British retailers found recommending Samsung smartphones over Apple's

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
A mystery shopper survey carried out in the United Kingdom found that Samsung's Galaxy S III was the most recommended smartphone among eight of Britain's leading electronics retailers.

iPhone and Galaxy Note
Apple's iPhones are seeing fewer recommendations from British retailers than Samsung's offerings


The Telegraph reports that the survey, performed by Informa Telecoms and Media, looked at smartphone recommendations from sales attendants at John Lewis, Everything Everywhere, O2, 3, Maplins, PC World, Carphone Warehouse, and Phones 4 U. The researchers found that the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II were most often recommended, even though they've been on the market longer than Apple's new iPhone 5 and other handsets from Nokia and HTC.

The researchers asked attendants to recommend three smartphones or tablets from among their offerings. Only 3 and Phones 4 U recommended Apple smartphones, with both recommending the iPhone 5. Still, other manufacturers fared worse; Motorola reportedly saw very few recommendations, and Research In Motion's BlackBerry offerings were also snubbed.

In addition to attendant recommendations, the survey also scored manufacturers on whether smartphones were advertised in store windows or in-store. They found that Apple and Samsung products were just as likely to see window or in-store promotion, despite the discrepancy in recommendations.

In reporting their results, Informa noted that the higher rate of Samsung recommendations could possibly boil down -- in part -- to individual employee biases, including possible higher commissions on sales of Samsung phones. Samsung's greater range of smartphone options could also have an effect, as the iPhone is Apple's only smartphone offering.
«1345

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 85
    isaidsoisaidso Posts: 750member
    And this surprises who?
  • Reply 2 of 85
    And in México....
  • Reply 3 of 85
    In retail, higher commission is the single most powerful motivator for recommending one product over another. In a commoditized market like the PC's, manufacturers used all kinds of tactics to win market share: including higher margin or increased incentive to move a certain number of units. Some retailer even took $200 off a PC for signing up for two years of AOL. Many PC manufacturers gained market share in the short term but eventually went out of business or got bought out.
  • Reply 4 of 85
    It could simply be that it is more adventageous for carriers to use Android (iMessage anyone?) and so they purposely skew that way. When I take polls like this, and I often do, I ask the salesperson to show me the phone that they have chosen. They have alway chosen a phone and always with a reason.
  • Reply 5 of 85
    steven n.steven n. Posts: 1,229member


    Spifs and OEM kickbacks talk loudly.  Apple does not play that game much. Samsung heavily.


     


    If MS still wants to play in this game, they should consider it.

  • Reply 6 of 85
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member


    What do the British know anyways....

  • Reply 7 of 85
    And so what if Samsung used cheater tactics? Samsung shareholders were the big winners and Apple shareholders were just bigger losers. If you have to cheat to win, you do it. Fair play will get you nowhere on Wall Street. Samsung is now a highly praised company for selling a gazillion smartphones while Apple is holding onto a P/E of 9.x, soon to be 8.x. No investor will touch the stock because it has almost no shareholder value owing to the iPhones rapidly diminishing market share to every Android smartphone. Apple has plenty of cash to toss around and if Apple had any aggressive tendencies at all it would have offered sales incentives and there wouldn't be this dead Apple stock story. Although I doubt even incentives would have helped because Apple can't produce enough smartphones anywhere's near the speed Samsung can.

    Samsung is now comfortably positioned to destroy Apple's future credibility. Sadly enough, all this happened in just six month's time while Apple (Tim Cook) was caught napping.
  • Reply 8 of 85
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member


    Possible higher commissions? Definite higher commissions!


     


    See:


    http://www.asymco.com/2012/11/29/the-cost-of-selling-galaxies/


     


    Things to note from those charts:


     


    A. Samsung's marketing budget per year is over 10 times Apple's.


     


    B. Samsung spends more on marketing than Apple, Coca-Cola, Dell, HP, and Microsoft... all put together.


     


    C. What kind of marketing? Well, more than half of Samsung's marketing budget is paying commissions. They spend massively more than Apple on advertising, but even their advertising expenditure is dwarfed by their commission payouts. All to make salespeople push Samsung regardless of what's good for the customer.


     


     



     


     


    So keep this in mind when people parrot the idea that Apple's success is all driven by empty marketing...


     


    IIRC, Apple pays commissions to its phone sales staff but not its retail staff. Of course, people who visit an Apple store or call Apple are already interested in Apple products. You can't say that everyone walking into a carrier store is already interested in Samsung. Until a salesperson is bribed to tell them the iPhone's not good...


