Harvey hurt by “vicious and hateful attacks” on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook
January 7 2011, 7:08 am | | 3 Comments
The SMH reports that Harvey Norman founder, Gerry Harvey, will step back from the retailers’ campaign for GST to be imposed on overseas online purchases, saying he is hurt by the avalanche of criticism directed at him and feels that getting involved was ”suicidal”.
Harvey has conceded that the launch of full-page advertisements during the Boxing Day sales period was ”bad timing” and that the retailers’ message had been poorly communicated.
He said the rise of social media such as Twitter and Facebook had increased the ”vicious and hateful” attacks against him and a fellow retail boss, Solomon Lew.
3 Comments
Harvey tries to eliminate competition at all levels and this was an easy target but it falied to win public support – know your market Mr Norman. Australians liek to protect thei rown but charity still begins at home. With the level of discount and the cost of credit to the HN business he has clearly been ripping Australians off for years or he’d be out of business by now. I can’t wait to see the half yearly results – perhaps they’ll be 40% off and nothing to pay to share holders for 48 months. Wake up!
In Australia that we do have high overhead costs and a much higher minimum wage for employees than the US/UK etc. We also survived the GFC whereas overseas they are struggling to sell and a LOT of people are unemployed. I saw an ad the other day for 40% off at Sears, including Miele, Whirlpool. That’s just unheard of. And Australians can benefit from these discounts also.
Having said that, the last 5 purchases (clothes, books, airline tickets) I’ve made besides consumables have been online as I no longer have the patience to go shopping with the screaming kids, the cues and the bitter disappointment of everything being so expensive (i.e. nothing in Australia seems to have gone down in price even though our dollar is currently worth more than the US). Plus I can shop on my lunch break, whilst watching TV, or researching the benefits of the brand/product. I bought 3 books on bookdepository.com and it was still cheaper than buying one of these same books in Borders or Dymocks and I didn’t even have to go put nice clothes and shoes on. Even with GST added it is still cheaper!
The sad fact for us advertisers is that you cannot sell to everyone anymore with one TV ad. Baby boomers, gen X and gen Y all spend their time VERY differently and due to the evolving online forum now our purchasing habits are different. What Gerry Harvey and any other retailer has failed to realise (or failed to make an opportunity of) is that he should have shut up when he had the chance.
Harvey Norman could have continued to market to existing customers who still prefer the expertise of the staff members in-store, getting the sales assistant to take a little something off the price to really get that feeling of the bargain and prefer the security of using their cards in-store rather than online and risk scammers. Plus if the product breaks down, doesn’t fit the intended purpose, etc it is MUCH easier to get it fixed/refunded at a store down the road than having to ship it back to wherever. A lot of people I know (mostly the top end of baby boomers) still prefer the brick&mortar option due to these reasons.
Aust. retailers need to realise that consumers are online NOW and they are there to stay until the next trend hits. If these retailers want these customers back they need to build their own Australian websites that sell their products (and at a cheaper warehouse rate, not brick&mortar rate with all the overheads attached) to compete with the US sites. if you want Australians to continue to spend their money in Australia then you will need to keep up with the trend that people are shopping online for the convenience of it and the prices available. I mean seriously GH – you can’t even buy anything on your website and you represent a company that sells top brand TVs, computers, gaming etc!!! You may also be helping another dying company with the shipping of products – Australia Post!
You have to realise that the majority of retailers buy their stock at least 6 months in advance, therefore when they bought their current stock the dollar wasn’t at parity. So selling current stock at expected rates they would loose money. This does mean that if in another 6 months we haven’t seen price reductions we know someone along the line is making a pretty little penny.