Whose is PCMart.com?

J

Joe_M

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Hi Guys

My bro in Jhb just informed me on msn about a company with branches in Pretoria and JHb called PCMart.com that advertised on the front page of the Star newspaper today 31 July 2008 (that must have cost of coupled of bucks).

Apparently they having a birthday sale and the prices are awesome, in fact some of the prices are so much cheaper then rectron , Sahara, esquire , and these are retail prices including vat ,

I just went to their website and downloaded some of the prices , pity they dont have a branch here in cape town I would have love to buy some of the 50pck Sony DVD @R99 including vat , they cost about R 129 excl vat from Pinnacle Micro and that is wholesale price. they also got some crazy pricing on Sony Vaio notebooks and last time I priced them with rectron these prices at like R 1000 cheaper and they including vat.
My bro going tommorrow to check out the Woodmead store in JHB.

check it out for www.pcmart.com
 
Had some bad experience with them, service is horrible and the tech utterly incompetent.
 
If their site wasn’t so dam ugly I would have looked at the prices, however all it has done is give me a migraine!
 
Lol ... I went to the one in Woodmead a while ago and the techie there told me the "new" 8800gt is much better than the upcoming Radeon 4850 :P ... and when I contested him ... he told me I dunno what I'm talking about :P.

Oh and by the way ... they don't just buy from Esquire, esquire owns PC Mart :p ... AFAIK anyways.
 
dodgy webpage imo...

...saw their stand at rage, there they had good specials on clean dvds

ps: gone through the specials now, same as per rage
 
wizdumb said:
dodgy webpage imo...

...saw their stand at rage, there they had good specials on clean dvds

ps: gone through the specials now, same as per rage
Click to expand...

admittedly, their specials, and esquires specials are not bad ... but I don't like them based on the way the techie tried to lie to me about the graphics cards. He did tell me the store was owned by esquire though.

And in terms of equire specials, sometimes they are really good, but I can't stand their customer service, and as I said before ... will only use them as a last resort.
 
Get your facts straight

Hey Eitai I spoke to Arnie in Cape Town branch who informed me that Esquire does not own PCmart but have some input on the concept which is based on the Esquire express warehouse, according to Arnie, the design and concept is managed by one of the ex director of Nando's who retired, and the ex marketing company for the same, and the stores are designed by the same guys who do the Mug & Bean franchise. He also told me that they in testing phase at the moment to get the systems correct and would be opening up 45 new store nationwide at cost of R xx million over the next few years and that Esquire has signed an exclusive distribution to these stores as it was based on their concept, If u ask me this is a smart move from Esquire, let see you come up with an interesting concept instead of making up crazy stories. btw I am a Database Programmer and don’t work for Esquire but purchase from them and managed to have had my studies paid up by selling stuff from them, it is also working for my younger brother in Jhb as he is currently studying , It is about time that computer shops that rip off the consumers get a good challenge from guys like PCmart as this ultimately brings down the prices, otherwise people like yourself would be making too much profit IMO. LOL;)
 
Joe_M said:
Hey Eitai I spoke to Arnie in Cape Town branch who informed me that Esquire does not own PCmart but have some input on the concept which is based on the Esquire express warehouse, according to Arnie, the design and concept is managed by one of the ex director of Nando's who retired, and the ex marketing company for the same, and the stores are designed by the same guys who do the Mug & Bean franchise. He also told me that they in testing phase at the moment to get the systems correct and would be opening up 45 new store nationwide at cost of R xx million over the next few years and that Esquire has signed an exclusive distribution to these stores as it was based on their concept, If u ask me this is a smart move from Esquire, let see you come up with an interesting concept instead of making up crazy stories. btw I am a Database Programmer and don’t work for Esquire but purchase from them and managed to have had my studies paid up by selling stuff from them, it is also working for my younger brother in Jhb as he is currently studying , It is about time that computer shops that rip off the consumers get a good challenge from guys like PCmart as this ultimately brings down the prices, otherwise people like yourself would be making too much profit IMO. LOL;)
Click to expand...

