It's a done deal: Dell puts an end to all 140 US mall kiosks
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 30th 2008 12:13PM
posted Jan 30th 2008 12:13PM
[Image courtesy of NotebookReview]
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Great news for people who want to order stuff direct from dell without paying sales tax.
like this guy
Have you proven this? Dell will do what they can do to say they have a "presence" in those states. Damn corporations.
According to a former kiosk employee on the other Dell kiosks closing post, tax will still be charged. WTF???
Just because you buy onling does not mean that you do not have to pay tax, it simply means that the retailer does not have to charge you for tax. Technically you are required to file this purchase on your taxes at the end of the year, however I'd guess that most don't. Dell does however charge tax now when you purchase something online unless you have a Tax ID for exemption.
My friend works for the internal revenue service (IRS). Why do people say this? You do not have to claim sales tax. If you do, you are giving the state a "gift". Then go for it
Sorry but 140 stores ain't shit... you can say "Oh, well what will the employees think!?" I say, they'll have to think about which job they'll be applying to next...
Dell is already in big chains and if they didn't see this coming, shame on them for being naive... and shame on the people that think they won't be paying sales tax in the US at all!
Dell would be much better off in the Big Box Marts than having these kiosks. First of all, paying people to be in them is expensive. Placing equiptment in them is expensive. Renting space is expensive...
They'd be better off doing what Apple does. Run aggresive marketing campaigns and use all your money stocking your product to be sold.
yeah, the kiosks weren't ever a good investment. the problem was that having samples of all the crap you sell on a big desk in the middle of a mall doesn't really solve or offer anything. all the frustration of buying online and having to have it be shipped, and the occasional (reason I avoid best buy) representative that doesn't know anything and spews you a bunch of inaccurate rubbish and corporate slogans. On the plus side, i might be able to find some of those desk parts on the cheap at some type of online auction.
Yeah, cause it's not like there's a physical place where apple sells its stuff exclusively and has to pay people who work there, pay for the hardware displayed and pay for the real estate.
To respond to your post, it cost $750/ month to rent the space in my mall. We had five employees who made on average $16.50/hr for 24-40 hours a week. We got product paid for by advertising on Dellivision and other outlets. That equals free.
We did, on average, $64,500K a week! Our Profitability was through the roof. Pleas explain how the kiosk business was a bad idea. The only thing that killed the kiosks is the fact that HP is killing Dell in market share. Dell believes that they can make up the gap by throwing out crappy systems that are not upgraded at all.
Dell is big in China. The Chinese perfer to buy DELL or HP (because they are American brands) rather than SONY and they even much perfer it to Chinese no-name brands.
I lived in Shanghai on business for over 2 years. The Chinese LOVE Dell and alot of hiring of techs is done by Dell in their top universities. China is a huge market if you can effectively serve them.
Pfffff...sorry Dell's market share in China is anemic to be kind. Nothing like America, where they lead in overall marketshare.
This doesn't surprise me. Look at all the people around the kiosk, oh wait, it's just an employee.
I honestly don't get it. If I understand it correctly, you still didn't walk away with a computer, right? They just helped you order the computer? ANd you still had to wait?
Death to the infiDells?
Damn outsourcing! Now all our kiosks are going to foreign countries!
Where will all the recently laid off Mortgage Brokers and Realtors go work now?
You asked a question I rarely hear.
After the subprime mortgage collapse, most "mortgage brokers" ended up getting laid off or fired. I worked in that buiz with a friend but I was smart enough to get retrained and graduate with an M.S. degree. He didn't even get a Bachelors.
In the buiz, we were getting STUPID Commission checks. 30% of a broker fee (up to 50%) . Our checks for the month were usually over $4000 (sometimes over $10,000) depending on how many loans we closed.
NOW ITS ALL OVER.
My friend works 7 - 7Pm 7 days a week for the NYC DEP.
I assumed after the collapse, brokers would resort to "short sale" scams. Problem is, no one can get mortgages anymore unless their credit is substantial.
@Flashpoint
maybe if you had pushed through so many loans to questionable borrowers, there wouldn't have been a collapse in the first place
How will my grandparents buy a new computer now!?
They're going to call me and have me order it. That's how. Damn you, Dell!
Is it just their kiosks or are they also closing their full size mall "stores".
