PC Retail

Staples
This store was completely free of shoppers, although store staff were keeping themselves busy with various tasks. I walked around the PC section for over 20 minutes until I gave the ‘waiting look’ to a staff member rushing to an office towards the rear of the store.

He stopped, noticing my confusion. His knowledge was good and asked lots of questions. It was obvious he knew his products, checking my price range before making recommendations. There were two printers he thought suited my needs. The Brother MFC 235C, priced £49.99 and Brother MFC 440CN, priced £99.99, with a saving of £50. My new expert’s recommendation was based on personal usage, having bought it recently, adding ‘it has good print quality and 3-in-1 capability.’ The key feature, he enthused, was the ability to print photos from a SD memory card, which he thought was easy to do.

The other main selling point was the ink cartridge prices, adding they were cheaper than other brands, with starting prices at less than £5.99 each.

Looking around the rest of the stock, I noticed there was only one Canon printer on sale. I thought this was a bit strange due to this manufacturer being a major player in this sector. He told me the store only stocked a low number due to lack of demand from customers. However, he was quick to point out that if I wanted a Canon printer, it could easily be ordered.

There was a wide variety of offers across a range of manufacturers including HP, Lexmark, Epson, Brother and Canon. These included a saving of £30.00. Having looked across the range, I noted that multi-function printers tripled the single function printers stocked; 35 models compared to 10.

8/10

Comet
I walked into a hive of activity from sales staff, and was acknowledged by one staff member with a smile, telling me a member of staff would be with me as soon as possible.

Within a short period of time, I was approached by a salesman who said that he couldn’t help me find a printer unless I knew what I wanted. To satisfy his request and to get some recommendations, I gave a scenario of wishing to use a printer in a family home. Satisfied with this, he went through the range of printers on offer.

The recommendations offered were the Canon IP 4500 inkjet printer, priced £79.99 and the A 3-1 Canon MP610 multi-functional printer, priced £159.99. This device printed 31 black ppm and 24 colour ppm and boasted a 300 sheet capacity paper tray, built-in LCD and 6-in1 card reader.

Again in this store, the number of multi-function printers exceeded the quantity of single printers of more than double; 19 to 8.

It was a good shopping experience, professional service and confident approach with clear information given.

7/10

PC World
This store was deserted. I guess this was typical of the post Christmas rush and everybody having returned to work. Nearby the store entrance, were two printers on special offer; a Canon and Epson. Walking towards the printer section, I was hit by a huge range of products.

I noticed the all-in-one and single inkjet printers were displayed separately. I stopped a salesperson to get some help. She took me to the multi-function products, missing the single function stock.

She gave me an overview of the stock before us, recommending the Epson DX4450. It was on special offer, priced £39.99, with a saving of £20. There was also an offer on the ink cartridges – buy one, get one half price promotion. She thought it was a good printer, of good quality, but didn’t go into any other details as to why this one was so good. She then said, ‘thank you’, believing I had finished and walked away.

This was quite a short shopping experience. Clearly, the sales person in this retailer favoured Epson but notably a Multi-Function Device, once again.

5/10

Asda
The printers were upstairs on the first floor along with the George clothing, electronics, furniture and home entertainment. This floor looked extremely quiet, only noticing one member of staff on the photo centre and another on the George clothing counter.

There was a long queue of customers waiting at the photo centre and the chap behind the counter clearly was going to be busy for a while. I decided to walk over to the George section to ask for help. The member of staff apologetically asked me to speak with another colleague, due to having no knowledge of printers. I went back to the electronics section and walked around the stock, whilst waiting to see if anybody else would come along to help. Nobody did during the 30 minutes I was in-store, but I was able to note some prices on the available stock.

The product range was small with only a few printers on sale. The multi-function Epson Stylus DX440 printer priced £56.37 was probably the one that stood out but there were two single function printers stocked – Lexmark 2845, priced £67.88 and a cheaper model at £29.00. This wasn’t a range the retailer focused on.

4/10

Currys
Again, this store was free of customers with members of staff keen to help those few customers who entered. I was noticed by a staff member immediately on entry, who was more than happy to lead me to my destination.

He engaged me in conversation quickly, and it was obvious to me the sales advisor preferred multi-function printers and re-enforced the focus towards these models.

I looked at the Lexmark X1270 All-in-One printer near us, priced £29.99. He said if a cheaper printer was purchased, I was likely to spend more on cartridges.

As an alternative, he recommended the Epson Stylus DX8450 All-in-One Printer, priced £59.99.

“This is a good printer with remarkable speeds on the black and colour documents, printing up to 32 pages per minute, a memory card slot with a 2.5 inch LCD preview screen,” he noted. He added that the printer took four cartridges and replacements were priced from £6.99.

I thought the sales person had explained all the key features I was looking for in a printer. I would have purchased mine from this Currys store. The customer service and product knowledge offered was impressive.

9/10

John Lewis
With the recent announcements that John Lewis was voted UK’s favourite electrical retailer in a poll of more than 6,000 shoppers for the fourth year running, I was expecting great things.

I wandered around looking at other products before asking a member of staff for help. She began by checking with me what I was looking for, before recommending the HP Photosmart C7280 All-In-One Printer, priced £299.00. Noticing the shock on my face when mentioning the price, the advisor moved to the HP Photosmart C7180 All-in-One printer, priced £89.95, adding that this was her favourite one. I was reminded that the product boasted the scan, copying and printing options from both the PC and all available memory cards.

Again, as in other retailers visited, the sales person preferred one manufacturer. There was more of a limited choice available in this store.

The brands sold were Epson, HP and Canon and no sign of Lexmark or Brother. Whilst the information given was accurate and informative, I would have preferred a greater choice.

5/10