The Good Guys Should Be Renamed The Fantastic Guys

On Thursday night the missus and I went shopping for a vacuum cleaner. Our old Bosch has served us well but the motor is on the way out. It's noisy and a bit smelly. The Yellow Pages informed me that the only specialised vacuum cleaner sales company is Godfreys. Popped over to Belmont to visit their shop. They demonstrated a couple of Hoover units and although the missus was reasonably impressed she wasn't ready to make a purchase. Neither was I. Godfreys quite often has a sale whereby they offer $100 trade-in on any working model - I happened to throw this into the conversation so that he realised we weren't going to pay top dollar. The salesman, quite a helpful guy it must be said, showed us a piece of plastic worth about five dollars, which acted as a filter and stopped 99% of the rubbish actually getting into the vacuum cleaner bag/bagless dust collector. It just sits in between the pipes on the handle. Great idea but not worth the $49.90 it was shown to be.

We were just about to walk out of the shop when he offered to throw in the rather expensive filter for nothing. No, we still wanted to think about it. Then he came up with a final offer, tonight only, whereby he'd knock $100 off the price of the more expensive bagless vac that we were reasonably keen on. If he's that desperate for a sale we can deal with him later. My missus did tell him that if she bought a Hoover she would purchase it from his shop.

Jumped in the car and headed to Rick Hart but turned off to The Good Guys on the way. No Hoover in the store and that's because Godfreys has an exclusive deal with the company. I thought as much initially when I couldn't spot the brand in the shop. The saleslady who showed us the Dyson on display, which my missus was quite keen on, knew almost everything there is to know about the product. We were likely to be surprised at the amount of dust and dirt that would be collected on the first clean of the house. She even knew that Harvey Norman was having a sale on the same model and that The Good Guys would price match. What really surprised me was her admission that she didn't own a Dyson, she was just a sales person and that we should do our homework before committing to a purchase. Honesty, which was quite refreshing. And from a sales perspective she was aware of what her competitors were doing. Great business acumen.

We trundled down the road to Rick Hart, which just happens to be owned by Harvey Norman (I have a distinct dislike for this particular store as the sales reps are rude at times) and found that the same model was on sale, with the additional turbine head attachment, for $142 less. Checked out the features of different models from the brochure in store and agreed that this particular model was the one we wanted.

Straight back to The Good Guys to check out the price match promise. She spoke with her manager and discovered that the sale price was below cost but they would still match it. In fact they offered a further ten dollars off. The mantra of this company used to be, "Pay Less, Pay Cash", but they now offer the same price for Visa, not Amex, as cash. Bargain. We picked up a popcorn maker with the ten dollars that we'd saved.

My missus commented on the way home that she wasn't expecting to purchase a vacuum cleaner that night. Weighing up the facts that our vac was on the way out and that we'd found a Dyson at a spectacular price it didn't make any sense not to make the purchase. I might be a frugal bastard but I know great value on a quality product when I see it.

Assembled the unit at home and tried it on a small rug. Amazingly almost half of the collector was filled with dust, dirt and hair. Gobsmacked I was. So gobsmacked that I rang The Good Guys to pretend that I was disappointed. Then I let the saleslady know that I was disappointed that there was so much rubbish in our household carpet. She was rather glad that the Dyson worked for us. That girl will be a shop manager before too long. She has a great attitude towards customers. The Good Guys in Belmont - check it out.

I think that The Good Guys should be renamed The Fantastic Guys. Fantastic prices and service.