Xiaomi has closed down the first and only Mi Store in the UK
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
RIP, I miss you guys and sorry to hear that. I was another guy in that store and I am not surprised either.
I hope everyone will find a better opportunity! Peace! 😉
You mean hotukdeals, right? 😉
Same n Chile. Seems that all these stores are not the brand itself, but people using franchises to sell officially in their name. This end up with prices higher than particular individual importing and reselling devices from Ali.
What are the chances of them opening in other UK locations ?
Oh sure, Xiaomi probably sells quite a few in the UK. I wasn’t saying rich countries don’t buy cheap phones but rather the market for cheap phones is diminished.
Thanks man..I appreciate the gesture
Greed of the distribution manager trying to make more money from the euro to pound conversion..keep a bigger cut and pay Xiaomi only what the needed
You’re right…marketing budget for Xiaomi is miniscule compared to Apple and Samsung..and in country like the UK,.thats a massive thing.
In the store we were constantly asking for a better marketing presence generally and for the store.
The actual marketing team came up with shit film ties in deals..( Xmen dark phoenix,.Terminator Dark Fate) two of the worse performing films of the year, That was their best roll of the dice!
No-one knew we were here unless you happen to be in Westfield or you follow tech news.
From the general public it was ‘ive never heard of this brand but it looks like Apple, who are you?’
After 6 or so weeks of no store deliverys it was the next best option for you as a customer as we were at the point we suspected we weren’t gonna get stock anytime soon or not at all..sorry about that
Plus the marketing dept in Spain fucked up by pricing higher than the ‘local’ market..that was the greed of the distribution manager
lol i wonder who you are
So I was an employee at the store from the opening day until the close.
This is what really happened despite the statement about adjusting retail strategy..which is utter bullshit.
Xiaomi uses other companies as distribution outlets which i guess you get a small cut of.
The company they used for the UK was MyTech Retail based out of Spain..,where they run the 20 or so Xiaomi stores there.
The problem started early on as the guy in charge thought he could apply Spanish working practices ( 12 hour shifts with a 20 min break) because it was his “rule” for Saturdays and not in our contracts.
The commision structure was ridiculous as targets were based off of Spain’s top performing stores and target figures were copied,.not converted into GBP.
We had constant clashes with what we knew as Londoners to provide the British public and what the Spain team thought was appropriate.
Logistics,.HR all of it was being done from Spain it was a joke. Stock became randomly inconsistent as they relied on a stock algorithm for sales data rather than ask.
But not knowing what to allocate for London..we’d get the overstock from the Spanish stores…Popular items but not specifically for us so no clear idea of what works,.from day 1!!!,.. Trust me..it was a fucking mess,.embarrassing to explain and disheartening to boot.
They underestimated a lot,.and not the market…they didn’t set up the store properly leaving it to someone else.
The last few months we were telling people to get stuff online because we went from weekly stock deliveries to not having got one in 6-8 weeks.
We as staff suspected a grave outcome but we didn’t hear anything and as of 3 weeks ago the main guy assured our store manager our jobs were safe.
We found out on Tuesday through a goddamn whatsapp message were made redundant.
Nothing official from Xiaomi or MyTech…assholes
The potential was there..we had a good team and momentum was good at the start.
Xiaomi as a company had no idea how bad it was at the end…They let the dude let his UK part of his distribution company slide into insolvency and then fucked off without a word.
Im a big fan of tech for decades and I thought Xiaomi was a decent company to work for,.even if we did work for them indirectly.
But they let a team clueless about the UK market,. run the London operation purley based on his track record of the amount of stores in Spain.
The didnt care as long as the majority of his outfit made money…
Brexit and coronavirus have played their part and they might try to blame that but that wasn’t the complete picture whatsoever.
Ive tried to contact Xiaomi directly but to no avail..from their perspective its nothing to do with them even when they put out bullshit statements to Android authority.
Im sorry to those who visited and enjoyed the store,.at its best we had a good range of products and as staff who were into tech we enjoyed talking with people about the tech in the phones and what may be coming etc.
We did work for commision but after weeks of not getting any stock with no information we were resigned to telling you the next best option which was Amazon or other online outlets.
The brand and what it produces is good,..the retail distribution model is what needs work.
For example anything ordered from [mi.com/uk](https://mi.com/uk) comes from a warehouse in France which supplies Europe. There is no stock in the UK as changing the EU stock to have 3 pin plugs in the box costs just that much more to facilitate so they were like fuck it give em EU stock and toss them a 3 pin adapter.
But like I said the Xiaomi execs that were in the UK never got involved,.they just let the distribution manager get on with it.
It also came down to a dispute between corporate and distributor about who should pay the UK income tax bill and Westfield London rental space..I think both thought it should be the other..debts ran up into hundreds of thousands because of that..and we paid the price.
Again to those who had a hard time of late with the store..we weren’t being assholes we just didnt know a damn thing and our jobs were possibly on the line.
The only thing we could do was say get the product somewhere else and we were despondent at our treatment and lack of news about stock deliveries (or lack thereof) after 6-8 weeks,.and constantly saying ‘out of stock’.
