Office Depot Lie to Customers About Laptop Stock
Looking to buy a laptop sometime soon? Well, unless you're interested in bundling your purchase with a protection plan, you may want to avoid shopping at Office Depot.
According to a recent article published by Laptop Magazine, Office Depot associates routinely lie about their available stock when dealing with customers that are uninterested in extras like Protect Protection Plans (or PPPs for short) and Tech Depot Services (TDS). Due to the competitive nature of computer sales, Office Depot like many other brick and mortar stores rely on service and accessory based sales to make any sort of significant profit. As such, both management and salesmen seek to move the extras with every purchase.
The article includes several reader confirmations of the art of moving PPPs and TDSs. A Chris H. is quoted in the article stating "Not only do [we] sales people depend on the extra cash we earn from add-ons, if we do not sell them and make a quota, we get the shaft from our bosses and their bosses and their bosses," implying that the salesmen themselves rely on the movement of the service plans in order to make extra income.
Another reader identified as Rich comments "Basically they drill it in your head that if you don’t sell PPPs, you’re gonna get fired. It’s gotten so bad to the point where the managers are starting to find loopholes in the system. They would rather sell one laptop with a PPP than ten laptops with nothing. They don’t care."
According to the article, even upper management faces diciplinary action if quotas are not met, perhaps revealing that the primary source of the problem begins at the top and simply rolls downhill. One thing is for sure though, with business practices invovling deception, Office Depot is sure to lose respect and business as the public becomes aware of such behavior.

Big companies likese these don't give a shit about their employees, not one bit, and they think that a crappy spiff with the added incentive to be fired is enough to motivate employees and drive sales higher? It does the opposite, and makes customers resent them even more. I hope Office Depot is next in line on the chopping block.
Big companies likese these don't give a shit about their employees, not one bit, and they think that a crappy spiff with the added incentive to be fired is enough to motivate employees and drive sales higher? It does the opposite, and makes customers resent them even more. I hope Office Depot is next in line on the chopping block.
Was some serious bullshit.
Your only other options are to walk away from the negotiation or have a higher-up come over and restart your negotiation.
Me? I never was refused an item because of a service plan, but I have often been thwarted by employees "reserving" items for one another so I didn't have a chance to buy it.
You cant just take a few instances of dishonesty and make an accurate judgment on the company as a whole.
BTW the original article didn't mention that OD just cut one management position from every office depot about two weeks ago. So im sure everyone can guess who they got the interview with, disgruntled ex-employees trying to get a little bit of revenge by bashing the companies reputation
You cant just take a few instances of dishonesty and make an accurate judgment on the company as a whole.
BTW the original article didn't mention that OD just cut one management position from every office depot about two weeks ago. So im sure everyone can guess who they got the interview with, disgruntled ex-employees who blow stuff out of proportion
Annoy others with your own crap?
article:"Due to the competitive nature of computer sales
, Office Depot 'like many other brick and mortar stores'"
That mean it's not only Office Depot but almost every major retailer is doing it. Does this mean you're not gonna shop in an electronic store at all? You can say no, but provoking everyone to not purchase anything leads to low economic and jobs.
I've only often heard stories from friends who were fired at Future Shop for not selling enough service plans.
Selling people cr@p isn't the only thing that bring down Circuit City. I remember buying an MP3 player inside a glass door and ask someone to open it for me and 30min no-one came and so I ask another person and 15min later they finally open the glass to get me my MP3. When I return that battery sucking MP3, I waited 1hr and there's only 1 person in front of me. Service like that deserved to close its door. Not to mention Black Friday. The line almost doesn't budge after 3hr of waiting in-line for a laptop. Bought a laptop at Office Depot during Black Friday and they didn't try to sell me cr@p and it took like 10min to buy it.