never dies !

tonyhiggins

Oh! This thread made me remember something! Bought a firewire expresscard in there for a new audio interface I got, after a full week of doing all manner of crazy messing to get it to work, I tried it on another laptop and decided it was broken. Brought it back, they had to send it off to test it as they had nothing in-shop to test it with :rolleyes: A few weeks ago I realised about 4-5 weeks had gone by. I called in about it, the guy told me that they accepted it was defective, they'd accidentally made the cheque out in Sterling so had to cancel it and send another. Fair enough I thought, and the guy was quite civil in checking it out.

Seeing this thread has just made me realise that's another 4 weeks ago and nothing!!! I'll be in there tomorrow.

Xiney

I've had nothing but good experiences with Maplin.

They've always taken stuff back without a hassle.


Of course, paying by credit/laser card helps I think.

jenno86

FFS, Why do people put an 's' at the end of shop names. Its called Maplin not Maplins. :eek::mad::o That grinds my gears. Also Harvey Normans....arrrggghh! Its Harvey Norman!

Sorry about that! Just had to say it! Needed to get it out! Maybe it would have been better to suited to the ranting and raving forum!

tonyhiggins

Xiney wrote: »

I've had nothing but good experiences with Maplin.

They've always taken stuff back without a hassle.


Of course, paying by credit/laser card helps I think.

I'm pretty sure I did..

Xiney

Perhaps breasts are the limiting factor then.

tonyhiggins

Xiney wrote: »

Perhaps breasts are the limiting factor then.

civis_liberalis

I only bothered to read the first post of this thread, but from the 4-5 times I have shelled out some decent cash for anything in there I have been met with friendly staff and on the couple of occasions I did have a question, it got sorted. The person I asked didn't know for sure what I wanted, so they sent me to the person who could answer properly.

On one occasions I bought some new mic's and a usb m-audio interface. Nearly a month later, they guy that sold it to me said hello to me in the store when I was browsing around, to ask if I had gotten on ok with it, since I was unsure about whether it was what I needed when I was buying it.

So from just my own experience of Maplin, it has been very good.

Discodog

Xiney wrote: »

Perhaps breasts are the limiting factor then.

Oh, so not all the male boardies are excluded then ? !

tonyhiggins

Still waiting for that cheque!! :mad:

Rang on the 7th, said if it didn't come in a week or so again to call again. I will!!!

civis_liberalis

tonyhiggins wrote: »

said if it didn't come in a week or so again to call again. I will!!!

Is that a threat? Calm down!

Psychobiker

Glad to be shot of the place and into a job relevant to my qualifications. If anyone remembered the long-haired guy?
T'was I! The M-Audio interface rings a bell certainly.

Some things that annoyed me as an employee (other side of the table now ) :

RE: returns - "I know my rights!!" - No, you don't. Here's a copy of the act.

"Hello Maplin Galway, this is XXXX" only for them to say "Yes, hello Maplins, I am looking..." (IT'S A SINGULAR NOUN!!)

RE: returns - "He has a problem with me because I'm black!" - Was shortly barred from the shop on racist grounds (Oh the irony!).

Yes, it was my personal fault that things are overpriced.

Customers coming at 17:57 and asking for something extremely complicated. Now, I wouldn't mind, but it was company policy to keep at least two people (far more often the whole crew were kept) on-site while the cashup etc. was being done. And we stopped being paid at 6.

People 'renting' equipment (buying something, using it overnight and bringing it back in the morning).

People coming in expecting to know precisely what they're on about (esp. foreign nationals who blurt the word in the mother tongue)

darrenh

Psychobiker wrote: »

Glad to be shot of the place and into a job relevant to my qualifications. If anyone remembered the long-haired guy?
T'was I! The M-Audio interface rings a bell certainly.

Some things that annoyed me as an employee (other side of the table now ) :

RE: returns - "I know my rights!!" - No, you don't. Here's a copy of the act.

"Hello Maplin Galway, this is XXXX" only for them to say "Yes, hello Maplins, I am looking..." (IT'S A SINGULAR NOUN!!)

RE: returns - "He has a problem with me because I'm black!" - Was shortly barred from the shop on racist grounds (Oh the irony!).

Yes, it was my personal fault that things are overpriced.

Customers coming at 17:57 and asking for something extremely complicated. Now, I wouldn't mind, but it was company policy to keep at least two people (far more often the whole crew were kept) on-site while the cashup etc. was being done. And we stopped being paid at 6.

People 'renting' equipment (buying something, using it overnight and bringing it back in the morning).

People coming in expecting to know precisely what they're on about (esp. foreign nationals who blurt the word in the mother tongue)

by the sounds of it I'd say they are glad your gone. Doesn't sound like working in a shop suits you!