Though you may not be a Canadian, or may never have plans of buying at Visions Electronics you may still enjoy reading this story and sharing your feedback and retail electronics buying experiences with our readers. I recently purchased a new HD TV at Visions Electronics a Canadian electronics retailer. The experience was interesting to say the least so I’m sharing it here to assist other Canadians in their electronics buying journey.
From the Visions website: “Visions Electronics is dedicated to being recognized as the Best Name in Electronics in Canada by you, our Valued Customer. Visions Electronics has retail locations in all major markets in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC. Stores can be found in Winnipeg and Brandon in the Manitoba market. In addition to its retail operations, Visions services the wholesale market with its Commercial and Insurance Replacement Division (C.I.R.D.) which operates separately from the retail division. In addition to our retail stores and commercial division, we also ship products all across Canada via our website, visions.ca.”
Trip One: Researching Visions Electronics
My first trip into Visions Electronics on this particular buying occasion came on a Sunday, I was quickly approached by a young salesman Timothy (name changed) , which sometimes bothers me but in this case was alright since I had a lot of questions and was looking for answers. Timothy answered my questions to the best of his ability, but it became fairly clear that he didn’t know a lot about the various models and their specs. I also had some fairly technical questions, and was a researched consumer who knew more or less what I wanted. One TV that Timothy game me specs for he told me that it had a refresh of 120hz when I got home and looked up that particular model online I found it was only a 60hz refresh (a significant issue for me!).
Trip Two: Making a Purchase
Trip number two came the next day and culminated in a purchase. A different salesperson helped me and was quick to inform me that Timothy was a new employee and didn’t know much yet (well great, thanks for sending him out on his own to feed wrong information to potential customers, not good management.) Visions sales people operate on commission so it was understandable at that point why Timothy was so eager to engage me and try to tell me what I wanted to hear, unfortunately if a person is not doing their own research you could be a fed a bunch of misinformation by Visions Electronics salespeople not intentionally but by their own lack of knowledge and poor management.
This second employee, Aaron was fantastic. He knew a lot, had his own opinions and thoughts, but listened to me and deferred to my desires. After about 20 minutes of deliberating I decided on a model and size (A Samsung 40″ LED), and made the purchase. Aaron was eager to sell me the 46″ model but I decided to stick with the smaller size and be satisfied with that. He did even go as far as offering me a price reduction should I take the bigger model, and on my way out the store he reminded me that I could exchange it at any time within the next 15 days and upgrade to the bigger model.
Trip Three: Making an Exchange
This is where things got messy (a little). During the day I spoke to two people on the phone who both gave me somewhat different information. I was depending on the fact that my salesperson Aaron had told me I could exchange and upgrade the TV at any time in the next 15 days for no extra fees (other than of course the difference in price). I was annoyed by the woman I talked to on the phone, as she insisted I wouldn’t be able to get the discounted price Aaron offered me since he was not working that day, another employee told me otherwise. I had decided the night before to upgrade to the larger model (46″ Samsung LED). I boxed up the 40″ and headed over to the store. They were quite willing and ready to do the exchange and another employee was ready to give me the price Aaron had offered me. The paperwork and cashing out process was another story altogether. It seemed no one really knew how to run the till through something like this, and the manager was just not really interested in helping (didn’t look like he was doing anything in particular, but he just didn’t really want to help either). Had I not been pro-active and watched closely my card was nearly charged twice (once for the total cost of the first purchase, and again for the total cost of the second purchase) when I should only have been charged for the difference in price. I had to speak up and ask the employee why he was charging me the new total again, thankfully the manager and another female employee over heard me and stepped in to make sure that I paid only the difference.
I had forgot the remote from the 40″ TV at home, but thankfully that didn’t cause a problem, as they were able to take the remote from the new TV and swap it into my returned box.
Visions Electronics takes these returned TVs and resells them (at the same price!), even though they’ve been unboxed and used. The plastic from the screen and stand were removed on my new 46″ TV leading me to believe that those who do an exchange are likely to end up with an also previously exchanged model. At home the 46″ TV looks and works great, and I have no complaints!
Visions Electronics Final Thoughts
All in all my buying experience at Visions Electronics was positive. Provided you do YOUR OWN research, don’t rely on the employees information as gospel, and are okay dealing with some poor training and unprofessional service. The pricing was fantastic, and Visions is straight up about beating ANY price you find (even if you find it up to 60 days AFTER your purchase). The price I got on the TV is flat out unbeatable, and I’ve done a lot of research, checked a lot of stores and seen a lot of sales. I was 100% certain I would never find that price anywhere. The sales tactics were NOT high-pressure, and the sales methods were friendly and supportive of my own opinions and desires, for that reason alone I would go back to Visions Electronics and make my next purchase. In addition I did purchase the extended four year warranty on my TV (at a cost of around $220!) but the good news with Visions Electronics is that if you don’t make use of the warranty you get that money back as in store credit. So in all likelihood, four years from now I’ll have $220 waiting for me to spend.
Did you find this story helpful? If you have made a purchases at Visions Electronics share your experience with us here.
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Feb 6, 2011
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