I am a (now) former Dell Direct Store employee. Dell gave no warning what so ever that we would be losing our jobs. I was called while in school a few hours ago and told to get on a conference call, in it they just pretty much said "you're fired". Not only did Dell's 9 months temporary-to-hire employees (such as myself) get the boot, but the Dell hired employees are gone too. Even up to my boss' boss' boss.....all gone. The only idea anyone had that this was going to happen was another kiosk in my region got a notice from their mall security office about staying open that night to remove the kiosk itself....last night someone I work with heard about that, and leaked it to engadget, that is where the other engadget post came from.
Dell gave no warning at all that we would be losing our jobs....the kiosks themselves were removed BEFORE we had any notice that we are fired.....bulls**t, pure bull*t.
Tell us how you really feel.
If anyone needed further confirmation that Dell is evil, this is it.
I feel for you. It sucks really.
To be fair though, Dell had to do this. And they soon will have to do a lot more. Dell is not in the position they were once in; on top and unchallenged. HP has mounted a worldwide assault on dell that's huge. Even in the US, Dell's home ground, HP is no.2 by only the smallest of margins.
Dell's product line, specifically build-quality on the products seeing the highest sales growth (Notebooks), is far from stellar. Add to that the eroding market share due to competition in the PC market as well as the steady migration away from Windows to macs (granted, in its infancy stage now), does not bode well.
In addition, the downturn in the markets recently and fears of recession has put most government and corporate plans to upgrade systems on hold, putting further pressure on Dell as those are its bread-and-butter clients.
All these, collectively, makes me wonder why it took them this long to do this in the first place, especially considering their reactive-move against HP to put products in mainstream retail channels. This news really should not come as a shock, but I do feel for you that at least they should have been more forthcoming with their employees. But considering how forthcoming they generally are with their customers, are you really that surprised?
Get used to this stuff, with the economy slowing more of this is going to happen. Funny thing most younger people have never really gone through a downturn in the economy and have no idea that big companies will just walk in during the day and tell everyone thanks for all your hard work, but we don't need you.
OMG, I feel so sorry for you. What will you ever do now without this amazing career as a kiosk salesperson?
Ohhh wait...you're in luck, I heard the T-Mo kiosk is hiring at the other wing of the mall.
This is standard protocol for any business, especially little sideshows like kiosks. Even major franchisees are called by corporate to say, "you're store's closing at 1pm today for good. balance your tills before you leave."
It sucks, but be lucky that you're just a kid and not one of the higher-ups who counted on the money for a living.
Anyone who buys anything from a mall Kiosk is an idiot. I know, that's where I bought my old phone service from. Granted, it was a nice way to look at three different plans from three different companies, but they screwed up EVERYTHING on the order.
nice! :(
so how many are unemployed, statring tomorrow?
i hate that all those big companies are doing that for the sake of better profit *gr*
same goes for nokia and the planned shutdown of their german factory!
Welcome to America. I guess that's what companies are supposed to do.
each kiosk had an average of 6 employees times the 150 stores. Then you add in the middle management, it comes close to 1000 people plus or minus that now have no jobs.
But, honestly, do you think that Dell actually has an obligation to continue employing those people in an unprofitable environment? The business model that they tried failed. I feel sorry for the people laid off, but I don't think that Dell is evil for doing it.
No one said that they are evil. It's just not the proper way of ending a job contract, don't you think? ;)
Blah, blah, I'm sick and tired of hearing you Germans complaining about Nokia closing that factory. Get over it, Germany's not cheap, and you know it. What do you expect? Nokia produces where it pays to do it because *you* want great and *cheap* phones!
Companies do this all of the time all over the world. It's called economics.
yeah sure andrew. the plant made profit ;) and they were almost as cheap as that new crap factory in romenia :-p
I recently was part of the layoff, its hard to beleive because I was just in college trying to make an extra easy buck, now this, shows you how sad the economy is getting and how Much Michael Dell really cares. Guess I will head to apple.
Is this the same Tony Weiss from CompUSA? We see how well the execs from that company did with Comp, Tony's been gone from there for a while (although CompUSA was well on it's way down at that time). Nice to see him jacking up someone else's livelihood.
good cuz those things are annoying as hell
dude, you're getting a pink slip.
good cuz those things are annoying
What does this mean for Alienware kiosks?
First, I feel for all of you. I've been there myself at least 8 times in 6 years. You know, back when tech companies were dropping like flies.
