Dixons warns on crap Christmas

Dixons warned markets this morning that Christmas trading had been worse than expected with like-for-like sales down 2 per cent and margins down 0.2 per cent. The world's favourite IT retailer said it now expects profit before tax to be at the lower end of predictions – between £100m and £110m. Dixons shares fell almost 10 per …

[Anonymous Coward]

Dixons & Apple Products.

I had to laugh here. At my local revamped PC-World the only bit of Apple kit was the iPAd and that was hidden away at the back of the store.

IMHO this has always been the way and ain't going to change anytime soon.

Are the still having the gaul to charge £17.99 for a USB Cable?

Yeah they are

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/belkin-a-to-b-usb-2-0-device-cable-2-1m-00773291-pdt.html

Mega fail.

[Justin 9]

Not Surprised

You can get pretty much any of their non-exclusive stock cheaper on the internet or other high street stores.

Rather than spening money keep tarting up the stores, reduce the prices.

[Richard 120]

but

I like having tarted up stores, it makes it nicer for me to go and look at things to buy off the internet.

[Annihilator]

Warnings etc

I'd be more impressed if they'd issued the warning *before* Christmas. That's like me warning you I'm going to fart, 2 minutes after someone smelt it. Or honking my horn to warn you of my presence after we'd crashed into each other.

Ho-hum... :-)

[Neal 5]

reading between the lines.

: "We saw strong trade in the post-Christmas sale as customers were keen to take advantage of our great deals on 3D TVs, Apple products, tablets and white goods ahead of the rise in VAT in the UK."

Get the news out third quarter, shares fall, board buys, 4th quarter, wahaaaaaaaaaay good news, shares rise,board sells, everyone happy all round. OR not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dixons Web Woes

I can't help but wonder how much of the blame for their crappy e-commerce performance could be put down to the fact that their websites were down on Christmas Day and Boxing Day?

Epic fail. Of all the days to be down....

[whats the point of kenny lynch?]

"world's favourite IT retailer"

great gag, thanks for that.....

[Anonymous Coward]

They're bigger than that

Have you already forgotten that they are 'the greatest electrical store in our galaxy':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ODFqZBoAPc

[Anonymous Coward]

unsurprising

Those who actually want HD tellys and multicore PCs already have one in every room.

People don't just randomly replace all of their hardware on a yearly basis. Some of us actually put the trouble into researching the best components (and not buying them from Dixons). So even though my computer is 3 years old now (except the bits of it that aren't), it's still better than the one you bought yesterday at Dixons for the same price.

But what about the stupid people, you ask, the ones who buy the really shit hardware (from Dixons)? They keep their gadgets even longer. 10, 20 years. Doesn't bother them. They just assume that it's normal for an email to take 3 weeks to send.

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing to do with...

... their site being down on the 26th/27th of December?

[Waderider]

I'd like to think.........

........that it has nothing to do with the weather etc., but rather that the collective consciousness of the non-IT literate proles has suddenly switched on and realized they are a pretty poor outlet for everything other than convenience.

Unfortunately though, the world isn't like that. I mean, look at the market share Windows enjoys......

[LuMan]

So, more lay-offs, then.

Oddly, despite making over £100m pre-tax, DSG will still lay off a load of staff because "we just can't afford to keep you on any more." They've done it countless times before and they'll keep doing it to keep the shareholders happy. The directors will still get lovely cash bonuses and then head off for a round of back-slapping and smiling at their private clubs.

Haven't shopped there for about 8 years now and I never will again.

[Captain Underpants]

Neh, feck 'em anyway

Let's face it, most of us here will generally consider the Dixons/Currys/PC World experience to be the sort that involves a salesperson who doesn't really know much about what they're selling you, prices that are frankly ridiculous, and a selection of wares that's so random it may as well be the outcome of a consumer electronics raffle.

But there's still a place for brick & mortar consumer electronics shops.

The way for them to survive long-term is to have at least one or two in-house staff who know what they're talking about and not rely on having poorly-trained twits selling overpriced crap to uninformed idiots. But then, that'd completely change their business to the point that they would, in fact, have ceased to exist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly Surprising

Dixons has to be one of, if not THE most incompetent company I've ever seen. Their stuff is never priced correctly (or at all), the prices are significantly higher than the competition, their staff are totally incompetent and unknowledgeable and they have the cheek to charge £20 for a standard PC Power Cable, or £18 for a USB cable.

There's definitely a market out there for a bricks-and-mortar PC/Electronics store, I just don't know how someone with a bit more business sense hasn't risen to the challenge because it really wouldn't take much to put the likes of Dixons/Currys/PCWorld out of business.

Even when they were handing out £5 vouchers in their pre-Xmas promotion, there still wasn't anything in store that I wanted to buy, anything I was vaguely interested in was over £5 cheaper online anyway!