Funny though ... the manager at PC Mart in woodmead told me Esquire owns the store. I guess he was wrong then??
And I have come up with an interesting concept, although for the online e-commerce world ... and it would have been implemented by now, but lack the capital to do it. Hopefully should be going by end of next year though. I'd tell you what it is, but then I'd have to kill ya ;)
Although I don't see how opening a chain store is an interesting concept because, well, Incredible Connection have done it, and so has Matrix Warehouse ... PC Mart is just another Matrix Warehouse although selling purely Esquire stuff ... I don't see that as an interesting concept? Any other forumite views here? I don't consider PC Mart a challenge (Even though they're selling to a different PC market which doesn't really affect me), but the fact that they lied to me to try get me to buy something inferior does not make me see much of a challenge. Unfortunately the general public would believe those lies (General public being your average street Joe who doesn't know anything about PC's and just says they want something to play a game).
The concept of the esquire express sales store is a good one ... why ... because it is a shop for dealers, so you can see the products instead of just browsing pricelists. If you take that same concept and use it for end users ... you have yourself just another retail store. The fact of the matter is they have a bigger chance of becoming successful because the guy has xx million to spend which will include a marketing budget, which is why so many other stores close down.

This is my 2c ... I may be wrong, but thats the way I view it.

Just 1 question though ... why did you purely use esquire to pay for your studies? There are other places that sell different and sometimes superior products for the same price or less. They also offer better after service support and the returns policies are not as rediculous as Esquires. Keep in mind, I have not been to the Cape Town branch, maybe they are good there ... but the Jhb branch is a tad on the not-so-lekker side ... although admittedly they do have a nice flashy building.

Edit: And I have another idea for e-commerce ... although it would take I'm sure a year or 2 to catch on, but we'd first have to wait for broadband pricing to come down, and the amount of capital I would need to get it done is a bit over the top.
 
By the way, I have also got another conceptual idea for online e-commerce that can actually be done now. There are only 2 limiting factors ... 1)The site would be a high bandwidth site and price of broadband would restrict the market here ... 2)The cost to develop is way above anything I could afford anytime soon.

Also, I'm assuming the Techie was the manager referred to above, because he was the one who was closing up shop and seemed to know what was going on in the store.
 
Get your facts straight

Just 1 question though ... why did you purely use esquire to pay for your studies? There are other places that sell different and sometimes superior products for the same price or less. They also offer better after service support and the returns policies are not as rediculous as Esquires. Keep in mind, I have not been to the Cape Town branch, maybe they are good there ... but the Jhb branch is a tad on the not-so-lekker side ... although admittedly they do have a nice flashy building

I choose Esquire for most of my sourcing as it better to have a relationship with one supplier then running around, the time and effort is just not worth it. I do have dealerships with other wholesalers as well so I don’t keep all my eggs in one basket .also I sell solutions to my client’s not just products.

Btw I noticed on other threads you keep mentioning that if you purchase an item from Esquire you cannot take it back for credit , my question to you is : would you take back an items from clients that are opened and used even if it was just bought a few hours or a few days , because if you do, then the forumites and people that purchase from your website should be careful as you cannot guarantee that the product is new, I personally wont take an item back as I can safely assure my next client the product he is buying is a virgin product. I sure you’ve seen that co's like Mustek , Rectron charged high re-stocking fees ,because they too guarantee me that an item I purchase is new and not " like new" , I have taken back items to Arnie in Cape Town on many occasions and never had issues to exchange it for a different item as long as all the seals were intact. I am sure they have the same policy across all their branches; I haven’t chatted to my younger bro but will ask him if he had any issues

.This gives me an idea: We should ask forumites if they would buy items that is opened, used with someone else’s DNA all over the product and still pay full purchase price for that item.
 
