Utterly Disgusted by Alan Photo

[psalm27]

Everybody has got their own prefered store. for me AP is not the shop. seems to look down on students thinking they can't afford stuff in their shop. My own prefered stores are MS and CP for filters, lord's for lense and john 3:16 if i wan good service for slightly higher prices. The reason why AP is not the shop for me is that it discriminates. On my 1st visit, nobody serve me and just left me like an idiot standing there. There was another customer fiddling with a camera from their shop and when i ask for that camera they said no trying. Was utterly disappointed in a shop that some many people swore by. seems that they have the tendency to look down on students. perhaps they forgot that the we would be the spending generation soon. good luck to them.

Be fair to another other shops. I waited for a longer period @ CP, MS, LORD's & John 3:16 when the shops are crowded of potential customers & all the sales staff are busy with a customer. Evening I have $$$ in my pocket, I acknowledge that they are busy and occupied. If I have time, I'll wait. If not, I'll leave and look for it at other shops.

I agree with Parchiao's feedback on bad customers who keep a sales staff for indefinite time asking question or going through a training on the camera and then walk off without purchase. Should they take a picture, put up in their shop to blacklist this customer? My guess is not, they will still serve him/her when come the next time. This is business. They cannot anticipate your needs or demands. Perhaps they should offer you a drink while wait to serve, but are you willing to pay higher price for the equipment that include such service?

Every shop has it special that attracts their customers. It doesn't mean that a certain group of customer who will have the buying power for generations later doesn't receive their anticipated expectation - 'good' service, cheapest offer, knowledge sales staff (not bengs) to serve them are worst. They just couldn't meet their customers' expectations. What can they do? Sell at a lost, roll-out the red carpet, employ experience people like as these customers as their sales staff to attract more customer and expand their reputation?

The world will see if CP, MS, LORD's, John 3:16, AP, OP, or etc if they are that bad. Otherwise, they will not be here. Times will confirm especially those with many overseas customers who are refered by their visiting friends. It is about confident and trust that are develop between the shop staff with oneself.

I rest my opinion.

 

[sin77]

1. Why their shop is the most crowded? Maybe initially their service is ok and their price is very cheap/reasonable, hence many old birds here do alot word-of mouth recommendation for them. Perhaps these old birds might even get some privileges because of such recommendation.

2. As we know SLS is a place where service is not as tip top as other shopping centres, so many know that one must do homework before going down. With that, they just go down to SLS AP and ask them the price. Then of coz based on voluminous purchase by clubsnap members, ie huge customer base, they are able to fight off their competitors by offering a low price.

3. However, sales service is only attended to 'serious customers' (depends on how u see or define). So crowded doesnt means their service is definitely good, esp when Singaporeans rather do homework and then hunt for the lowest price, forgoing the service.
Anyway, how many Singaporeans really understand what is customer service??

4. A true customer serivce means EVERY staff POLITELY and COMPETENTLY treat EVERY walk-in customers the same way. Pricing is only one of the factors in Customer Service, if you would even consider it is (which I would not).

5. To me, customer service is important esp when each retail transaction is normally >$500. They are not doing wholesale, they are doing RETAIL!! So I think customers have the rights to enquire about the things they are buying.

6. The low profit margins in SLS should be transparent to the customers. Why would customers need to know if they are earning?? If every shop tell me they only earn $1 out from my deal, do i need to trust them? Do i even need to care if they are earning or not?
If they can't sustain, customers never ask them to open so many shops. That is the risk of running business.

7. Every business will have their own pool of unreasonable customers. How often does it occur? What is their demography? If 9 out of 10 customers are unreasonable, blame on who? Why not think of better ways to tackle such customers? Moreover, it is very subjective for the individuals to judge what is reasonable or unreasonable.

8. I think forumers who feedback about AP's service is out of goodwill to forewarn the rest. They never stop anyone from patronising the shop. And I think whether their postcounts are high or low is not relevant to the subject matter. If anyone has the newbirds-oldbirds mentality, he/she will never improve.

