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British retailers recommend Samsung phones over Apple iPhones due to higher commissions

Monday, January 28, 2013 · 5:01 pm · 28 Comments

“The Samsung Galaxy SIII was the most recommended smartphone in a mystery shopper survey of eight leading retailers carried out by Informa Telecoms and Media,” The Telegraph reports. “While some retailers recommended Apple’s iPhone 5, rival manufacturers such as ZTE, Motorola, LG, Huawei and BlackBerry-maker RIM had little or no presence.”

“Apple and Samsung were just as likely to be promoted by advertising in the store or the shop window but sales assistants were far more likely to recommend Samsung,” The Telegraph reports. “In a press release, Informa said it was ‘likely that sales assistants see the Samsung devices as a safe bet to earn greater commissions.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Spifftastic.

Always remember that they are “recommending” those Korean iPhone wannabes in order to line their own pockets which, quite likely, house their personal Apple iPhones. Don’t be a sucker!

Categories: News

Tags: android, Fragmandroid, Informa, iPhone, iPhone knockoffs, iPhone wannabes, samsung, Samsungorea, spiffs

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28 Comments

NHL

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 5:11 pm · Reply

Payola.
- Jubei
  
  Monday, January 28, 2013 - 5:33 pm · Reply
  
  Samsung and MS play book at its finest!
  - CitizenX
    
    Monday, January 28, 2013 - 8:06 pm · Reply
    
    It’s everybody’s playbook at one time or another, including Apple.
    
    You should direct your ire at the salespeople for signing on.
    - GM
      
      Monday, January 28, 2013 - 9:30 pm · Reply
      
      Yeah, it’s just business. It’s not like they all haven’t done it at one time or another. Actually no one is to blame. If you’re selling a product for a high commission that’s great. There is of course nothing wrong with that.
- Jersey_Trader
  
  Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - 9:46 am · Reply
  
  This was the problem with the Mac for about 2 decades. Sales people push the products that the company makes the most money on. Not what was best for the customer. Apple’s Internet and local Apple Stores changed that game. In the USA the iPhone dominates all others. No one is looking at iPhone domination where Apple has a foot print. Now, a bigger foot print in China and huge iPhone sales growth.
  
  Clueless talking heads. People like local support and most pick the best products (Apple iOS devices) when support is there.
Ballmer's left nut

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 5:38 pm · Reply

I always do my market research before buying anything. I was conned by a sales assistant to buy an HP phone/PDA that ran MS Windows Mobile 6 before I got the iPhone 4.

What a f***ing piece of shit!!!! Words cannot express how angry I was when I discovered that it wouldn’t do even half of what was promised in the shop. That was one of the turning points in me running away from MS. The promises look good on paper until you use the f***ing thing. No wonder HP & MS are in the shitter today.

I foresee the same fate befalling the crapalicious Samsung.
- kingmel
  
  Monday, January 28, 2013 - 10:50 pm · Reply
  
  Something like that has happened to just about everyone, BLN. Just be glad that the POS is history and you finally ended up with an iPhone. You can’t change history, but you can enjoy the present and look forward to an Apple future.
dipa shits

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 5:42 pm · Reply

England is covered with mobile stores and they refuse to pay apple for display stands that meet apples own display requirerments or dont pay and get reduced commission. Just apple screwing the small players and now apple will never be placed in prime selling areas or suggested as first choice. Pretty obvious why.
- Rorschach
  
  Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - 7:00 am · Reply
  
  Never has anyone had a more appropriate user name…
tbone

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 5:43 pm · Reply

Don’t weep youngsters. Spiffs have been around forever. Always will be. Wanna move your product? Pay a spiff… especially when they are paid with vouchers or cash. Spiffs are used to move inventory that would otherwise gather dust. Sometimes, the amount of spiffs paid out will lead to a rebate for the retailer on their next invoice.

If Apple wants to win this one, they can pay a spiff like everyone else.
- Scott in Japan
  
  Monday, January 28, 2013 - 5:55 pm · Reply
  
  And what current Apple products sit on shelves long enough to gather dust?
- CitizenX
  
  Monday, January 28, 2013 - 8:07 pm · Reply
  
  True enough they have been around forever and Apple has used them at times.
macaholic

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 5:44 pm · Reply

Here’s a thought. Ask the salestron to show you their own personal phone, right now, on the spot.
davewrite

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 5:50 pm · Reply

another reason is that carriers themselves want to promte other phones than the iPhone as they don’t want Apple to gain too much power (like iTunes with music) and they have clearly stated that policy over and over again during finacial calls etc.

AT&T the company that the iPhone helped so much has CEO that goes around telling people on TV etc that his main phone is a Windows Phone and how wonderful it is.
when asked by CNBC specifically about the iPhone 5 AT&T CEO fished out a Nokia instead.
CourtJester

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 6:18 pm · Reply

More Samsung displays in stores than Apple displays.
- aspirationalwhitegirl
  
  Monday, January 28, 2013 - 6:35 pm · Reply
  
  Like it o not Samsung products dominate the shelves here increasingly. Shops copy the Apple style stands and fill them with a whole range of products from small, cheap to large expensive and some superficially look as good as iPhones. Apple have to take some of the blame for this situation sadly as it was very predictable. In some ways Apple is indeed becoming arrogant and blind to certain realities and certainly can’t seem to anticipate them any more. They still have massive mindshare but cannot take it or granted when there are so many other choices around.
  
