Jessops

Crikey, these shop assistants really talk Pentax down. Popped into one to see what they're pushing these days and she was so dismissive!

Come on then what was the patter? I need a laugh

I had an amusing conversation with one a while ago when I went in with my brother to collect his Panasonic Lumix (it wouldn't zoom, so was being fixed). They really do not seem to know how to cope with people who own gear that they don't sell!

I'm not sure who they're selling to now. The point and shoot crowd are just as likely to buy from Amazon or a supermarket, while the DSLR owners tend to want staff who know a bit more about the gear. I know I wouldn't buy things like memory cards from them as they charge daft markups.

The last time I was in Jessops, I heard one of the sales people trying to push a D700 onto a first time DSLR buyer saying that was what you needed to get good photos. I purposely chuckled and the sales person finally gave in and said you could probably get by with a D300, but it would still be best to have a D700.

Don't worry, the assistants will be out of work soon, when Jessops close the less profitable shops.

They are sales people after all and many really do not have enough knowledge of photography at all. Many of them even lack the basic sales skills and do not know how to deal with a potential client.

That's why shops who have capable and knowledgeable staff like SRS thrive and I will happily pay a little extra if needed compared to shopping on the Internet for that privilege. You acquire anything from there and leave fully satisfied knowing also the excellent after sales service you get.

Once I walked into one of the J shops and while browsing asked to see a particular FF camera that was displayed. The chap looked at me and said: "are you interested in buying it or you just want to look at it?" Gosh, a comment like that really annoyed me so much I immediately replied asking if he seriously thought I was ready to fork out a couple of grand acquiring a camera without first handling and checking it properly. And even after handling it there wouldn't be a guarantee that I would acquire it there and then, and if that is how they expected to sell equipment then perhaps they needed to brush off their sales skills along with some photographic skills. He was so shocked with my response that immediately took it out from display and put it on the counter for me to check.

Hang on now Amin, shopping on the internet for a good deal isn't such a bad thing, I bought my last two cameras and last three lenses from a dealer I found through the internet, got em' from some place in Watford

As for Jessops, they probably lost most of their knowledgable staff due to store closures or the staff simply wanting to move on. Working in retail is pretty much a thankless task with poor pay and weekend hours, is it any wonder the staff are poorly trained or have little knowledge of the product when no one really want the job.

Perhaps I should have been clearer but I am sure you fully understood what I was trying to imply , and mentioning Watford said it all

By the way, they sell C**** too and they are pretty knowledgeable in the field as far as I know.

At a stroke they made all 200 assistant managers and warehouse mangers redundant, thus ripping the centre out of the expertise of many branches.

And do they also sell Coffee to go with the Cakes

Coffee and cakes are not sold but offered to clients who frequent the store

I think the basic problem is that Jessops try to sell cameras as though they're toasters, when we all know that photography is a bit more complicated than how many slices and whether it has one of those pop-up racks for croissants.

To my mind the rot set in when they stopped selling used gear. I realise there were sound commercial reasons for this (ebay must have put a serious dent in sales) but equally once they lost that then they lost the permanence that it implied. Their new staff don't really need to know how to do anything beyond switch the cameras on and parrot specifications, presumably also steering customers towards whatever will give the best profit.

agreed, there was a branch in Nottingham which I used to actually quite like, sold used gear and a wide variety of films and the manager was polite and knowledgable about all brands (even the clapped out Ricoh KR-5 I was shooting at the time!)

Similarly in Cambridge one of the Jessops branches was home to one of the very few non-Pentaxians I've met who knew that my Auto110 was more than a toy without having to be told.

Alas the good are outnumbered by the bad, especially these days.

Guys I'll never forgive Jessops for dumping my favourite range of cameras but...at least they exist and they're a photographic chain, albeit a flawed one. Many high streets (ours included) would be bereft of any camera shops without them.

That's not really me sticking up for Jessops...but you know what I mean.

I like to look round once in a while when the lady wife is in M&S. It's the only place I can get to see actual cameras in the flesh. And Sonys.

Best wishes,

A.

I was in Jessops a few weeks ago when I was looking to buy a tripod.

They had a few sets of tripod legs on display so I wandered over to have a look. No sooner had I picked one up (Manfrotto XPRO190B which I had been considering) than a sales assistant came over declaring that a particular Velbon camcorder tripod was the one I should be looking at...

When I asked whether they also had tripod heads for me to look at he looked at me blankly before scuttling off to get someone to help him.

The guy that came back brought a Manfrotto pistol grip head with him, and when I asked him whether they had any other heads for me to look at (as I wanted something a little more compact thatn the pistol head) he said they did, but they were in the back and it would be a bit of an effort to get them out...

Anyway, he attached the pistol head to the legs (took him about 5 minutes), whilst saying this tripod was "amazing", when my girlfriend asked him to explain what was "amazing" about it, all he could come up with was "it's a Manfrotto".

I started having a bit of a play around with the tripod, extending it, getting the centre column horizontally, etc. during which time I was left on my own. After a couple of minutes the guy returned and said (very tersely) "you've given that a good going over, are you going to buy it or not?".

I now own a Red Snapper tripod.