Joe_M said:
Just 1 question though ... why did you purely use esquire to pay for your studies? There are other places that sell different and sometimes superior products for the same price or less. They also offer better after service support and the returns policies are not as rediculous as Esquires. Keep in mind, I have not been to the Cape Town branch, maybe they are good there ... but the Jhb branch is a tad on the not-so-lekker side ... although admittedly they do have a nice flashy building

I choose Esquire for most of my sourcing as it better to have a relationship with one supplier then running around, the time and effort is just not worth it. I do have dealerships with other wholesalers as well so I don’t keep all my eggs in one basket .also I sell solutions to my client’s not just products.

Btw I noticed on other threads you keep mentioning that if you purchase an item from Esquire you cannot take it back for credit , my question to you is : would you take back an items from clients that are opened and used even if it was just bought a few hours or a few days , because if you do, then the forumites and people that purchase from your website should be careful as you cannot guarantee that the product is new, I personally wont take an item back as I can safely assure my next client the product he is buying is a virgin product. I sure you’ve seen that co's like Mustek , Rectron charged high re-stocking fees ,because they too guarantee me that an item I purchase is new and not " like new" , I have taken back items to Arnie in Cape Town on many occasions and never had issues to exchange it for a different item as long as all the seals were intact. I am sure they have the same policy across all their branches; I haven’t chatted to my younger bro but will ask him if he had any issues

.This gives me an idea: We should ask forumites if they would buy items that is opened, used with someone else’s DNA all over the product and still pay full purchase price for that item.
Click to expand...

That isn't the problem. On many occasions I have orders where I buy the product, and then the customer doesn't pay so I have to return it. Or the customer orders it and it was the wrong thing, so they have to send it back. With esquire, they do not allow that ... there are notices all over the collections area that say so.

I don't return items that have been opened and used, so that is not what I meant.
 
Get your facts straight

To be honest I have never seen a sign here in the Cape Town branch, but Arnie did mention to me that they are very strict on open or used stuff, which I can appreciate as I know that what I buying is new, but it also boils down to relationships you build up with the sales guys @ any company like I do with my suppliers such as Esquire, TVR and Mustek here in Cape Town, I am sure you do the same for your clients. I have been selling computer and electronics stuff since I was in high school and it always the warranty issue that becomes a problem (electronics part do break sometime or the other no matter how good the brand you bought) can you imagine if every of your clients purchased an item and sent it back to you unopened after two weeks for a full credit , you would have every lost out on two weeks of warranty and still have to resell that item to another client with a full warranty , what if that items breaks down after your warranty has already expired , you take the rep for this as your client expected a full warranty , in the long run you become the loser as you need to replace that item with similar or better product at your cost. While I was studying I went through lots of these issues myself, now I only buy what my clients order so I do not go through the same hassles I had in the past , that is also why I prefer to purchase items that have a long warranty or as I notice recently products that have a Lifetime warranty. This is my 2 cent worth of comment and with the Rand devalued against the dollar @R11to US$1 doesn’t mean much LOL ;)
 
I'm a fence sitter on this one. I usually make sure the client knows exactly what the product is (let's forget about my recent notebook thread :p). I think it's unreasonable for the supplier to not accept an unopened product for credit
 
sn3rd said:
I'm a fence sitter on this one. I usually make sure the client knows exactly what the product is (let's forget about my recent notebook thread :p). I think it's unreasonable for the supplier to not accept an unopened product for credit
Click to expand...

I,agree with you on this one if a product is unopened and bought within a reasonable time let’s say two or three days then your supplier should exchange it for another product or give u a credit , that is why I said that you need to have a relationship with your sales guy or woman (we now have these woman's Lib in this era) :eek: to sort this out for you as he/she gets the commission on the sale, so let them work for change instead on just being order takers. I don't know the company Comstar you mention in the recent thread as I am based in Cape Town and don't think they have branch down here but glad you finally got sorted out and would be careful not to deal with them in future .btw Axiz is the Main distributor for HP notebooks if my memory serves me correctly.
Regards
Joe
 
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They do not even make an effort to update their own site home page?

Look at breaking news. LOL
 
if you are aware of online retailers, it should almost always never be the case their prices will be beaten by a bricks and mortar store.

also dealing with in-store techs bores me as you find you encounter many situations like eita describes.
 
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