Life Lessons - A reminder not to take recommendations from salespeople

A salesperson would say anything to sell you what they have in stock. Surprise! Well, you are probably thinking that this is a no-brainier but when it comes down to it, most people still trust the opinions of salespeople. By most people, I mean me.

In my spare time, I take on some mystery shopping assignments because they offer good perks such as free groceries, free cosmetics etc. Some of them even offer you the opportunity to try out new technology which I also love.

Last Wednesday, I accepted an assignment which required me to visit several mobile phone shops and report on the performance of the salespeople. I was required to ask a salesperson for help with purchasing a new phone. I was supposed to record their top three recommendations and judge their overall approach.

On getting to the first store, the sales person recommended
the IPhone 8

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the Samsung Galaxy 8

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and the Google Pixel 2XL

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After visiting about two stores, I noticed that both salespeople had recommended the same three phones. When I got to the third store and realised that the salesperson was also recommending these three phones, I asked him to tell me the major difference between them. He told me that they all offered the same experience to the end user and that the only differentiator was brand preference or the use of accessories such as the Google home or Apple TV.

His explanation seemed logical to me, I mean, why else would three stores recommend the same combination of products? I was sold on the idea and based on the recommendations of the salespeople, I established in my mind that these were the best phones I could get.
This was until I visited my fourth store. This time, instead of recommending what I had now started to call “the cooly trinity”, the salesperson went a totally different route and recommended the iPhone SE, the LG G6 and the Pixel. The salesperson insisted that the SE was just a repackaged version of the IPhone 6. She said that the SE was even better than the iPhone 6 and could compete with any new phones in the market.
What? What happened to the cooly trinity? Why is she not following the trend? Well, while browsing through the store I realised that they had run out of two members of the cooly trinity and instead of letting me know that there were two other contenders which they currently do not have in stock, she preferred to take advantage of my ignorance and try to unload the antiquated iPhone SE on me.

Hmm..I went back to the other stores and took a more detailed look at their inventory. Just like I suspected, the phones that were recommended to me were done based on what they had in stock. I quickly checked gsmarena.com to verify the specifications and contrary to what the salesperson had earlier told me, the phones were not similar. There were clear differences especially in the iPhone 8

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Another thing that struck me was that the last salesperson was so nice about it. So, if I hadn’t previously visited three stores, I would have totally bought the iPhone SE from that salesperson.

This experience reminded me of what I am sure 92% of all adults already know. Do not take recommendations from salespeople. Do your own research and don’t make impulsive buys. Feel free to call me naive or ignorant. I welcome the feedback :)

Thanks for stopping by. Chat tomorrow.