     


     




    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Constable Odo View Post



    And so what if Samsung used cheater tactics? Samsung shareholders were the big winners and Apple shareholders were just bigger losers.


     


    So what, you ask? That very much depends on whether you are interested in stock prices or in quality products. And, if you ARE interested only in stock prices, are you interested in the long term or in the easily-manipulated short term?


     


    I want Apple to have a CEO who is interested in quality products and long-term stock performance. Not in playing the game of lies you say Tim was "napping" on. I say that because quality products matter to me, and I'd say the same if I were shareholder, because I'd be investing for the long term, not playing the silly, irrational quarter-to-quarter game.


     


    And if you look at the numbers, you'll be surprised to see that Apple's market share is doing great, their profit share is doing better, and their buyer satisfaction numbers are simply untouchable.


  • Reply 9 of 85
    juiljuil Posts: 75member
    Also true in Canada, where I was strongly discouraged to buy an iPhone at tree outlets.

    First time I simply walked out at Bell (I believe they were out of iPhones and they thought that I wouldn't buy from then if I had to wait a couple days to get it at my door, but I have no proof of that).

    Second store (Telus) they said the screen was small, I got frustrated and asked if they were told by their leadership to try and convince people away from the iPhone - and out of talking with the two clerks I understood that their company didn't really appreciate the way Apple did business with them (As in Apple taking care\supervising ALL marketing material, Apple handling customer support and after-sale which resulted in the carrier to "lose sight" of the customer). But the salespersons might just have been covering something else.

    And lastly I went to a Futureshop thinking that no matter what they would say, I would simply answer "Look, will you sell me an iPhone or not?"... And I had to use it, but at least, at Futureshop, you know they have bonuses if they shift certain items, so I was expecting it... But from the carrier's boutiques, that felt odd.
  • Reply 10 of 85
    cameronjcameronj Posts: 2,357member


    Who is surprised by this?  In the USA you often have to fight your way out of a carrier store to keep your iPhone that you request.  Salespeople really push Android here.  You can't blame them - the monthly fees are the same, the subsidized price is the same, but the wholesale price that VZ pays is hundreds less for Android phones typically.  Some of that savings goes to the salesperson.

  • Reply 11 of 85

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by macxpress View Post


    What do the British know anyways....



    Not to add an "s" where one is not needed?

  • Reply 12 of 85
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member


    In the US you don't need a survey. Just walk into a busy iPhone carrier (AT&T, Verizon) and ask them what they recommend or listen to what they recommend to others.

  • Reply 13 of 85
    tylerk36tylerk36 Posts: 1,037member


    Maybe that money the retailers got from sammy is paying off.  Next thing you will see is North Korea recommending Samsung knock offs to the People of NK.

  • Reply 14 of 85
    So painfully reminiscent of the early '90s, where in the few stores that sold Macs and PCs the salespeople would systematically steer Mac customers towards a PC because they were getting big commissions and incentives for selling PCs, and virtually nothing for selling Macs.
    Apple's choice then to prioritize margins over market share backfired: PCs eventually gathered enough market share that the Mac became practically extinct and software was no longer developed for it.
    I'm not saying that it's what's happening to Apple right now; but if they're not careful, it could very well happen soon. Watch out for "Android first" apps.
  • Reply 15 of 85
    It's called lobbying folks. Pay the retailers to recommend your product over the competition.
  • Reply 16 of 85
    nchianchia Posts: 124member
    Certainly don't seem to get that with Australian telcos selling online direct to customers. I assume they move heaps in the early months a new model comes out.
  • Reply 17 of 85
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    wisdomseed wrote: »
    It could simply be that it is more adventageous for carriers to use Android (iMessage anyone?) and so they purposely skew that way.

    Of course. Consider that most usage surveys show that iDevices get used on the Internet far more than Android devices. If the customer buys an iPhone, the carrier will actually have to earn its money. If they buy an Android phone, they collect the fees, but the phone isn't tying up the network.
  • Reply 18 of 85
    dnd0psdnd0ps Posts: 253member
    Ah, so we can deduce that all Android fans are either phone salesmen or Samsung employees. Explains a lot.
  • Reply 19 of 85

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post



    It's called lobbying folks. Pay the retailers to recommend your product over the competition.


    This should be made illegal, but instead they make unlocking while on contract illegal. Bonkers.

  • Reply 20 of 85
    undefined
Sign In or Register to comment.