Xiaomi is hugily popular already. But everyone is importing the phones from Chinese re-sellers sites. Xiaomi phones dominate on sites like HotDealsUK. But very few are paying the extra prices that Xiaomi jacks up officially via official retail.
I worked there and I can tell you I’m not surprised at all, I saw this coming and it was one of the reasons why I left, I knew they had their days numbered.
Also what everyone fails to mention is that this store was not from Xiaomi, it was a franchise.
Plus there was barely any new stuff, maybe only phones.
My guess is
* High rent
* Low sales due to higher paid market (London is very wealthy)
Xiaomis biggest success has been in poorer EU nations not places like Norway. I think the British market could be huge for Xiaomi but it’d have to be outside of London where the difference between a £400 Xiaomi phone and £1000 iPhone is large. University cities would be sensible if they could get Mi books in stock.
Ofc because it’s Samsung. Xiaomi can’t do that.
Like every financial issue that’s going to occur over the next 2 years, the answer is Corona virus
Nah Samsung still makes a huge profit, when the rest of the 25million is sold at a discounted rate.
Not everything that happens is due to Corona
Hard disagree on looks. OneUI is Fisher Price looking garbage IMO.
Well. It’s a loss for the salesrep if it cause the loss of jobs
I get that not everyone wants to do it, but most Xiaomi phones have an abundance of custom roms available which solve most if not all of those issues.
I mean, you were looking at the product. If I were a salesperson I would naturally assume you were atleast interested in it.
Depends on the markets,when Xiaomi made inroads in India,their Redmi phones would always be out of stock and was possible to buy only in flash sales or offline for a premium. Now they have scaled up manufacturing of phones seeing the soaring demand for it.
Apart from software experience. OneUI is significantly better than MIUI in terms of looks, features, compatibility and _not being a buggy mess_.
>They messed up badly because UK consumers are crying out for options to buy a handset outright as opposed to locking into a contract
Honestly we’re kinda not? CarphoneWarehouse has competitive pricing, a large range of devices, and frequent sales/promos.
Between them and Amazon it’s pretty decent!
Maybe the store is more like a showroom where you can feel/touch the product and buy it online if you like it. I think the store should have remained open just for that purpose because customers need an opportunity to have a look at the product before buying.
Honestly the worst bit is he didn’t even figure out if I was wanting to buy it or not. Like the way you start that conversation is by telling me about the product? That’s how it normally happens?
Corona virus may have caused it ?
It’s a win win for Xiaomi either way. But I think it’s cool that they’re trying to help customers save some extra dollar
Yeah right that why I bought the non 5g version of mi mix 3 for 300 pounds brand new. Tell me which Samsung flagship I can find for the same price…
And that is the reason they are cheap. You are not paying for xiaomi state of mind. Samsung invest billions in their retailers in various coop marketing schemes. Most of the hundred bucks u pay to Samsung are to ensure it s the 1st thing u see when you surf the web or enter the store.
Same goes for RN8 pro
>they don’t hold too much stock.
That’s their whole thing. They’re not like Samsung that makes like 50 million units on new galaxy s model and then is fucked if it sells only 25 million for example. They make much, much smaller batches
Good. No need for physical stores in this day and age. Reduce overheads, reduce prices.
Do they have to? I thought it was pretty obvious.
Maybe he doesnt get comission
RIP. That was the only store i went to for in london. Cycled from Canary wharf to the Mi Store in 2 hours on a Boris Bike and then again for Christmas shopping the week before black Friday last year from Euston and got lost in Notting hill.
Even 9T non pro is a frigin’ steal, slightly better battery because of lower cpu, otherwise it’s the same phone. No competition in this price range as far as I know
Potential client: *comes to store*
Salesman: These products you see on display are cheaper in our online store, so don’t buy here!
Shouldn’t the salesman like convince you to *buy* product at store rather than telling you *yo it’s cheaper online*?
Yeah… I have 9t pro … It’s op
They haven’t though
The galaxy a51 costs the same as a MI 9T Pro and gets blasted by it in basically every single way
Simply they prefer to sell global from markets like gearbest or banggood. Not good marketing but it’s what it is.
Or they simply don’t produce that many?
I guess the profit margins being so small means they don’t hold too much stock.
Seems like xiaomi always have problems with stocks, went to get scooter for my brother, not in the stocks, went to get phone for my wife, not in the stocks, and when we asked when would they have it, they wouldn’t know.
I went once, just because I already happened to be in Westfield.
I looked at the Mi Mix 3 because I’d never seen one before. After about 30 seconds of looking the salesperson comes over to me and is like “oh that’s cheaper if you buy it online”
I mean… Dude…?
F
Stock levels were always non existent when I enquired via twitter. Not that mi.com is any better for stock levels or customer service though.
Stock levels were horrific when I went, didn’t even have umbrellas in stock…. Like really?
F
Yeah I guess it was more an introduction to Xiaomi in the UK and now they’ll just sell everything through mi.com and Amazon.
Doubt they were making the sales. I went to the shop 3 times and it was always fairly quiet. I guess they haven’t advertised enough to drive the foot traffic there.
Press F to pay respect bois and gals
they not saying why though
This is a shame , I never managed to get there unfortunately.
That’s a shame!