http://www.aussie-nintendo.com/index.php?v=news&p=6632

It was reported in September that Australian consumer electronics retailer Harvey Norman was in discussions with Nintendo to stock the company's forthcoming Wii console, however Nintendo Australia Public Relations Manager Vispi Bhopti has now shot down claims by the retailer, who since insisted that it would stock the console.

"They are telling the market that we are in discussions with them but this is not true. We don't like their terms or the way they operate and we are refusing to do business with them," said Bhopti.

"We are dealing with most mass retailers with the exception of Harvey Norman. Their terms are ridiculous," he said. "The Nintendo Wii is set to be a hot product going into the peak Xmas buying period so why should we give away margin to Harvey Norman. We are confident that the new Nintendo gaming console will drive sales during the peak buying period that is coming up."

One such mass retailer is JB Hi-Fi, and the chain's Managing Director, Richard Uechtritz, is enthusiastic about Wii's impending launch. "The Nintendo Wii is going to be a big seller," he said. "It is a very different type of gaming machine than the Xbox 360 or the Sony PS2. We believe that it will appeal to a wider audience other than gamers. It will reach an older audience and females and we are confident that it will be a very successful product this Xmas."

Harvey Norman initially stocked Nintendo's GameCube in 2002, but soon dropped the product, presumably because of poor sales. "Their bullying is coming back to bite them," believes Uechtritz. "This is one product that Harvey Norman wanted and I believe that a lot of vendors will take note of what Nintendo have done in refusing to accept Harvey Norman's terms."

What, so Harvery Normans aren't allowed to sell any Wii stuff at all?

yes junior

^One may draw that conclusion. Or maybe just the consoles. With the exception of games?

Unfortunately, I think that Nintendo will be the one suffering more than Harvey Norman.

Apart from mums and dads does anyone actually shop there?

Unfortunately, I think that Nintendo will be the one suffering more than Harvey Norman.

wtf?

I'd doubt that more than a handful of people (ie, people who get huge discounts from HN like the Buyers etc) planning buy a Wii in Australia will abort over this.

Unless you mean the overall popularity of the console would be low enough that they would be in pain already, but I don't think so. Wii feels like its gonna sell like crazy.

Well for instance I'm buying one, and I haven't bought a console since Super Nintendo days (ie 1992 or thereabouts).

I have a feeling it's going to be a 'cool' console. In the same vein as the humble iPod. Once people see and use it, I think everyone will want one.

i bought a keyboard off them - but that was because i didnt want to drive to umart

Heh, I don't blame Nintendo. I remember having to deal with HN as a distributor salesman - their system through sales reps was just a pain in the arse, and their terms are unworkable. They're bullies.

I'd doubt that more than a handful of people (ie, people who get huge discounts from HN like the Buyers etc) planning buy a Wii in Australia will abort over this.

don't think it's about aborting - I think it's about the lost eyeballs that Nintendo will lose by not having their product in one of the biggest retailers in Australia.

Props to them for standing up to them though; retailers demanding special treatment are jerks.

don't think it's about aborting - I think it's about the lost eyeballs that Nintendo will lose by not having their product in one of the biggest retailers in Australia.

Are new release consoles really sold through random eyeballing at retailers?

I wouldn't have thought ~600 clams was the average family's impulse buy. Maybe that's just me though - I don't tend to buy expensive s*** from a particular retailer, I know what I'm looking for and shop around until I've convinced myself I'm getting a good deal on it.

I thought that was pretty normal? Surely half the sales of these things will come from 12 years olds screaming at their parents that they wanna wiiii? :D

Once the ads hit the tv and people know where to go to get it (general public) it wont matter at all to their sales that they don't have it at HN.

Props to them for standing up to them though; retailers demanding special treatment are jerks.

Seconded

Yeh but what about loyalty? Surely there are a bunch of bogans out there who would prefer to give their money to Harvey's?

How many people would not get a Wii because it wasn't sold at Harvey Norman? I would have thought most of the backlash would be towards the retailer as people go elsewhere to get the Wii and subsequently other items.

bogans give their money to autobarn, not harvey norman =]

Are new release consoles really sold through random eyeballing at retailers?

