It probably serves me right for gloating about getting a bargain. 2 weeks later and my Sony HD TV still hasn’t arrived. When I agreed to buy the thing the salesman told me 2 days. After I handed over the money I was told 1 week and a bit, Thursday to be precise. So I wait at home Thursday (last week) for it to arrive. Nothing. I ring them Thursday 3pm, I’m told it will definitely be there the next day (Friday). So I ring Bunbury Retravision at 10am Friday, am told that yes, TV is on the truck on the way to me. Wait all day for the delivery. Ring at 3:30pm. Told again that the TV is on the delivery truck and will be with me very soon. Mind you, Thursday I’d packed up the old TV and put it away, ready for the new TV, so at this stage I’ve only viewing TV via small sets (to this day). 4:30pm Friday I get a phone call from the original salesman: the TV still hasn’t been shipped to Bunbury. I flip, big time. He offers me a free DVD player for my inconvenience. I accept but I still want the f*cking TV, he promises that it’s on its way, Monday, Tuesday at the latest.
It’s now its Tuesday, no phone call, no delivery, it’s now exactly 2 weeks since I paid for the thing, in actual folding cash based on a good price and despite the fact that EVERY OTHER electrical retailer had the TV in stock, and could have it to me the next day. So I ring Retravision at 4:30pm, they’ll get back to me, they call 15 minutes later, cant say when the TV might get here, manager will call me in the morning. I’ve rung The Goodguys Bunbury, they haven’t offered as good a price, but they’ve got the TV is stock. Even if it ends up costing a couple of hundred more, if I can have it there and then…
The story will continue tomorrow. For now, Retravision Bunbury: NEVER, EVER AGAIN. The only decision is to shop elsewhere with a retailer with staff that don’t lie continually for a living.
BTW: feel free to link to this post with the words Retravision Bunbury. I’m already the 1st result in Google for The Goodguys Bunbury, lets see if we cant make Retravision Bunbury have the same result 
Update: phone call this morning from Retravision: maybe Friday, maybe next week on the TV. I got my money back, drove less that 1 km down the road to Good Guys, asked them to match the price, and walked out with the TV which is now setup and in my TV room. The Manager rang to apologise, I accepted the apology but I’ll still be hesitant to ever shop there again.
Tags: Retravision, Retravision Bunbury
May 1st, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I just want to know what happens when the truck turns up with the “free” DVD player and no TV !
May 1st, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Duncan’s head promptly explodes.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:42 am
Can I add Retravision Punchbowl (Sydney) to the list of NEVER AGAIN. Sold me a router based on an outright false statement about the product’s capabilities and then would not refund my money.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:03 pm
WELL GUYS I HAVE GOTTA SAY THAT WE ALL HAVE HAD BAD EXPERIENCES WITH RETAIL STORES AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER BUT I HAVE TO BE FAIR TO RETRAVISION, THEY HAVE ALWAYS LOOKED AFTER ME WHENEVER I HAVE BOUGHT ITEMS FROM THEM.
May 10th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
With regard to the purchase of your Sony LCD TV from our Bunbury Retravision store. I would like to first of say that the service you received was not our normal standard and there were several errors made one after another I will outline these below. Thanks to your account of the events we have identified some areas of failure and changed our systems to prevent these problems occurring again. Your set was not available at the Bunbury store as they had sold there stock very quickly and Charles (our salesperson) noted that one of our other stores had two units and believed he would be able to get a unit from them, unfortunately at almost the same time our O’Connor store sold the unit they had in a box this only left the display model, we would not ship a display model to you. We have improved our training and business rules with regard to inter store transfers so hopefully we will not fall into this trap again. The units from Sony were actually shipped from Sydney, our order was for three but only one arrived in Bunbury and Sony with their freight company have a policy to not deliver part consignments. We were advised of this problem but our warehousing held this information and Charles continued to provide to you information from Sony sales as he received it but Sony sales were no more informed than Charles resulting in your LCD TV sitting in a depot in Bunbury for several days . Our warehouse manager did request Sony logistics to release the unit and they eventually did. A new process has been introduced to ensure that any part consignment are checked against outstanding customer orders and the sales person is advised. Finally the delivery of your LCD TV or rather lack of, we have discovered that our electronic delivery system is difficult to use and has caused sales staff to on occasion make an educated guess. This is simply not good enough; we have had our software support company build a simple web tool that shows staff immediately what is on the truck, we hope to never see a repeat of this problem.
