Great the Razr is now $100 less to customers. But they only lower the cost $50?
I am not going to even carry the Spectrum at that crappy ROI.
Its a sad day when I tell my guys to sell iPhones because we simply make MORE money on them. I am blitzing the 4G Percentage they want by a wide margin, but now?
Hi there. I'm the guy on the other side of the counter. If you're a jerk to me, guess how hard I'm going to try to help you?
This is honestly nothing new, and VZW pulls this **** all the time. Wholesale costs generally only fall about 50% of the retail drop. We just stop carrying the phone they pull it on, and tell customers that VZW put it on sale because it is buggy and they are trying to unload them. As far as "blitzing the 4g percentage", what good has that done you besides a pat on the head from your acct manager? Is VZW cutting you a monthly 4g bonus check? Not likely. Find your profit center phones, push those, and tell VZW that you will care more about their interests when they care more about yours.
Low price, Excellent Service, High Quality. Pick any two, but you never get all three.
This is honestly nothing new, and VZW pulls this **** all the time. Wholesale costs generally only fall about 50% of the retail drop. We just stop carrying the phone they pull it on, and tell customers that VZW put it on sale because it is buggy and they are trying to unload them. As far as "blitzing the 4g percentage", what good has that done you besides a pat on the head from your acct manager? Is VZW cutting you a monthly 4g bonus check? Not likely. Find your profit center phones, push those, and tell VZW that you will care more about their interests when they care more about yours.
so true, wish more people on here had some balls..
The way you position it is that you are on the customer's side, not Verizon's side, and you are actually doing them a favor by not selling them a buggy or old, outdated phone. Tell them that if they insist on that model phone, that you will happily call the Corporate store for them to see if they have any, and that you will refer them to the Corporate store to get that phone. Basically, at this point, you are practically DARING the customer to usurp your advice, and persist in their own ignorance. Most people see the light and realize if the phone is so ****** that this store won't even carry it, there must be something wrong with it.
Now really? We make less with a 32gb Razr upgrade than an Iphone and now with the 16gb Razr and Spectrum we make half of that? Unless there is some back end spiff, I am gonna make the Spectrum less desirable than the Revolution ever was.
I see a lot of the owners here saying they are making more on the iPhones than certain Androids. I work for a premium, and when we started selling the iPhone we were paid two different commissions, one amount for a secondary line upgrade and double that amount for a primary. Both of these were a good bit lower than selling an Android, generally.
When ALP came they did away with the secondary payout and now every iPhone is paid as a primary, however it is still far less than selling a top tier droid and way less if the droid is a new activation. For example, someone activated two lines on the unlimited share plan, and I was paid the same amount as if someone came in and simply upgraded two lines. I asked the higher ups about it and was told it was because they are paid a flat rate on iPhones themselves and still barely make any profit on them, so they can't raise the commission to closer to that of the upper tier androids.
Now don't get me wrong, I like working for the company and really get along with the management, but was just wondering for example how it would be possible to make the same amount of money on new acts on unlimited plans as a standard renewal....hard to believe.
iPhone's are a flat payout now whether it's new upgrade or share or not. Other lines vary. On a new act with a droid on decent price plan and data payout I think we'd make a decent amount more than an iPhone. On upgrades it's hard to beat the iPhone payout on a droid.
On a droid we'd get the plan commission, smartphone commission plus data commission for a new line. On an iPhone we'd get the flat rate. On an upgrade on a droid if the person already has data we will only get plan commission which is less on an upgrade and smartphone commission. No data commission because they already have data. That makes payout pretty poor on a lot of droids.
iPhone's are a flat payout now whether it's new upgrade or share or not. Other lines vary. On a new act with a droid on decent price plan and data payout I think we'd make a decent amount more than an iPhone. On upgrades it's hard to beat the iPhone payout on a droid.
On a droid we'd get the plan commission, smartphone commission plus data commission for a new line. On an iPhone we'd get the flat rate. On an upgrade on a droid if the person already has data we will only get plan commission which is less on an upgrade and smartphone commission. No data commission because they already have data. That makes payout pretty poor on a lot of droids.
