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PC World dragging down Dixons' sales

By Barry Collins

Posted on 2 Sep 2009 at 09:17

The financial gloom shows no sign of lifting at the Dixons Stores Group, which has reported a 6% fall in sales year-on-year.

The computing arm of the business is performing particularly poorly. UK computing sales were down 17% on the same quarter in 2008, although Dixons claims group revenues remain "slightly" ahead of expectations.

Business sales in PC have been hit particularly hard, according to the company.

The company also claims its ongoing refit of Dixons stores is partially responsible for the poor sales. More than 100 of the company's stores have now been spruced up, with a further 60-80 refits in the pipeline.

Dixons claims the store facelifts are helping to boost sales. "Given the challenging environment, this is an encouraging start to the year," group chief executive John Browett claims. "Our Nordic business is performing strongly, the UK transformation continues on plan with the refurbished stores continuing to outperform and the Italian turnaround is starting to deliver."

Nevertheless, Browett says the company remains "cautious about the economic outlook".

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User comments

Facelifted PC Worlds are awful!

The re-vamped PC World stores are great if you want to buy a low to mid-range telly, but are useless for anything PC related. I went there yesterday to get some Dual Layer blank DVDRs, but they didn't have any. And even with single layer discs the shelves were almost bare.

With the store re-vamp they appear to halved the size of the computing bit, and filled the gap with an in-store Currys.

A dreadful place has actually been made worse. That's quite an achievement!

By PaulOckenden on 2 Sep 2009

I stopped using PC World about 2 years ago.

I pop in to my local store from time to time and nothing I have seen recently makes me want to return to shopping there.

By iwilson on 2 Sep 2009

I stopped using PC World about 2 years ago.

I pop in to my local store from time to time and nothing I have seen recently makes me want to return to shopping there.

By iwilson on 2 Sep 2009

I don;t care what the store looks like inside, PC World is too expensive, simple as that.

By a_byrne22 on 2 Sep 2009

But why would you

Seems to me the dixon group is reaping what they've sown. Their customer service is appalling, their sales staff don't know what they are talking about and getting any service at all is a struggle. Why would anyone buy anything from there?

By kurtnielsen on 2 Sep 2009

Maybe a name change?

Change the name to "Console, TV and Stationary World".

There's not much in the way of PC's on site. Certainly there is more floor space devoted to XBOX and PS3 than PC software or hardware.

With poor stock availability, high hardware prices (even compared to other retailers, let alone the web) and, let's face it, legendary bad customer support, why would anyone be shocked by this?

They REALLY need to look long and hard at what PC users want and expect, then aim to be the best at providing it, OR change their name to the above and continue circling the drain...

By cheysuli on 2 Sep 2009

Ripping off the unwary?

Us geeks know what it's all about and where to get good prices. But it's those who are less savvy are the ones who really suffer.
Laptop pricing tied to unneccessary and very expensive mobile contracts.
Insane prices on printer cartridges.
Even the basic stuff - spare mice & keyboards vastly overpriced.

By fribble on 4 Sep 2009

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