How they've managed to survive this long is beyond me, there must still be a lot of idiots out there who don't think there's anywhere else to buy a computer/TV etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop all your witty retort

I'm laughing so much I'm finding it hard to stay upright in my chair. I never expected to see so many well thought out humourous comments on an article about PCWorld.

I'll have to make a mental note to myself not to read the comments about PCWorld as the originality of the posters makes me feel inadequate.

[Bob Terwilliger]

Tablets?

If they could have got more stock of the Advent Vega they could have had a nice fat section of the tablet market to themselves over the Christmas period.

As it is, it's still not in stock on their websites.

[whats the point of kenny lynch?]

i got one...

through the website before xmas but availability is still shoddy....great device for £249 though - get one, mod it and enjoy.....

[Anonymous Coward]

"Advent Vega, what's that mate?"

"ooooh you must want a USB cable, they're right here - only £18 and it comes with a 12 minute warranty"

[Mark Jan]

Extended Warranty

"...but spend another £9 sir and we'll extend that warranty for a total of 3 years because USB cables have a nasty habit of breaking down when you least expect it!"

Twats.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop all your witty retort

I'm laughing so much I'm finding it hard to stay upright in my chair. I never expected to see so many well thought out humourous comments on an article about PCWorld.

I'll have to make a mental note to myself not to read the comments about PCWorld as the originality of the posters makes me feel inadequate.

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC

Trés drôle

[Chris Parsons]

If you want to be flash

do it right, it's 'très'.

[mark 63]

who cares?

why is economy measured by " the big high street sellers" ?

the high street (shops) can F off as far as i'm concerned its an out dated concept no longer required. Do the whole the whole thing online and pass the savings from those massive real estates prices on - which is what all the online stores do.

Any high street retailer is a dinosaur who deserves to die , and the quicker the better!

[Jim Morrow]

something wrong here

wtf? dixons/currys/pc world and crap mentioned in the same article? that can't be right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Retailers Lost the Plot

I recently had a walk round a number of "High Street" retailers, and came to one conclusion.

Most of them have seriously lost the plot on retailing.

PC World, over priced, poor selection of goods, looks like an outfit going bankrupt. The store cant make it mind up if it is an IT shop or a TV shop, and hence manages to do both badly

HMV DVD, poor selection, poorly presented, probably soon to go the way of the Dodo.

WH Smiths, the magazines rammed in together so tight, that (a) they are damaged, (b) you cant find what you are looking for, so (c), you are not going to see the front cover of the magazine next to it, touting an article you just want to buy. (i.e. Cant see it, Cant sell it)

Problem is not the economy, it is the chimps they call store managers and marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

WH Smith

Just one of those stores I kind of wonder how it's still in business.

Every time I go into one they seem to have added another disparate line of products. First it was chocolate bars, then it became pick 'n mix, now Krispy Kreme. All of which have been accommodated by as you say - crunching magazines so tightly together you can't see anything - assuming of course they haven't randomly moved all the shelves around.

Books? Nope, if it isn't a Twilight book, a sleb autobiography or on Richard and Judy's list you aren't going to find it. Music - forget it, DVDs - how much??? Blu-Ray - what's that?

They must be existing solely on the profits on Lottery scratch cards and chocolate oranges (which are crap since Terry's got taken over, but that's another rant entirely).

See also Boots.

[gautam]

Crap Christmas

It was a white one for me!

Oh wait, you meant Dixons are crap, surely.

[Ascylto]

23456

I always enjoy going into Currys Digital or whatever they are calling themselves currently. I never BUY anything because they are contemptuous chumps.

Nevertheless, they ARE good for a laugh. Apple computers with continuous running adverts for Norton Utilities. They would rather sell you the Norton than the computer. They've tried the Apple marketing technique of having goods on display so you can get your hands on them ... the difference is they don't work or are disabled. Not good.

Their prices are to die for. Literally.

Their staff can still read boxes! Apparently.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they still around??

I had to chuckle at all the comments about how crap Dixons are until I realised how many times I've been in there to buy stuff over the years, usually because I couldn't wait ro just needed something in a hurry. Yes, they were convenient, but definitely over-priced and offering poor customer service.

I moved to the States about 3 years ago and visited Dixons on a visit home last month. We needed an SD card for our camera, but somehow 20 quid for a 4Gb card was too much. We just used the phone camera in the end!

At least here in te State you have a choice: Best Buy if you like Dixons, and Fry's it you want a better selection. Saying that, all the stores lose my custom, since I went to buy a hard drive and had no fewer than 3 sales people hoving around me while I looked for one. I just gave up and walked away.

[extragonk]

highstreet woes

the real problem with the highstreet failing is that if the highstreet loses enough (and it'll only take one or two) big players then the highstreet will rapidly die and everyone + dog will lose out on the ability to get anything in town.

the loss of large players snowballs the collapse of smaller retailers in the same area as no one goes there and the traffic quickly diverts elsewhere.

and you can guarentee that once the 'choice' of the highstreet is gone that whatever replaces it won't remain cheap anymore.