  As for AT&T they paid Apple a fortune for the privilege you can bet MS/Nokia are paying them a fortune, no friends in business, not long term ones anyway. Apple knows that.
  - mark briton
    
    Monday, January 28, 2013 - 6:55 pm · Reply
    
    Macs were always collecting dust in the corners of PC World (Best Buy in the US?) and still are. Apple have the same problem with the iPhone. It’s a premium product not offering the highest commission. Hence Apple Stores, promoting the products and offering after sales support. It’s no surprise to me that resellers are recommending cheap Samsung phones and are getting commission for it, but Apple has the best strategy. For how many more years will people visit a physical store to buy a phone? Fast forward a few years and we’ll all be buying them online and the stores will go bust. But Apple Stores are genius in that they are service centres and retail outlets at the same time.
Laughing_Boy48

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 6:30 pm · Reply

I hope you people do realize that Wall Street doesn’t care what a company does to increase market share. If the crooks on Wall Street cheat and lie, they expect companies to do the same thing. When it comes down to earnings the only thing that matters is how many smartphones were sold and Samsung sold almost twice as many as Apple. Small details like incentives are overlooked. Investors’ only conclusion was that the iPhone was no longer a hot-selling item and Apple had been made pretty much irrelevant as a smartphone company. This is a war where profits don’t matter, only higher number of sales from Q to Q and YOY. Samsung is now gold and Apple is now toxic to investors. Playing fair will get you nowhere on Wall Street.

Apple has billions to spend on salesperson incentives and could do the same thing. However, Apple didn’t and shareholders got punished. The one main problem is that even incentives can’t increase iPhone production. Samsung can build five smartphones in the time Apple builds one iPhone. Salespeople can’t sell what they don’t have in stock. Anyway, last quarter is gone and a new quarter has begun. Apple will just have to make some serious adjustments to get back in Wall Street’s graces, if they ever actually were.
m159

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 6:59 pm · Reply

Samsung is vastly outspending Apple in promotion, and advertising, plus this sales incentive. They have an inferior product, so the extra overhead is necessary to compete. However they do have the advantage of a free OS, courtesy Google, and free R&D by way of copying/stealing everything Apple does.
Thomas

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 6:59 pm · Reply

This happens in the US too. I had a friend who worked for Verizon tell me that management was recommending the push Android over iPhone (on top on the higher commision).
Gkmac

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 7:06 pm · Reply

Won’t be long until Google screws the mobile carriers as they do with anyone they partner with.

Particularly when carriers mean Google is not in control of their platform and can’t push their latest ad targeting gimmicks (like NFC payments via Google’s own system) as they please. How long will Google live with those roadblocks?

The answer is “not long” and Google’s secret deals with Dish and buildout of test networks based on LTE already points to steps in making carriers more irrelevant.
dan

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 7:13 pm · Reply

Samsung spends an astonishing amount in marketing, which includes traditional print / tv / online ads, but also the “spiff” and other various subsidy promotions which make it a no-brainer for the totally indifferent salesperson at Verizon or ATT. Check out Horace Deidu’s report at asymco.com. One statistic is that Samsung spends more than Coca Cola, Microsoft, Dell, HP, and Apple COMBINED!
Swing Geezer

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 7:40 pm · Reply

I know that Sony lost the VCR battle because they would not pay spiffs on the floor. They did give the owners a rebate on volume, but the sales staff wouldn’t get a piece of that. But every VHS put $10 in your jeans. What would you do. Apple can afford to spiff an obscenely high amount. Should they do it? I’m not entirely sure.
But Beta didn’t win the battle.
- coffeelover
  
  Monday, January 28, 2013 - 8:50 pm · Reply
  
  no it was the porn industry that killed betamax , porn went for VHS the rest is history !
mechanic50

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 8:09 pm · Reply

Im of the opinion that most people go to stores not knowing which smart phone they will buy, so they will buy the one that the staff recommends. But having said that more and more people are getting annoyed that when they get those phones home they dont deliver on what was promised. Which makes them do more research on there next phone buy. Which helps apple in a good way. The next time they come in they will ask for the iPhone and not just go on the recommendation of a spiff enhanced store flunky.
macaholic

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 9:37 pm · Reply

Anyone who confuses the real article with the copycat, based on the salestron’s opinion, deserves whatever they get.
MacHeadB

Monday, January 28, 2013 - 10:37 pm · Reply

I’m pretty sure most of the smart customers order direct from Apple. Why take advice from a Bozo who still lives with his mom?
JoshtheiMacGuy

Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - 11:01 am · Reply

The Samsung phones are great devices and people mock them at their own risk. Apple had better wake up to what is happening here.
The big problem with Android phones is the the lack of an easy update path for new and improved versions of the OS. Getting the new OS on an Android phone depends upon the phone manufacturer the service provide getting along and deciding to offer it. Not so good!