 

[psalm27]

Everybody has got their own prefered store. for me AP is not the shop. seems to look down on students thinking they can't afford stuff in their shop. My own prefered stores are MS and CP for filters, lord's for lense and john 3:16 if i wan good service for slightly higher prices. The reason why AP is not the shop for me is that it discriminates. On my 1st visit, nobody serve me and just left me like an idiot standing there. There was another customer fiddling with a camera from their shop and when i ask for that camera they said no trying. Was utterly disappointed in a shop that some many people swore by. seems that they have the tendency to look down on students. perhaps they forgot that the we would be the spending generation soon. good luck to them.

Be fair to another other shops. I waited for a longer period @ CP, MS, LORD's & John 3:16 when the shops are crowded of potential customers & all the sales staff are busy with a customer. Evening I have $$$ in my pocket, I acknowledge that they are busy and occupied. If I have time, I'll wait. If not, I'll leave and look for it at other shops.

I agree with Parchiao's feedback on bad customers who keep a sales staff for indefinite time asking question or going through a training on the camera and then walk off without purchase. Should they take a picture, put up in their shop to blacklist this customer? My guess is not, they will still serve him/her when come the next time. This is business. They cannot anticipate your needs or demands. Perhaps they should offer you a drink while wait to serve, but are you willing to pay higher price for the equipment that include such service?

Every shop has it special that attracts their customers. It doesn't mean that a certain group of customer who will have the buying power for generations later doesn't receive their anticipated expectation - 'good' service, cheapest offer, knowledge sales staff (not bengs) to serve them are worst. They just couldn't meet their customers' expectations. What can they do? Sell at a lost, roll-out the red carpet, employ experience people like as these customers as their sales staff to attract more customer and expand their reputation?

The world will see if CP, MS, LORD's, John 3:16, AP, OP, or etc if they are that bad. Otherwise, they will not be here. Times will confirm especially those with many overseas customers who are refered by their visiting friends. It is about confident and trust that are develop between the shop staff with oneself.

My 2 cents I rest here.

 

[psalm27]

Everybody has got their own prefered store. for me AP is not the shop. seems to look down on students thinking they can't afford stuff in their shop. My own prefered stores are MS and CP for filters, lord's for lense and john 3:16 if i wan good service for slightly higher prices. The reason why AP is not the shop for me is that it discriminates. On my 1st visit, nobody serve me and just left me like an idiot standing there. There was another customer fiddling with a camera from their shop and when i ask for that camera they said no trying. Was utterly disappointed in a shop that some many people swore by. seems that they have the tendency to look down on students. perhaps they forgot that the we would be the spending generation soon. good luck to them.

Be fair to another other shops. I waited for a longer period @ CP, MS, LORD's & John 3:16 when the shops are crowded of potential customers & all the sales staff are busy with a customer. Evening I have $$$ in my pocket, I acknowledge that they are busy and occupied. If I have time, I'll wait. If not, I'll leave and look for it at other shops.

I agree with Parchiao's feedback on bad customers who keep a sales staff for indefinite time asking question or going through a training on the camera and then walk off without purchase. Should they take a picture, put up in their shop to blacklist this customer? My guess is not, they will still serve him/her when come the next time. This is business. They cannot anticipate your needs or demands. Perhaps they should offer you a drink while wait to serve, but are you willing to pay higher price for the equipment that include such service?

Every shop has it special that attracts their customers. It doesn't mean that a certain group of customer who will have the buying power for generations later doesn't receive their anticipated expectation - 'good' service, cheapest offer, knowledge sales staff (not bengs) to serve them are worst. They just couldn't meet their customers' expectations. What can they do? Sell at a lost, roll-out the red carpet, employ experience people like as these customers as their sales staff to attract more customer and expand their reputation?

The world will see if CP, MS, LORD's, John 3:16, AP, OP, or etc if they are that bad. Otherwise, they will not be here. Times will confirm especially those with many overseas customers who are refered by their visiting friends. It is about confident and trust that are develop between the shop staff with oneself.

