Putting Sixth Ave. In Perspective

Temiz family cheated a small IT vendor by using personal trust building and blocking invoices in the name of taking favors for few weeks then for few months ….slowly taking company’s guys directly when they felt now IT company may backout. IT Company owners got shocked to see the behavior of Temiz changing all of sudden…..and called them scruplous people….now lawsuite has been filed against Sixth Avenue Electronics by company

james barkley comments here that six ave found a new unethical partner. I see in other article on this site they are saying it is the notorious Broadway Photo. Has anyone details about this?

With all due respect Mr. Mann, either you are on the payroll at 6th Avenue, or you are “close” friends with someone at the company. Management is aloof and constantly lying to employees. Commissions are constantly cut or never paid. Accounting of commissions are never given out. When a question is asked, one receives “we’ll get back to you” response. the company does not care about it’s employees and treats them like serfs. I do not know of any employees who are not seeking work elsewhere. we are tired of working for crooks. Your article is a fluff piece based on no facts, or only facts given to you by our masters. Come to the the store and get both sides of the story as any good reporter would do.

Either most of you have never worked in retail, or you have never worked in more than 1 company. The things that are written in the other comments happen in EVERY privately owned company. My apartment building had rats for 6 months (and trust me the renters did everything possiable). If you ever work for a privatley owned company you will see/feel what was said below.

My question is, if it was SO bad, why did the employees stay, and why are still so many there?

Also, for the person that changed time cards, do you know that is illegal? Why were you doing it if it did not have a benefit to you? Was your bonus higher if you did that? You are just as much as fault as the next.

A company can only do to you what you let them do to you. If you did not like it, you could have walked out and gone to Best Buy, no?!

ALWAYS TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY… come on people.

My cousin works in a six ave store and the latest news is that supposedly they just paid the bank settlements off completely yesterday and are now out of debt. I dont really know the deatils. But also she heard that they are going to open up (or maybe reopen) a store soon. I dont know why they closed a bunch of stores just to open up again a few months later, maybe they just needed to sell the stores to pay off the bank lawsuit but anyways nowadays everyone just shops online not in stores, thats probably why they started having trouble in the first place. oh well, some people make it and some dont.

to the 7th ave commenter: if you need prove about the rat problem leave your email i will have no problem in sending you pics and email!!!!!

I’ve heard stories of how poorly some employees have been treated, but I have heard stories of employees being treated well also (I work for a competitor and have had coworkers leave for 6th Ave). What I can tell you is that most of the people that left for 6th Ave burned bridges, are not welcome back, and have ended up either quitting or being booted out of 6th Ave. When people say that you have to be a certain heritage to move up, or they hate the company culture with beat down meetings from corporate… this happens ANYWHERE. It shouldn’t, but is unfortunately a fact of life in most sales type positions. People are complaining about the company using defective tv’s/floor models for parts really don’t have good argument. Just because a part on a tv doesn’t work, doesn’t make all the other parts worthless… while I’m sure it was done for a profit motive, it’s also good for the environment (an unintended consequence I’m sure). I’ve walked into 6th Ave stores and I just don’t see what sets them apart… they are simply too big for “opportunistic buy” promotions on clearance models. This strategy works for smaller chains, but when you get to 20 stores… there just isn’t enough inventory out there to support that… which means you need to stand out on merits, like good customer service, or something like that. Apparently 6th Ave just isn’t good enough. When I saw them expanding so rapidly, I kept wondering “how on earth are they able to do that?” I thought that if they did it on borrowed money, it would have run out long ago. I then thought that they must be doing something right, that this was organic growth… expanding so rapidly in a terrible economic climate… I guess I’m wrong. I can’t believe some of the things I’m hearing, like a rat problem for 6 months, and unpaid leases for 9 months… It makes me think… I shop in that trader joes in the same shopping center with the rat problem. I’m going to have to look up inspection reports for them to make sure now. Best of luck to all employees effected by what’s going on.

As a former manager that saw the writing on the wall a long time ago. I can personally attest to what the employees are stating. I was directed by corporate to edit employee timecards and take breaks out that they did not take. This was a common practice. The term sketch is used to describe lying to customers and anyone out there. I have been ordered to send back defective TV’s to the service center to be used for parts. One day sales such as black friday, memorial day etc… Employees were refused their meal breaks and were docked for them, food was provided, but they had to eat and get back out on the floor. There was so much BS and lies that happened at the corporate level that I personally witnessed. Good luck employees of 6th Ave Its a tough market, but I know PC Richard would treat you better

Get ready ,another closing scheduled and auditors are making the rounds,the owners have the palaces up for sale ,the new co-owners just taking care of there business on internet,employees rightfully worried ,what store is next,moral even at Coorporate at all time low.waiting for my store at some point to close although have been told otherwise.