However, anyone who thinks that there is any loyalty from an employer is naive. I've been in the tech field for over 20 years and there's never been a "oh yea, just to let you know, in a few days/weeks you're going to have to find another job".
NO Employer will keep an employee they are going to get rid of for longer than it takes to tell them goodbye.
There are all sorts of reason, and not just company sided. Imagine the worry you'll have knowing you're going to be let go.
If they told you in advance, at the least, you might screw off, not do any work while getting paid, at the worst, you might decided to rob them blind, bad mouth the company to customers or even hurt the employee who didn't lose their job.
This is standard operating procedure people. Quit your whining, accept that it'll happen again sometime in your life and go find another job.
Oh and for all you who did get canned... How many of you have left without notice? Do you honestly think it's ok for you to do this but not the employer?
Welcome to the real world.
Never noticed them. Then again, I hate going to the mall and having to deal with teeny boppers, and thugs wannabes.
Right, who goes to the mall anymore? I can buy all my stuff online and usually avoid the tax.
@Fred
Ever need to try on clothes/shoes before you buy them? Or buy a suit? Good luck buying those online. Where I live we don't have to pay tax for clothes anyway.
Actually, I do buy clothes online because I am how "Big" and "Tall" (cursed by genetics, and McDonalds). But I see your point, still I wouldn't buy my clothes from a kiosk either.
Why would any one buy from a Dell Kiosk any ways. Think about it, you basically have some guy up sale you on a product(s) you can't take home. You have to wait for it to be shipped to you. That's stupid. I'm in a mall to buy stuff to have it in my hand, not shipped to me later. If I want to order stuff off the Internet I can do that myself at home or at work. Glad their gone, waste of space, time and money.
Engadget readers are tech savvy enough to find the computer they need and be satisfied with that purchase by just looking online and reading reviews. at my years working at a Dell Direct Store Kiosk I've helped thousands of customers who had questions and concerns or just wanted to see the product, or really had no idea what they should buy in a computer.
Even customers looking for high-end products had specific questions about things Dell doesn't detail on the website, and no best-buy employee is going to ever know the answers to any of those questions, but a rep at a Dell Kiosk would, because he loves the product and knows it inside and out.
Most people bought because we had 10% off coupons. It covered tax plus more. And it stacked with Employee Purchase Program.
I'm now a former Dell employee too. So let me clear something up about what we did at the kiosk. We were there to make sure that people had what they needed to enjoy a system. We weren't there to rape anyone out of their hard-earned pennies. There are a LOT of people that would buy 1GB of RAM to run Vista. That's not a good computer by any means. I worked really hard explaining what the hardware and software would do for people and what they really needed for a great performance.
Now that I've tried to explain that, remember: 1,000 people are out of jobs. Jobs that they thought were secure yesterday. So whether you believe the kiosks were pointless or not, show some humanity for people that are now in some trouble.
For their performance: kiosks have been operating for 24 fiscal quarters, missing goal on only 3 of those. We have been the face of Dell for 6 years and deserve better treatment than what we got. I understand enough of the business world to say that it MAY have been a good call, but how they did it was unprofessional, unkind and made everyone feel unappreciated.
Hey Kurt, I'm sorry you lost your job and thanks for letting us know more about your job. I however think it's perfectly understandable that they closed down the kiosks. If anything they should have gone the way of Apple - and at least tried that. I doubt it would have worked as great but it could have saved your job.
Now, as for the 1000 people you say lost their jobs. How many of those actually worked full time and how many were just students with part-time jobs?
Well one of the guys I work with just came back from the national guard, full time with Dell. He's married with two kids and that was their only form of income. Now if he falls behind on bills and his credit suffers, his military clearance will be taken away.
One of the regional managers in New Jersey had just bought a new house.
I am not as dependant on that income as the rest of my team was. So it's not the job or the money that upset me. Just how it was handled. I really loved that job. It was a respectable thing to do where I got the chance to interact with people, help them make an informed decision and even follow up with them weeks or months later and hear both the good and bad.
Hey bro i am also a former dell employee as of 12am last night(1-29-08) i got a phone call at 12 a.m. from our Regional manager telling us that we were all getting fired. I think it is bull shit that these morons on this message board are putting us down becuase we sold good computers from a kiosk. Over 1000 people were fired, alot of us including myself have families. I am only 24 so I can find a job easy but for the older reps i feel bad for becuase alot of people are looking for younger people to work for them. All and all i think it is bullshit what dell did to all of us hard working employees
I guess Mitt Romney must have given Mr.Dell his gameplan - Screw everyone you can while trying to make a profit. Always the same with these big coportion-types; one day your fine, the next day "F*** you". National City Bank did the same thing about 3 months ago, but that was 9000 people who woke up that day without a job.
