About two years ago, we created ShopJimmy Stores to help technicians sell their spare TV parts, increase their revenue, and help their fellow techs. We didn’t develop it to be profitable for us and that’s remained true.

However, as they say up here in Minnesota, we “got a little ahead of our skis.” We activated too many Stores, quality decreased, and the program started to reflect poorly on our business. We didn’t have the system (software) or the resources to manage and monitor every Stores’ inventory, sales, returns, etc. We’re just as much to blame as anyone else.

We recently evaluated all of our Stores based on the following metrics: inventory levels, defective rates, wrong part sent rates, OOS rates, and the effectiveness of handling problems and policies. From that data, we deactivated most of the Stores (as of October 15th). It was a tough decision, but we feel that it will improve the quality of the program tremendously. A handful of Stores will continue to sell their spare TV parts on our site, but we’ll be more stringent about the quality of each Store moving forward.

For those who’ve participated in ShopJimmy Stores — buying or selling — we appreciate your cooperation and hope you continue to benefit from the program. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions.

Grab a post-it note. Update your address book. Heck, write this backwards on your forehead. Here’s our new Returns address:

9201 Penn Ave S., Suite 23
Bloomington, MN 55431

Also, please make sure to download our updated US Returns Checklist (or International Returns Checklist).

Thanks for your cooperation!

According to Bloomberg, there were 11 reported incidents in Japan of Sony Bravia TVs (2007-2008 models) melting or catching on fire in the past three years. While nobody was injured, this concerning trend prompted Sony to voluntarily recall 1.6 million Bravia TVs.

The CE giant’s Tokyo-based spokeswoman, Yuki Shima, claims that a “faulty component in the backlight systems may be the source of overheating that can melt the top of the television.”

Here are the eight Sony models apparently affected by this faulty component: KDL-40D3400, KDL-40D3500, KDL-40D3550, KDL-40D3660, KDL-40V3000, KDL-40W3000, KDL-40X3000, and KDL-40X3500.

Source: Bloomberg

The SJ Chalk Talk Series focuses on clarifying questions and concerns from our recent customer feedback survey. Don’t hesitate to ask for more information in the comments section of each post!
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It’s common knowledge that most profanity is neatly packaged in four letters. Not in our industry. You can make a tech shiver in his switches with just three letters.

O.O.S.

We hate saying it. You hate hearing it. Here’s what we’re doing to stock up.

1. Simply, we’re buying more TVs. The TVs we buy are brand new with broken screens, so the parts we sell have never been used. We’re also sourcing more new TV parts directly from manufacturers to meet the fluctuating demand for certain TV models.

2. We closely monitor your part requests and site searches, and we’ll continue to notify you if a part you wanted is back in-stock. If you head to any product page that’s OOS, you’ll see two green buttons: “Request This TV Part” and “Sign up to be notified when this product is back in stock.” Use “Request This TV Part” to inform our Sourcing Department that you’d like this part, and we’ll see if we can find it for you. Use the other button to set an alert for this product; if we get it back in-stock, we’ll send you an email to the address tied to your SJ account.

3. Our #1 inventory-related priority is getting our hands on more, quality TV parts. With that said, we don’t sell replacement TV screens. They are tough to inventory and tougher to ship. If you’re looking for one, we suggest checking out Union Electronics.

4. We’re bulking up our supply of TV Kits (a complete set of TV parts, panel not included, different than an Inverter Kit). If you search our TV Kit inventory (on our homepage), you’ll see we’ve added more brands and models in the past few weeks. We still believe that this program can help reduce misdiagnoses and increase first-time fixes, but your ongoing feedback is definitely encouraged.

Each business day, we add hundreds of TV parts to our inventory, so please check back regularly. We better go wash out our mouths with soap now. Our mothers wouldn’t like all this talk of profanity.

Name: Keith

Position at ShopJimmy: Customer Service Representative

One sentence job description: Making the world a better place one TV part at a time.