By now the Metro NYC/NJ consumer has got to be pretty used to this stuff. Crazy Eddie, Nobody Beats the Wiz, Newmark and Lewis, Etc, Etc. Etc.
^th Ave was a middle Tier regional retailer, the just happened to be in the single biggest market. Magnolia, Tweeter, Good Guys, Ultimate Electronics all dead. Why should 6th Avenue be any different. Do you really think 6th Ave. was a better merchant than Tweeter? Hurray to all the employees who are speaking up! I remeber when I worked for Wall to Wall Sound and Video and they fell apart. The District Managers and Corporate guys lied like crazy to store employees. RIP 6th Ave, they will not be missed.

By now the Metro NYC/NJ consumer has got to be pretty used to this stuff. Crazy Eddie, Nobody Beats the Wiz, Newmark and Lewis, Etc, Etc. Etc.

^th Ave was a middle Tier regional retailer, the just happened to be in the single biggest market. Magnolia, Tweeter, Good Guys, Ultimate Electronics all dead. Why should 6th Avenue be any different. Do you really think 6th Ave. was a better merchant than Tweeter? Hurray to all the employees who are speaking up! I remeber when I worked for Wall to Wall Sound and Video and they fell apart. The District Managers and Corporate guys lied like crazy to store employees. RIP 6th Ave, they will not be missed.

Mr. Mann–

Sir, with the utmost respect to you, you are so wrong in your assessment of Sixth Avenue Electronics as a company. I mean you didn’t really address much of anything in your article, you list some failed companies and then give credit to Sixth Avenue for not yet completely failing? Maybe it’s just me but when you shut down 12 of your 19 stores all in a matter of 6 months, that’s pretty close to failure, no?

And sir, why are you so surprised that the employees would be somewhat bitter when it comes to this company?

Let me tune you in to how we were treated.

1. Our commission reports did not reflect what we were paid

2. The most recently closed location (Commack, NY) had a rat infestation for 8 months — write that down — 8 months. So you tell me, how would you enjoy eating your lunch in a breakroom that smelled like rat feces and urine? — If this is something you don’t believe, please just respond to my comment and I’ll email you photos.

3. When a stock employee burts a gas pipe in the warehouse, this company decides not to call the fire department, because god forbid the proper authorities shut down the store and they lose some sales.

4. Blaming the sales staff when sales were down, oh, so it’s of no fault of the company that they owed GE capital 10 million dollars and that they had no inventory for sales. Completely fault of the sales staff that numbers were down? What a joke!

5. When our managers and corporate execs would belittle us and disrespect us, who were we to call? This company doesn’t even have an HR department, harassment went unnoticed.

6. Paychecks for about 4 months did not show the hours that the staff worked, and when the staff questioned the management about disparity between hours paid and actual hours worked, “No it looks right, it can’t be wrong.”

Mr. Mann, theres so much more that I can list, but in all honesty, this company isn’t worth the headache.

Thank You.

I’ve read and reread the above Executive Insight and I cannot begin to understand the case he is trying to make.

1. They started out as (deleted) who your company wouldn’t consider selling to.

2. They expanded their bait-and-switch business into NJ in the late 80’s and because it didn’t fail their unethical business practices became legitimized.

3. They grew rapidly in an era when everyone else grew rapidly too.

4. They are now a debt heavy, over-expanded company that has ruined it’s vendor and employee relationships yet they have the right stuff to stick it out for another 25 years.

,,,what am I missing?

Unless you worked there I don’t think anyone one else could comment on really what goes on. 30 percent margin really? I guess when you have your sales people have the abilitity to change prices in there system so the sales people beneifit they over charge the customer. When you charge vendors for advertising and make receipts and make profit of over 70% thats how you grow. When reporting don’t work and they make stuff up in there benefit I guess you make lots of money. All and all they deceive customers, employees, vendors and who ever is left. After making all the money they cry to the vendors they need to make a payment plan. But I guess the owners are feeling it or hiding there money since there houses in Bergen County are up for sale. Shame on them

I actually started my career in this business with 6th ave. Unfortunately the truth is that some things just don’t change. The Temiz brothers just can’t be trusted and they don’t care about thier workers. They treat you as slaves practicaly and just generally aren’t nice people. Managers are often promoted because of heritage not merrits etc. Bottom line is 6th Ave is a sinking ship it may stay afloat for abit but eventually is will sink.

This post was removed because it does not meet TWICE’s standards.

i agree they will go out because employees like me that are still working for them do not believe anything they say and are all looking for jobs.Even those at corporate are are looking around.

The odds are they will go out of business. There is simply too much debt and there new partner has an unethical style. Morals and ethics play a big role neither of which six ave or f&e have.