Oh....now I understand why NCB sucks now. It's because the employees were pissed! I had to move my 15 year account because of their crappy service! Well, fine with me...
In my local mall, the Dell booth stood right in front of the Palm Store.
Dell can move right into the Palm store after Palm store is gone within a few steps, sounds convenient?
Actually the kiosks did amazing business, I'm now a former sales rep. This month so far I pulled in 38k in revenue during hell month. This is consistent with my 40k rev per mo average.
Now, I'm just screwed and the customers have no way of contacting a person face to face.
Dude, you're getting a Dell... pink slip.
One can see both sides here.
For Dell, they failed at doing what they wanted, or they has a better business plan to move to. Apple shows you how to make money at retail, and it isn't a kiosk in a mall. It's directing (massaging?) the whole user experience. At an Apple store you can take photos or shoot movies and edit them. Or wrong a song in Garageband. There are free classes, and Geniuses can fix your Mac on the spot most of the time. With a Dell Kiosk, you have a human catalog who can give you good answers. That's only a small part of what Apple figured out by building a whole store inside a warehouse and testing and testing until they got it perfect. And only then did they actually build a real store.
So Dell had to make a move. Fine. That's legitimate. People get laid off all the time. Whether their jobs just disappear or end up going to Outsourceistan. That's the way modern day Darwinistic capitalism works.
Now, what they did wrong - from almost any perspective - is not give their employees a few weeks' pay to give them some time to find new jobs. Their loyalty deserves a little bit of appreciation. But unless Dell did this, they are going to get a black eye and will find it harder to recruit people in the future if they ever try a retail situation again. It's like the Silicon Valley company about five years ago that handed out pink slips at the Christmas party. It wasn't the laying people off that made them evil. It's the crass, insensitive way they did it. So if Dell didn't do anything to cushion the blow for 1,000 people, most of which no doubt did their jobs faithfully, then they deserve to be ranked amongst the worst companies to work for lists.
Actually, those new to computers, grandparents, noobs in general. the kiosk was a great place to go..people actually explained and helped them get a good machine verses a 499. celeron wally world special that gives u nothing...many customers will be disappointed and miss the kiosk and will have to talk to mike in India to get there questions anwswered...of course they won't understand what mike is saying..
of course...getting a pink slip makes me wanna just love Michael...NOT...lol
Holy crap that kiosk is by far the ugliest thing i've seen in 2008.
Any corporation, if they have a presence in the state being shipped to, is REQUIRED by law to charge tax. Not Dell's fault...blame the government.
on a different note, if that is the case, then why does reliance india call charge sales tax on our purchases ? they are located in india ... they dont have a local presence in AZ ... still they charge 8.25% sales tax.
None of the sales calls go to India, only tech support.
That's why Mitt Romulan is would NEVER make a good president!
I found the Kiosks were useful. I would never order a laptop or monitor without seeing and touching it first with my own eyes (especially since Dell's website does a sub-par job in presenting their products, compared to Apple for example).
Using an article about Dell mall kiosks to bash Mitt Romney? Go somewhere else...
Romney saved a failing office supply company and turned it in to multi-billion dollar enterprise. That company? Staples.
He certainly can't do worse than the boob we have in the Oval Office right now, but I digress.
I *NEVER* saw anyone at those Dell mall kiosks checking out anything except the big screen monitors and TVs. The whole mall kiosk thing was a disaster. Anyone who didn't see this coming needs their head examined...
Am gonna head to the mall and tell them the bad news.
I work in a Direct Kiosk in Australia, and at the moment Dell isn't in big brand shops here and I dont think that will happen for quite some time as the shops with computers here and over saturated and the staff at most of these shops have no clue.
