It is not accetable to ‘chat to your colleague’ whilst serving a Customer - or ignoring one in this case.
Having lived through flooding and cyclones I can appreciate how valuable cash can be. I was able to purchase some items post Marcia with cash before the power was activated in certain areas. There was also a couple of days in past years where flooding has caused damage to phone cables rendering ATM’s and eftpos machines (and for that matter most telecommunication services) useless, fortunately I had cash to be able to get supplies. I also don’t leave for local footy without at least $40 in the wallet, particularly away games where we have to pay to get in even if we’re playing.
I also intend to try to carry around cash as much as possible when in South Africa, if the pick pocketers manage to somehow target me I’d rather replace cash than have to go through the process of reordering cards which have already been used to pre-book motel rooms for future trips. The last time I had to cancel cards and get a new debit card I had to not only cancel and re-book some rooms, but for rooms I couldn’t re-book (Hobart a prime example) I had to actually pay the amount rather than have the payments deducted closer to occupation date.
I know a local pie shop that charges that amount for any transaction. Often don’t go there if I don’t have cash.
Our vending machines at work aren’t equipped to take the new $5 notes, and annoyingly a colleague was able to use a $10 note only to have to purchase 6 cans of drink as no change was being offered, just credit. Normally when it gets to about $6 credit the change will come out.
Last time I had a 7-Eleven coffee was the morning of the GF, the time before that was Boxing Day morning 2015 where I had a little difficulty with the lid. Given that it was drizzling outside prior to play not many noticed the spillage up the arm of the jumper.
Had a look in the TK Maxx at Fyshwick yesterday. It’s exactly the same as it was as Trade Secret with a mishmash of rubbish. I won’t be rushing back there.
If I didn’t know about the rebranding, I’d be wondering just what kind of store you were visiting there 
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Went to Hardly Normal as @WAtvVideos would say on saturday to buy a new laptop.
The store (Melbourne QV) did not have the computer on display, spent around 5-10 minutes looking around with no service whatsoever.
Then we get approached by a guy that had a ‘Optus’ shirt on.
The guy then asks for what we want and then tries to upsell Norton Anti Virus.
I said that I use Windows Defender and he laughed.
The guy then gets the laptop to show us from the box, opened mind you and grabs a $50 copy of Norton that I never wanted.
He then turns it on and sets it up and walks away.
We try to get the attention of another guy who says that his ‘busy’ lies
He then comes back after 10 minutes and we try to get the price down because it was opened therefore ex-display.
The guy then wanted to sell the Norton at $28.
We declined and walked out in disgust.
Today we went and got a refurbished Think Pad from a computer shop and all I had to do is put CCleaner on it.
Harvey Norman is just…
Rubbish.
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the TK/TJ Maxx (and for that matter ROSS and other similar retailers) format in the US isn’t that much different - its just racks and racks and racks of clearance crap.
I don’t think the format will ever work in Australia, if it did we’d have seen it copied by the duopoly years ago.
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Completely agree, they are all assholes. Sorry it must be said. But in my local store, you walk in and one after another they all ask if they can help. Ones enough. You could be in the electronics and a guy from furniture comes up to you. Annoying
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I once was looking around for Fetch TV Mighty set top boxes and went into a Harvey Norman in Moore Park. The salesperson, who was nice enough, asked his manager if they could sell them. The manager, an Asian guy sitting at a desk, just angrily shouted “No!”, as if I had personally just shat on his desk. Real customer service skills right there.
Not a chance I’ll be shopping there again. You either get roped into a high pressure sales scheme if you’re looking to make a fairly large purchase, or they’ll just completely ignore you.
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Used the self serves at the Werribee store, which is a new format store. Was a fairly straighforward and painless experience. Only minor gripe was I had to use the handheld scanner to scan my purchase as it was too big to scan with the flatbed scanner, the beam on the gun is the traditional old school straight line beam. So I had to have the gun in the exact right way in my hand for it to pick up the APN, as opposed to the ones at my work where you can hold the gun any old angle. Could potentially be a PITA for some folks with awkward/bulky items.
When did Harvey World Travel change to Hello World Travel? Saw an ad for it tonight and it was a bit weird having the old Harvey World jingle with “we’re Hello World Travel, the travel professionals…”
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When I saw Hello World a couple of weeks ago in a Westfield I initially thought it was a mobile phone shop!!
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They started rebranding Harvey World Travel and Jetset Travel as Hello World Travel in late 2013 although the first time I noticed was early 2015 when I was booking a holiday and noticed a Jetset Travel had swapped over.
http://www.travelweekly.com.au/article/JTG-to-launch-new-brand-called-helloworld/
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Gradual consolidation of about 4 (mostly Harvey World and Jetset) different Travel brands under one banner over the course of the last 3 years. Conveniently timed in the sense that a significant number of old franchisees closed down or went independent during the consolidation. I believe the main goal was to look more unified against the 800lb gorilla of the travel industry in Australia/NZ that is Flight Centre Travel Group (ironically, FCTG have about 7 brands themselves).
I believe the Harvey World Travel brand still lives on in South Africa, but nowhere else.
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Of The 27 “underperforming” Woolworths stores that were announced as closing last year, 2 of them are in the Townsville suburb of Douglas, 1 of the stores I happened to frequent quite often.
Two weeks ago, the store was purchased by IGA, and over the course of a public holiday they close down and rebranded the store.
I’ve since been in for a visit, and it seems laughable how they’ve done it.
The store is still essentially Woolworths with big IGA stickers slapped over the top of everything, all the products are still the same, and still in the same places, except the home brand ones have been swapped out for IGA versions.
The self serve machines are the same, just without the Woolworths presence. The voice on it is still the same, except it says “thank you for shopping at w… super … IGA”.
But the stickers! They’ve still got the Woolworths signs hanging from the ceilings with IGA Stickers covering the logos.
The baskets at the front all have IGA stickers over the top (some are already peeling with the Woolworths logo visible beneath), the trolleys have big wrap around IGA stickers placed over the Woolworths references also, again, some already peeling.
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This is par for the course for a rushed supermarket conversion, I have an ex Coles Supa IGA near me that still has some remnants of Coles branding 3 years on from converting.
There’s also a woolies that was once an Action supermarket here in a suburb of Perth that still has woolies stickers covering the action stickers (which cover the Newmart (WAs Bi-Lo brand from way back when) stickers and other signage around the store and it’s literally been a woolies for 10 years now! (for Perthlings playing along, it’s the Stirling Central store).
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Stirling Central is finally getting some love. The Woolworths store is finally upgrading as well as the malls and carpark and the addition of new specialty stores. Aldi is also moving in. Woolies and Target will drop their tenancy space a little to allow the Aldi inclusion. (Not an issue seeing as both stores are currently huge with little Customer volume).
This is long overdue.
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About time! I’m actually surprised the Target hasn’t closed or converted to a K-mart by now as has been common over east with underperforming stores. This is a much better option.
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I agree. I actually like going to that Target as its always fully stocked with hardly anyone in there. The Woolies has always bugged me that they didnt refurb it. Obvs someone has some money to keep it going.
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List?
I imagine IGA doesn’t have the huge budgets to do a complete re-fit to rebrand an acquired store. And a weekend is barely enough time to do much. Will probably have to be phased in over time.