Kogan buys Dick Smith's Online Division

[Bribie G]

Good news.
Kogan products aren't top of the range but fairly good value for money, and he runs a pretty good and honest business.
I've bought a few items including my excellent Agora Smart TV dongle with WiFi that plays shyte that my other media players won't touch, including Netflix.

I've also bought, from Dicks, a couple of DSE TVs, printers etc and all good.

At the end of the day anything's better than supporting the old kernt at Hardly Normal.

Edit: a linky

 

[wynnum1]

Why are Hardly Normal doing so well and the others so bad they are looking at some Masters stores to turn into mega Hardly Normal stores there also was a rumor that some first choice stores will close .

 

[SBOB]

or in more reality terms

Existing Dick Smith customers will have their personal details disclosed to Kogan unless they request that information be removed by March 22, 2016.

Kogan purchased the thousands and thousands of dick smiths customers details for an undisclosed amount, and will use the 'Dick Smiths' brand as a relocation to their existing Kogan web site

Without their store fronts, the Dick Smiths web site is essentially just another online store offering nothing that any other online store offers and in terms of usability and pricing often worse.

 

[Bribie G]

There's always "churn" in the electrical businesses. Just in the last few years, what happened to (from QLD perspective, probably others around Australia):

Retravision
Brashs Electrical
WOW sight and Sound
Chandlers: We stand behind the product we sell

And others pop up, like RT Edwards etc.

Hardly Normal actually is in a good situation because he doesn't own any stores, a stick of furniture or a single laptop - the stores are all franchised, usually with three franchisees in one building for furniture, home goods, electronics. That's why he was screaming about the Internet because if he had set up an online store he would have been shitting on his own franchisees. Seems he has struck some sort of agreement with them.

I found DS to be pretty good online, I've got a plasma TV and a LED, and bought another two LEDs for family as pressies and all way below anything else online. HN online is fairly pathetic and JB HiFi is not too bad but I prefer to go to their stores and they have a lot of markdowns at individual stores that aren't on their website.

 

[wynnum1]

Dick Smith Holdings excels in employee ownership
May 27, 2014

Dick Smith’s commitment to employee ownership and participation saw them take out Best New Employee Share Plan last night, joining Telstra, Brambles, Computershare and other winners at the Annual Employee Ownership Conference and Awards, at PwC Sydney

 

[Bribie G]

S.I.L worked at Dicks on Bribie and Morayfield on and off, reckons they were pretty good to staff but a bad manager could alter that in an instant.

 

[Dave70]

A bold, sassy jingle is whats missing from the business model of these modern concerns.
If the man in the street cant remember your phone number better than his own, you're rooted in the electronics game..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sdf2HNWuL4

 

[sponge]

Not sure if bold and sassy are the correct adjectives, Dave.

 

[tavas]

Funny when Gerry Harvey was whinging about online sales crippling his business. Now he's turning mega profits.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Bribie is right about the franchisee system Gerry Harvey runs, if you wanted to run a Bedding department in one of his stores for instance, not only does he want a cut of the sales but you can't go in with your own money, you have to borrow the money off of good old Gerry and make the repayments plus the interest , if the turnover doesn't come up to expectations then you are out.
He can't loose, and I am pretty sure that they holding company does own the property portfolio.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Koogan basically bought the Dick Smith brand for on-line.

Bit of a natural fit for Koogan. An existing known brand with lots of loyalty and history and customer base. Possibly more than Koogan. And considering you could run both out of the same warehouse using the same backend it wont take much to get his money back

 

[pcmfisher]

I bet he got it for a song.
I wonder if he will honor DSE gift cards for the full amount as against $25.00

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

I bet he got it for a song.
I wonder if he will honor DSE gift cards for the full amount as against $25.00

Interesting idea...would depend on how many and how much..

They might out of good will, but it will cost them $$$ to honour them, so I doubt it

 

[Bribie G]

If he can access Dick's suppliers, for example the DSE lines such as televisions, they are far better quality than the current Kogan crop and it could really lift his overall quality.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

If he can access Dick's suppliers, for example the DSE lines such as televisions, they are far better quality than the current Kogan crop and it could really lift his overall quality.

Good point

They could start to offer 2 tiers of product with minimal effort

 

[wynnum1]

The DSE on line is not a good buy they pissed off a lot of customers before Christmas selling items they could not supply there was a posting on current affairs facebook asking for an investigation and the gift cards was just a rip off as it seemed clear they did not have stock to sell and where insolvent long before liquidation.

 

[Bribie G]

Heaps of stock in the stores at the moment, probably completely cleared out the warehouse.

Just bought a 55" Full HD / LED for $500 today.

I want to set it up but I've just scored a sack of Simpsons Maris Otter and want to get brewing.

First World Problems.

 

[earle]

The DSE on line is not a good buy they pissed off a lot of customers before Christmas selling items they could not supply there was a posting on current affairs facebook asking for an investigation and the gift cards was just a rip off as it seemed clear they did not have stock to sell and where insolvent long before liquidation.

This was happening as far back as September. We bought an item on-line that was supposedly in stock. Had to chase them a couple of weeks later to actually get it delivered even though there terms stated dispatch within 3 days. Now I count myself lucky that I actually got the thing. You've really got to wonder how long they were forward selling stock that they didn't have for.

 

[Bribie G]

The reason they couldn't suppy stock was because the original Private Equity mob that bought Dicks from Woolworths deliberately ran stock levels right down to make profits look incredibly good.
Then the next Private Equity mob who got suckered into buying the company were lumbered with all the problems.

Nothing wrong with the actual online company business model itself, when I was buying stuff online 3 or 4 years ago it arrived mostly overnight and was well priced.
Just the prix behind it all. Well they've gone belly up so hopefully Kogan can resurrect it.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

The reason they couldn't suppy stock was because the original Private Equity mob that bought Dicks from Woolworths deliberately ran stock levels right down to make profits look incredibly good.
Then the next Private Equity mob who got suckered into buying the company were lumbered with all the problems.

Nothing wrong with the actual online company business model itself, when I was buying stuff online 3 or 4 years ago it arrived mostly overnight and was well priced.
Just the prix behind it all. Well they've gone belly up so hopefully Kogan can resurrect it.

Yep. the private equity mob made it look fantastic on paper. Heaps of goods being sold, cash flow..etc..etc...But they didnt order stock, cause that cost money, so it was naturaly going to fall apart. They just sold it at the right time. on the cusp of it going to shit