I rest my opinion.

 

[VR Man]

There are no camera shops that are 100% honest.

If you don't believe this fact, you can at least find one customer or potential customer that has something to complain about a particular shop.

As customers, we owe it to ourselves to be careful when we make purchases. Just because you were happy with the service the previous 10 times, it doesn't guarantee that next time you will have have a pleasant experience.

These are business run for profit and more than often they will do what it takes to make a fast buck.

Just do your research, make the purchase, not happy don't buy, move on, avoid shop/salesperson the next time.

Buyer beware.

 

[sin77]

9. If a forumer can't even feedback such things, why do we even have a Consumer Corner forum in clubsnap? I think we should thank these people and then later give a fair judgement when we next patronise the shop.

10. Why should anyone who looks young or dressed casually be marginalised? Did the boss ask the staff not to serve such customers? Why do they want to assume these customers have no buying power or no intention to buy things? Even if they don't buy, can they recommend to their father/mother, uncles and bosses? I think business owners and their team of salespersons should be more far-sighted.

 

[FilterFunk]

after 11 pages of....
A saying AP is :thumbsup:
B saying AP is :thumbsdown:

there is always a group who will think AP is a good place to shop, and another group who will think otherwise. not that i am standing for AP, IMO there will never be a situation where every single potential customer is happy, regardless of which store.(AP/CP/MS/OP/Lords/John/TCW/etc)

different people have different perspective of what is deemed as 'good service' or 'good price'..

time to let this thread to rest? :think:

 

[sin77]

By the way, students are the greatest spies for purchasing big ticket electronics.
This is because they have the time in the world to research and so their father, mother trust them on getting the right products for the family.
So when the father/mother walks into the shops and buy expensive things over the counter, it is the work of their son/daughter.

Well I was once a student, so I know.

 

[blue monster]

You want service and reasonable price, go TK
You want good price, go OP or buy online.
You want service, go John or MS.
You want to pay, go Cathay.
You want to crap, go Alan or TCW.



Above are just based on my findings based on personal experience.

 

[azul123]

1. Why their shop is the most crowded? Maybe initially their service is ok and their price is very cheap/reasonable, hence many old birds here do alot word-of mouth recommendation for them. Perhaps these old birds might even get some privileges because of such recommendation.

This is not nice to suggest, the only reason some of us gives our feedback is so others in this same forum can benefit from the feedback, I am not an old bird per se but I have benefitted what others recommended and it is my way of returning something back. Well... what can I say? :bheart:

../azul123

 

[zoossh]

There are no camera shops that are 100% honest.

there would a difference between camera shops that is 95% honest and another that is 20% honest, both reputed shops recommended by some people.

Just do your research, make the purchase, not happy don't buy, move on, avoid shop/salesperson the next time.

Buyer beware.

the research base is very lacking in sg. we do not have a ready access of rating system which we find is established in the west. i thought a having a rating poll of the few shops in sg, but such threads that may brew dissatisfaction on the adminstrative level for the forum is probably not welcomed. i still remember a long time ago, there is a big hoo-haa over a computer who obviously cheats on its customers and got a forum to submit the particulars of participants of a complaint thread. the shop subsequently intimidated those forumers into a law suit, and becos most of the forumers are mostly students, they subjugated.

guess what? i do not know if the sales of that shop plunged after the ugly tactics are exposed, but it did not close shop when everyone got to know about the incident.

just like the election, people may complain a lot but still buy from that shop if in the end, it offers better pricing often by a very small margins. some people thinks that the shop offers true customer serivce as long as he himself gets his way, giving him an impression that he got it his way becos he is better than the other customers as a customer, smarter, wiser or more sociable. on top of that, some customers do not know of the market price and buy happily at a marked up price, and some customers know of the market price and know that they are marked up by more than 50% and got really pissed. of cos there is also a minority that jumps at a small difference in pricing (e.g. $50 out of $1300) or make uninformed accusation of the 2% credit card charges. besides i also noted that the marking up of prices are usually on the smaller items whose price is less known.

that explains a wide discrepancy of feedbacks on these opportunistic cheating.

