I went to buy a new phone for my wife today and came away empty handed. My wife shares my philosophy on phones so I was after a very simple one and she had already chosen a nice slim one. The local shop of our local carrier (lets call them carrier T) had no stock so since I was in the mall anyway I went into another carrier’s (carrier O) store who had stock of the phone. The price for the phone was good but it was being sold on a “pre-paid” plan meaning it came with a carrier O SIM. When I asked about using my wife’s existing carrier T SIM I was told there would be a $50 unlocking fee, which still made the phone a reasonable price.
It turned out the fee was a ploy to try and get me to leave quietly. When I asked to buy the phone I was told the store could only sell it to me if I intended to use it with an O-SIM. Starting to get a bit annoyed at this I tried throwing a few unsuccessful alternatives at him. When I offered to lie and tell him I’d use an O-SIM his only response was “Well it’s too late for that now.” Frustrated by now I tried logic for a last time “So, you have a product for sale which I want with a condition that is technically posible for you to meet. Are you telling me there is no price that will allow me to leave with a phone and you to get a sale that gives your store profit.” The answer was no!
Now the fact that this was an unempowerd clerk in a small branch of a large chain probably had something to do with how this happened. I found it incredible though that a company would be so tied in to a suppliers needs that they could not see a way to serve a customers. And this decision was at the expense of another supplier as well, I am sure the phone manufacturer would have appreciated the sale as well. This is obviouly marketting taken to illogical extremes. A store has let a customer walk out of its store (probably for good) and lost a sale on a $200 phone for the sake of a bundled $20 pre-paid phone card.