We do fantastic business being the first foray into a semi-retail presence for Dell, but if I were to wake up to no job tomorrow i'd be very upset Dell would have planned this for a long time and could have hinted so staff could start looking elsewhere, which is what happened when they moved a kiosk here in Australia, I suppose it is the American work ethic.
be warned, it started small with wal-mart here
I guess a lot more of my users are going to be asking me for advice on how to order their new computers. Ugh. I may support desktops day in and day out, but I've never bought a brand new one. MacBook (07), UMPC (06), Tablet PC (04) and laptop (01), yes. I build/rebuild my desktops. I'm better at fixing what the Powers decided the user should have at work; the Dellies had to have been better at getting past the the confused looks and helping the user figure out what he/she should have at home (I can't make them all buy Tablet PCs!). The kiosk-keepers surely wouldn't have started screaming when a kind, hard-working individual said, "So I have to get XP?" after they'd explained for five minutes that Word is a part of Office and doesn't come with Vista. I'm not, you know, saying that I personally know of anyone who would lose it like that...do I hear my feed reader calling me?
And you believe 64,000 a week is big money when you are talking about a multi billion dollar company?
I suppose you believe DELL was reproducing those gains everywhere?
We were in the top ten as far as kiosk sales, but the point I was trying to make was that the kiosks were profitable and were not pointless. Either way it is a moot point since they no longer exist.
Actually the kiosks made a lot of money for dell, not as much compared to phone and online sales but still, do you know how many people bought their first computer off of me? They had no clue, and we did "up sale" but our up sales consisted of, sorry this $399 computer is not going to run CAD well at all for you sir.
I have also setup a web forum if any of us former reps are looking here http://www.yoursainthere.com for us to get together and find jobs etc.
As to how many fired today Based on our last DRUMS report and figuring managers and operations people who also lost their jobs today. 800 or so.
I think I need to clarify a bit....I am not mad at Dell about losing my job, I am mad about how they did it. I mean, many people have spent years at Dell, and with no warning, Dell just tells them all to pretty much go **** themselves....With the fact that they removed the kiosks before telling employees about anything, you know there was some employees coming in to work just like any other day just to walk into thier mall and see that thier place of work....is gone. I didn't even get a notice that there was going to be a conference call today, the one where they told us we were fired....someone else I worked with found out and contacted me.
I worked at various DDS locations throughout my tenure with Dell, and I have to echo one important thing mentioned here that people are not getting:
The kiosks were not designed for the tech guru. They were designed for the average home customer that didn't know what to click on when they went into the configurator. And in that regard they were EXTREMELY helpful to customers.
At the locations I was the Lead of and the others I worked at, most of the staff were knowledgeable and engaging. However, of course there were always exceptions to the rule. Spherion, the temp agency Dell worked with, was often notorious for hiring bad reps who were there because the pay was much better and the work was much easier than working a Best Buy.
Many of the Dell employees, especially the Dell-badged reps, deeply cared about their jobs and their kiosks they worked at. They did not scream "Apple sucks!" and thought the "No one wants an Apple for Halloween" was funny but not necessarily the direction Dell should have went (even though Apple's whole campaign is bashing companies like Dell, but that's neither here nor there). In fact, if you were a GOOD sales rep you'd know that you'd get a lot more sales if you didn't outright bash the competition, but complimented in addition to giving them a downside, as well as recommending your own product. Yes it sounds strange but it did work and we were all proud to wear the "Dell" logo on our chests.
When they announced Walmart, we were startled. When they announced Staples, we were scared. When they announced Best Buy, we shit our pants. Yet through this, management echoed that there would always be a need for our type of sales, and even if the kiosk did "change" in format that the good ones would be brought forward. So we strove to be the "good ones" if something did go down, and we were reassured and went about our job. In the end though, EVERYONE was let go, up to high-level management, marketing, ops, and training. No one was brought forward - not the good ones, the bad ones, or the ones in between.
Kiosks OUTSIDE the US may be safe, but other positions are not. Dell is in the process of a phased shutdown of their Edmonton, Alberta, Canada shutdown. 900 jobs are being terminated locally, with Alberta's hot economy and the increased value of the Canadian dollar offered as excuses.
It would seem Dell is undergoing a significant restructuring for supply chain and customer service operations.
Every lay off is pretty much silent until it happens. Face it, no one likes losing a job and giving them a few days to plot revenge just isn't a smart idea. It sucks, but it is the world we live in now.
But Dell badged folks shoud have got some kind of package, I would hope. Temps, I can understand, it is the nature of the job, but otherwise, please tell me you guys got something.
ya know when u think about it,dell lost when they fired the dude that got stoned, and busted for a little amount of weed in ny city he was thier main pr person