 

[iboey]

We should keep this thread alive and make it a sticky. For newbies into photography this serves as a warning or a useful guide. If you stand by AP good for you, but thats so minority of u all. Majority have taken **** from AP. BAD SERVICE is ok if price is dirt cheap. but AP ? :dunno: BAD service plus Bad pricing (alwiz want to chop carrot head). Maybe i should print this whole thread and give to AP boss? Maybe he will wake up his idea? :bsmilie: Business is about profit but it should be done in the most uprightful manner to gain the trust of customers. Good ethics will bring the business a long way.:thumbsup:

after 11 pages of....
A saying AP is :thumbsup:
B saying AP is :thumbsdown:

there is always a group who will think AP is a good place to shop, and another group who will think otherwise. not that i am standing for AP, IMO there will never be a situation where every single potential customer is happy, regardless of which store.(AP/CP/MS/OP/Lords/John/TCW/etc)

different people have different perspective of what is deemed as 'good service' or 'good price'..

time to let this thread to rest? :think:

 

[Parchiao]

I don't have any interest in AP, just that I like their operating model.

I for one think that any service rendered at the point of purchase is not the way to make judgements or conclusions about good service. I do not for once believe a salesman. Their job is to sell, to generate revenue and income. If they don't sell something to a potential customer, that potential customer will simply walk to another shop make the purchase. When I say potential customer, I don't mean those people who simply window shop, I mean those people who make their intentions obvious, that they are going to buy something. The salesman behind the counter in SLS is not much different from a financial advisor in a nice big bank, or an insurance agent who is probably a friend of yours, a housing agent who is trying to help you buy/sell a house, or a car agent who is throwing in all those "freebies" when you negotiate to get that new car. All they want to do is to make the sale. The SLS salesman is not so lucky, his margin from a sale is relatively like peanut crumbs, it might only be enough to cover his next lunch. If he sells it at a slightly higer price, the cost of his next dinner is taken care of. The effort vs returns relationship for him is simple, put effort is selling something to someone who I know is willing to spend, don't waste time with window shoppers, need to make money for the next meal. In SLS, the type of people who make their way there is pretty much the same, all cheapos who are only looking out for the best price. Any shop in SLS, including AP get these type of customers every day.

The most important concept of service to me is after sales service. When you discover the item that you have has a problem, will the shop you purchase the item from do something to help you, be it their problem or not? More often than not, I don't have problems with what I buy, but there are the exceptions. On such occassions, the friendly salesman stops becoming friendly, even from all those so called places where service is considered better. Chances are most salesman will not help, they will tell you this request is beyond them or that request should be handled by the distributor etc etc. Great salesmanship should never be a consideration in how good a retail shop is.

For those of you who do not get good service, don't bitch about it, you probably don't deserve it, especially in a place like SLS, unless you open your mounth to tell the salesman that you are BUYING.

 

[sin77]

I don't have any interest in AP, just that I like their operating model.

I for one think that any service rendered at the point of purchase is not the way to make judgements or conclusions about good service. I do not for once believe a salesman. Their job is to sell, to generate revenue and income. If they don't sell something to a potential customer, that potential customer will simply walk to another shop make the purchase. When I say potential customer, I don't mean those people who simply window shop, I mean those people who make their intentions obvious, that they are going to buy something. The salesman behind the counter in SLS is not much different from a financial advisor in a nice big bank, or an insurance agent who is probably a friend of yours, a housing agent who is trying to help you buy/sell a house, or a car agent who is throwing in all those "freebies" when you negotiate to get that new car. All they want to do is to make the sale. The SLS salesman is not so lucky, his margin from a sale is relatively like peanut crumbs, it might only be enough to cover his next lunch. If he sells it at a slightly higer price, the cost of his next dinner is taken care of. The effort vs returns relationship for him is simple, put effort is selling something to someone who I know is willing to spend, don't waste time with window shoppers, need to make money for the next meal. In SLS, the type of people who make their way there is pretty much the same, all cheapos who are only looking out for the best price. Any shop in SLS, including AP get these type of customers every day.