I dunno, if there was ever a gaming console that was going to grab people's attention as they're walking past as something new and interesting I reckon it's the Wii

i wont say that i saw it coming, but i did notice the Wii was absent from harveys last catalogue( a few weeks ago).
harvey norman takes it from the 360, and this apparent plan to screw nintendo backfired.

so, harvey will lose out doubly not only from the lost nintendo margins but from the many console owners that will purchase more than 1 console.
instead of going harvey norman and buying up a wii and perhaps a new 360 game they will go to myers or JB hifi.

ppl will also be asking the question, why cannot harveys stock a product that is obviously going to be successful.

They should get super cheap auto to stock the Wii, along with racing games. If they had custom cases that looked like either, a ford, a holden or boonie there would be a queue out the door to buy them

f***, if the Wii:Boonie Edition also had witty quotes from Boonie that it spews out when you get some sort of win condition, I'd buy one!

if (player.win()) boonie.cheer();
else boonie.sledge();

*shrug* wii looks crap anyways.

no u do

That's what I was going to say.

lol serves em right. big ups to nintendo.
i dont believe it will effect Wii sales anything worthwhile.
people wanting wii will go elsewhere.

the thing is, we've not stocked a nintendo product in years.

and do you want to know why harvey norman makes demands on suppliers. because they buy them about 6000 at a time, and i think that's reasonable to expect a discount. you know, you go somewhere and say "how much if i buy 2?". 6000 people.

and also, things like ps2, xbox, ipod, there's absolutely no money in them in the first place. seriously, i was pricing an ipod for a friend, and the $399 model cost about $392.05 or some such.

having work at ge in the department where they process purchases form stores such as harvey norman, alot of the sales appeared to be random purchases, plus parents wanting to buy there kids a console from xmas always go there, the amount of ps2 and xboxs we use to processes was incredible, harvey norman appeals to middle class people that have money to spend but no idea how to spend it, they turn up to a place like that looking for a couch but not to sure if they are actually going to buy one and end up leaving with a new computer or bed or what ever.

id say it will have an impact on wii sales, but not enough to effect the overall market,

you also have to understand that a good porportion of the wii sales are going to be from parents wanting to buy there kids a console, they will look at the xbox and the wii and go hmmm what do they do "both play games" whats cheapest "the wii" and on that point alone units will sell. and the best place to sell a console like that is harvey norman.

of course im generalising and im often wrong.

and do you want to know why harvey norman makes demands on suppliers. because they buy them about 6000 at a time, and i think that's reasonable to expect a discount. you know, you go somewhere and say "how much if i buy 2?". 6000 people.

Obviously they crossed some sort of line, because they srsly pissed off those Nintendo guys hey? I wonder why HN decided they would demand a better cut for their bulk sales than all the other big fat retailers like Target, Kmart, Myer, Grace Bros. etc who somehow managed to come to the table with Nintendo.

Their buyers musta been on crack or something that day.

Also:

of course im generalising and im often wrong.

no i am

im pretty sure it would of gone something like this;

hn - your last console sucked balls in the sales, so we want a bigger cut this time, and due to the increase in profit we make we will tell our sales staff to sell more of your console
nintendo - haha gtfo. *points to door*
hn - you will regret this.
nintendo - haha gtfo *points to door*
hn walks out with there balls in there hands singing something from west side story, then they go home and f*** there hot wives and molest there 4 year old daughters.

im almost certain thats exactly how it went down.

the only downside is the stupid name

weee? i want to buy some wee

surely itd sell better if it had a nicer, simpler name without the double meaning

we wanna wii wanna wii wanna wii, if you dont stop the bus we'll do it on the bus
we wanna wii wanna wii

and do you want to know why harvey norman makes demands on suppliers. because they buy them about 6000 at a time, and i think that's reasonable to expect a discount. you know, you go somewhere and say "how much if i buy 2?". 6000 people.

