Don't Listen to the Convenience Store Guy

What turned out as an inventory addition expedition for Phone Card Depot ended up as a "Don't Listen to the Convenience Store Guy" lesson.

The moral of this story: There are more resources available for calling card purchases on-line than in-store. More resources lead to more informed buying decisions and a better calling card purchase.

Today we sent one of our purchasing reps out to look for some of the most popular prepaid phone cards on the market being used to call China from Canada. Phone Card Depot selected two of Toronto's largest Asian malls to conduct our study: Pacific Mall and First Markham Place.

First Markham Place
Posing as a customer, our rep asked the variety stand operator at First Markham Place, "which is your best calling card to from Toronto to China", to which he responded "they are all the best". Confused, we then asked which of the calling card has no hidden fees? The stand owner told our rep that all of the cards had no hidden fees. Yet, they carried 20/20 calling card (see "is your vision 20/20" to see the large amount of hidden fees on this card).

Rep: "What about this one?"

Store Clerk: "See, it says here...no connection fee"
Rep: "This card has many other hidden fees"
Store Clerk: "no...no hidden fees"
Rep: "Okay, Great!"

Pacific Mall
Our Phone Card Depot rep then moved on to the Great Mall of China: Pacific Mall in Markham, Ontario. Of the calling cards offered by this store, our rep knew that CiCi offered the best rates and no-fee pricing structure to China of all calling cards at this booth. The store rep was very anti-CiCi trying to push us towards the 20/20 card again. The push to this card is because the profit margin on 20/20 is double that of the CiCi card.

In summary, don't listen to the convenience store guy. Do your research online, before you purchase a calling card. If you are reluctant to purchase online, perhaps our Safe Holiday Shopping Guide will help.


Regards,

Phone Card Depot
"Your Path of Least Resistance to Long Distance"

Tags: calling card online, buy calling card online, online, call china, first markham place, pacific mall, convenience store, variety store, phone card, 20/20 calling card