Thanks for the explaination. So the flat payout thing makes sense, therefore making a new act with a droid on a decent plan a good bit more profitable. But if iPhones are generally so good on standard upgrades, I don't understand why we're still being told by management that the iPhone is "killing us" on profitability. It's not enough difference to really worry about, but for example an upgrade with new data to a tier 2 droid still pays about double what the iPhone does. I assume everyone is paying the same for the iPhones right? $660ish for the S and $100 less for the 8gb.
I mean I'd just rather be told straight up that they're paying us less on the iPhones because the accessories cost more and we make more of it up with them, rather than possibly keepings us in the dark and saying that we aren't making any money on them and kinda making us feel guilty.
The differences are not THAT great now between the iPhone and Androids. The new lines with no existing data, the Droid win, but with an upgrade to an expensive 4G phone that already has data, the iPhone wins. So to say the iPhone is "killing them" is not logical....unless you wanted to say VZW in general is killing them, iPhone included.
I would keep the resume fresh, as obviously you already don't trust them, and they will likely sense that soon enough, if they don't now. If you can sell, your talents are quite valuable, be ready to move on.
The "killing" portion might be related to the high holding cost of the Iphones vs a high end droid $40 more and $250 more than a mid range droid. This creates more financial exposure while making the same or less profit in most circumstances.
Haven't confirmed but was told my area has a spiff in the Spectrum.
Ours area does, but that just gets the box loss to bad, which is improved from completely unacceptable.
LG must be on crack. They do not have the brand power of Apple or Moto, so to try and duplicate their pricing power is absurd. Seriously, how many of the old Ally customers who are now ready for an upgrade are clamoring for another LG?
You know they are either going to, A) Spiff it some insulting number, like $25. B) Nothing.
Why do they always go into panic mode when sales are slow and fire sale the equipment? All it does is spawn upgrades, and I am willing to bet 75% of these will be exisiting smartphone users. Free 32GB Razrs to clear things out or Bionics, but the *******ed, brand new Razr MAXX?
I could BOGO the iPhone and make more money than a Bogo Razr.
I would also love to know why removing a 16GB Memory card from the Bionic Drops it a tier?
At the last meeting I had to listen about how great 4G is and how we need to be "Energized" to sell it, stop making it so damn hard, Verizon.
1) I don't stock Bionics, I haven't stocked them since the RAZR came out. We tell customers that the Bionic is the "RAZR Beta", and that it sucks, freezes all the time, and is a total waste of their time and money.
2) As for any other BOGO's well....unless there is a substantial and I mean a ****ING REAL SUBSTANTIAL spiff, well, congrats Verizon, we are going to push non-4G phones even HARDER now. "Mr Customer, 4G is still in its infancy, there are still a lot of issues to be worked out, and while you are in a 3G area, the phone is going to be constantly looking for a 4G signal, which will drain your battery. So, depending on your area, you may be lucky to see a half-day's worth of battery."
I dunno if I've been doing this too long or something, but to mirror PeterB, I don't understand why VZW feels the instant impulse to "fire sale", (best term I can think of) the equipment, thinking it's going to be the placebo to a slow sales environment. I never thought I'd see the day in this industry where I am half-****ing tempted to push every customer out of a smartphone and back into a feature phone, and all because our carrier tells us to go **** ourselves at every turn.
I'm doing buy an iPhone 4S, get an iPhone 4 8GB free, (or $100 off a second 4S), or trade the second phone for $150 value in accessories.
Simple formula: overpriced wholesale, BOGO'ed VZW advertised 4G phones = NOT in my inventory. Keep in mind guys: you have more influence with your customers than you realize. If you tell them that the phones VZW is hawking on BOGO are junk, more people will believe you than you think. The end game here is to keep our doors open, and the way things sit now, we will NOT do that by aligning our goals with our carrier's goals. Something is going to have to give.
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Originally Posted by JP Whoregan
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