Why should HN get a better cut than other places though? HN wouldn't be the only place that buy 6000 of any item at a time.

please for the love of god groydis LEARN TO SPELL THEIR FFS

hey groydis i worked at ge too, in feds
9months as a debt collector was enough to steal my soul forever :(

after i quit i went and bought my 360 on a creditline account though haha

this is how it works, i work at harvey's i hate it pretty much all the time, but it has its ok moments. any way we get paid an hourly rate, and we also get commission. now obviusly when a product has higher margin than another product, were goin to talk out of our ass and convince the customer to buy the product over another one. if we had got the Wii and at a lower buy price than the other retailers, we would have obviusly been more inclined to sell it to most ppl over the 360. The more margin a product has the more i can go uno wat bcos i like u so much i can nock say this much off it if u buy it today. other retailers cant do that, also other retailer's staff arent on commission i think only myer's is maybe. and you would be surprised the amount of young folk who come in and buy consoles off us, espially the 360. so in closing i personally dont care if we stock the wii or not, but im just given use an insite as to why Harvey's think that the expect more margin.

summary (more margin, the more we sell it, the more money we make, the more money the supplier makes)

nintendo dont usually bring in much stock to Aus, so it wont hurt at all.

EB/JB/Indies will snap up the rest.

Harveys will backpedal.

The theme song for the ad should totally be gonads and strife

the more we sell it, the more money we make, the more money the supplier makes

Assuming that the supplier couldnt sell it elsewhere for more money.

edit: why dont nintendo just sell it to HN for $1, going by your logic they would make billions!

last edited by Bah at 23:28:37 07/Nov/06

nintendo, why the f*** would you bother.

you missed my point bah, the difference between a customer goin to kmart and choosing between a wii and a 360 is. that they dont have sales-people they have assistance, they walk in there and go i want one of these (and bcos the staff arent affected bcos there not on commish they dont care. at harvey's we sell people stuff based on the customers needs, and also the profit in the product. were on commision so we can sway a customers opinion in order to make a sale more profitable.

Going by his spelling and grammer i'd say they lose billions.

Ah so that would explain why Harvey Norman staff are such annoying f***s, Stalking you through the store at the off chance of a sale.

^^ I dunno, I go to harveys for my photo paper (it's close to my house) and I'm usually in & out of there without anyone comming and talking to me. Hell I was wandering around for ages the other day looking for rechargable batteries and no one came to pester me I had to go looking for someone because they'd hidden all the batteries :(

going by the last photo i saw of you, its probably because you look like you dont have any money

All I know about HN is that I get a lot of customers who threaten to go there when they don't get what they want... and a lot of customers who tell me how much they hate hn.

at harvey's we sell people stuff based on the customers needs

don't you mean on what has the better margin for the salespeople? isn't that what you just said in your previous post..

were goin to talk out of our ass and convince the customer to buy the product over another one.

That doesn't sound like servicing the customer's needs, but hey, im not getting paid commission.

never had a prob with hardlys... Given me unbeatable discounts and good service for years.

that they [kmart] dont have sales-people they have assistance,

Generally, the assistants at kmart know as much, if not more, about their products that the “sales people” at hn do.

at harvey's we sell people stuff based on the customers needs

Wow, that’s great, I always thought that hn tried to do …

were on commision so we can sway a customers opinion in order to make a sale more profitable.

… oh

at harvey's we sell people stuff based on the customers needs

HA! what a crock. I remember plodding around HN's for some stupid reason and overhearing a convo between a customer and a sales dude. The customers were your standard ma and pa and wanted a computer to do a bit of MYOB and the internets. He was trying to talk up a high end computer, with a $500 video card in it...

people need to exercise the EB price match guarantee more

it rocks.


harveys is good for some things, especially when i knew staff that worked there

but all in all, the only major thing i bought from harveys was a black ipod because the apple store lied to me and said there were only white ones available.

Generally, the assistants at kmart know as much, if not more, about their products that the “sales people” at hn do.

I dunno what other HNs are like but the dudes in the computer section at HN at Indro are always really helpful and surprisingly clued in about everything there. I actually buy most of my (little/casual) computer stuff from HN (including games) these days. It's slightly more expensive but a) it's across the road and b) they have awesome range

fodz is the only cool dude runnin the shiz at HN indro these days.

some of the guys at the indro one have been pretty rude/patronising to me before, and the worst one for computer stuff is HN oxley

I used to buy at HN a lot more then I would since they fired Pete.

is it just me or does HarveyN have the biggest rip-off computer prices in brisbane.

I mean I lol when I see they want over $1200 for a generic sempron.