All in all at many stages our service was found wanting, I would like to apologize for the inconvenience caused. I understand that our ware house manager has also sent you an email and like many of us he is proud of the many times we get it right and deeply concerned that we got it so wrong in your case. I also understand that Drew our store Manager presented our offer to pay the difference between our price and what you eventually paid at a competitor’s store. We strive to the best we can but above all else we care. I hope that you may consider us in the future but I would understand completely if you never visited our store again
David Dorsett-Lynn.
Managing Director.
Dorsett Retail Pty Ltd.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Well, first I must say that my local retravision store here in George Town has never let me down. In the last three years I have spent more that four thousand dollars, on computers, cameras, washing machines and such and got excellent service and great prices.
But I will never ever wander from my local guys again….While shopping in Launceston central city, Tasmania. I popped into the city Retravision store to see what was on offer. I walked amungst the computers helping myself, for well over half an hour, with out so much as a hello, from any of the not so busy staff, who were to busy catching up on the weekend gossip. No assistance offered, nothing. As i walked towards the door however, all the staff took turns staring at me, watching me leave. One step out the door and a middle aged woman staff member grabs my arm and stops me. ” Were you looking for anything inparticular?” she asked..I pushed her hand off me and kindly suggested that they do not man handle potential customers, and then told her that she and her fellows had missed out on a substantial sale. I then told her politely, I would “Take my money and custom else where” to which she replied “well if thats the way your going to be” and she bolted away.
The next day at my old mates store, Tuckers Retravision in George Town, I got the computer I was looking at in the city store, delivered same day, and would you believe it, at two thirds the cost.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:43 pm
it is interesting to know that all the retravision stores are individually owned and operated. So you can have completely different experiences in different stores. So just because you had a bad experience at one store it probably wouldn’t happen at a different one.
I know i might sound biased but i am an IT manager at a retravision store in Tassie (and luckily i have had no bad comments here).
But i know if i had someone come in with Hugo’s case as my staff would have lead you on i would of given you an apology and a full refund, and assure you that the staff member in question would of been retrained.
ooh and phillip if i saw one of my staff initiating physical contact with a customer, i would go off my rocker at them. I find that just creepy.
And in David’s case we would of offered you the display unit, and would of told you at anytime you are welcome to a refund if you do wish so. Unfortunately some of these suppliers do give us a run around. If they had to call the customer and let them know it would be a different story,
So not making excuses just trying to show that different things happen in different stores!
Thanks Guys
November 3rd, 2007 at 2:42 am
Hey Sean, understand your point re individual owners. It’s probably unfortunate that a few bad ones can tarnish a potentially good name. Thanks for joining the conversation.
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:12 pm
yeah well i suppose every franchised company ‘is in the same boat’. Dammed if you do dammed if you don’t. May i ask what the salesthing lied about hugo?
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Sure Duncan, i hadn’t bought many routers in my time and i wanted a router/wireless combo (receive adsl 2+ and distribute it wirelessly in my house). I knew that some just boosted signals or acted as the wireless distributer for non-wireless units but could tell at all from the packages which was which. So i asked a number of times if the unit i ended up buying that day would be both adsl modem and wireless access point. I was continuously assured it was. I get home my doubts got greater so i jumped on the net and foud out it just acted as a wireless access point.
Fair enough, most router boxes talk a lot of crap and it was a tough question but at least then give me a refund.
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:38 pm
how long ago?
November 4th, 2007 at 1:25 am
This was back around April.
January 9th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Just writing this in response to Sean’s mention of Retravision being a franchised company.
Unlike franchises like McDonalds where the assets and stores are owned by the head office, Retravision is a buyers group where each store is individually owned.
The owners of the stores pay to become shareholders in the group. They can then profit from group marketing, centralised administration and buying power with our suppliers that individual stores would not otherwise have.
The group administration office in each state/country (I work for the New Zealand one in IT support) does not own a percentage of the profits of the stores like in a franchise arrangement. Rather, they are paid fixed costs by shareholders for group membership and for services rendered.
So really, Retravision stores are quite disconnected from each other, from a management perspective.
Aside from that, as an IT support person, I know that not all sales staff are as technology literate as they, perhaps, should be. In New Zealand, we attempt to provide as complete information as we can to our stores but often this comes from supplier product launches and we cannot enforce attendance by store’s sales staff.
We also have an internal weekly e-mail bulletin that we send to all stores which usually has this sort of information.
An additional consideration is the number of products/models that our stores have. In New Zealand, or current price book has 13,386 active products. With those sorts of numbers, lapses in product knowledge can happen to even the best of us.
To all the above, I hope you future purchasing experiences are better, regardless of who you buy from!
March 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Good Guys Bunbury RULE!!!!!!