The most important concept of service to me is after sales service. When you discover the item that you have has a problem, will the shop you purchase the item from do something to help you, be it their problem or not? More often than not, I don't have problems with what I buy, but there are the exceptions. On such occassions, the friendly salesman stops becoming friendly, even from all those so called places where service is considered better. Chances are most salesman will not help, they will tell you this request is beyond them or that request should be handled by the distributor etc etc. Great salesmanship should never be a consideration in how good a retail shop is.

For those of you who do not get good service, don't bitch about it, you probably don't deserve it, especially in a place like SLS, unless you open your mounth to tell the salesman that you are BUYING.

Your comments are long and explained.
However, I do not agree on your rationale, concept, etc, about customer service.

I think it is better for forumers to post what happened in the shop, to give us a factual report.
Then it is up to the person in front of the computer screen to make informed decision(s).

 

[sin77]

Oh btw I did tell them I'm buying a camera , but still the same.

I dressed long sleeve business attire (Domanci), looked gentleman, went on a weekday evening with not many patrons, enquired politely, expressed my buying intention.
I dare to say I'm one of the best type of customers they should serve.
End up?

Well, bad means bad.

 

[VSonic06]

The old birds (eg. Steven) are patient and polite. I think the recent addition of new Ah Beng sales goons are really ruining it for AP. Their attitude in general really suck big time... can't test lenses (even if you want to buy), they only want to sell sell sell. The buying experience at AP is really something. One jackass even blamed me for his mistake in handling an exchange item. Needless to say I'll spend my money somewhere else.

 

[Parchiao]

Your comments are long and explained.
However, I do not agree on your rationale, concept, etc, about customer service.

I think it is better for forumers to post what happened in the shop, to give us a factual report.
Then it is up to the person in front of the computer screen to make informed decision(s).

My experience has been good. I go to AP with no expectation to get good service but to get the best price. More often than not, I go away with what I want. On those occassions that I go away dissapointed, it is either they don't sell what I want, they don't have what I want in stock or they cannot sell me something at the price I am asking for. :lovegrin:

Want good service, tell the salesman you are willing to pay for it. Nothing is for free, everything has a price. This is why some places offer better service than others. I don't have an ego problem, I can take any nonsense thrown my way.

 

[foxxkat]

r those names from MS Color , John 3:16 , Lords ?

AP... never heard from anyone :dunno:

i've never been to Lords

i meant this Richard:

 

[swhyge]

If you look carefully at the post counts of the posters in this thread, it does seem as though only those with low post counts complain about AP, and at the same time many of them point to the fact that there is a shop upstairs which gives superior service.

Just stating a factual observation. Draw your own conclusions.

As a moderator, the implication in your post is, IMHO, BERY BADD!

I can interprete your factual observation this way: the shop upstairs takes care of newbies, those who do not know, that why! whereas the other.... And reasons for "those with low post count" is because they dun TC unnecessarily! Do you think it is a good conclusion???

Yes, we may have to be careful in reading some of these postings - but this is a forum - let it be free flow unless it is lame untrue, OT or bordering on legal ....

Have you been hit? I have! and that's why I keep coming back to this thread to read... and feel very pissed off when reading some of the incidents mentioned (assuming of course it was true!)

My suggestion to you: If you think the bashing to too skewed, maybe get the concerned shop to post their replies - I'm sure they are here reading. (or maybe they, themselves or thru proxy, had already done it - if I used your approach of Factual Observation!)

No shops can be free of complains and perfect. But some are random, some are consistent! Based on your factual observation: IS AP, vis-a-vis the other more popular ones, consistently better or bad - or these incidents are just random since they handle so many customers a day? I only had one minor no good experience years back, and that's way I like to read to know if mine is just random?

 

[sin77]

well said.
and postcounts doesnt equate quality postings by a member.
I can come in everyday and say hello in every thread and contribute nothing.