Favorite LCD breakage story: Well, I don’t have a particular favorite, but there is a video on YouTube of a guy who lost a bet on a football game and when he lost his friends got to unload their rifles on the screen of his 50-inch TV, haha.

TV model in your living room: TC-P42S30

Family: The youngest, brightest, and most modest of three boys.

Hobbies: Drawing, music, movies, video games, and hitting the lake on a nice day.

Favorite restaurant: There are a bunch in my area. I’d have to say about half of the “mom and pop” Spanish places will do.

Go-to Pandora station: The Rat Pack

Beverage of choice: Right now, pomegranate juice.

In-flight reading material: Hmm, seeing as my first flight is this week — any suggestions?

Sports team(s) you root for: Vikings

Three things you’d bring to a deserted island: Yacht, plenty of fuel, and a Swiss Army knife?

On a web dating service, you’d describe yourself as: Able to provide great Customer Service. I don’t really think those skills are transferable, though?

You can find me on…

The SJ Chalk Talk Series focuses on clarifying questions and concerns from our recent customer feedback survey. Don’t hesitate to ask for more information in the comments section of each post!
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You know what’s frustrating? Calling a company’s customer service about your account or order, navigating through a series of prompts and questions about your second cousin’s health history, and then frantically trying to press “0″ when you reach their additional options in Portuguese.

We recently refreshed our phone system to be the complete opposite: easy and helpful. If you press…

You reach our Spanish customer service reps. Yes, we repeat: we do have multiple Spanish-speaking representatives. Or, maybe we should say, “Se habla Español.”


This option directs you to the first available customer service rep to place an order. While we don’t mind chatting about the weather or sports, we ultimately want to help you place your order efficiently. Our reps are very knowledgeable about our TV parts and policies, but we don’t offer tech support at this time.

Need to return a TV part? Hit this number and we’ll walk you through this process. Check out our Returns Policy for more details and download our Returns Checklist.


This is the line for everything related to our ShopJimmy Stores program.



General questions, meet general or specific answers. Again, we don’t offer tech support at this time.


That’s it! Simple enough, right? As always, feel free to email us anytime!

We hope you enjoyed our Hospitality Room at your 2011 Weekend of Training. We’re impressed you guys stayed up until 10:30 pm!

Source: NESDA Ohio’s “Speaker”

One of our customers, Steven, just sent us this image of his custom installation. Pretty great, huh? We’d be thoroughly impressed if he modified it to change the channel or volume with the Zenith’s dials!

36,485*

*The number of pounds of plastic we recycled last month from recovered LCD TVs!

Are amber and green LEDs flashing after replacing the main board on your Sony TV?

Cause: For all 2010 Sony LCD TV models, replacement main boards (BAL-Board or BUHS-Board) are shipped without software installed.

Solution: Do not fear! Once you install the replacement board, a visit here (and some clicking) will give you the correct software. You just need a flash drive (I prefer an awesome Hello Kitty flash drive) to install it on your TV.

The TV will be in retail mode, so it needs to be changed in the menu afterward.

What models and parts does this effect?

- KDL32EX40B A-1772-835-A
- KDL32EX700 A-1763-462-A
- KDL40EX40B A-1772-835-A
- KDL40EX700 A-1763-462-A
- KDL40EX703 A-1763-462-A
- KDL40HX701 A-1761-160-A
- KDL40NX700 A-1765-668-A
- KDL46EX700 A-1763-462-A
- KDL46EX701 A-1763-462-A
- KDL46EX703 A-1763-462-A
- KDL46HX701 A-1761-160-A
- KDL46NX700 A-1765-668-A
- KDL46NX800 A-1765-668-B
- KDL52EX700 A-1763-462-A
- KDL52EX701 A-1763-462-A
- KDL52EX703 A-1763-462-A
- KDL52NX800 A-1765-668-B
- KDL55HX701 A-1761-160-A
- KDL60EX700 A-1763-462-A
- KDL60EX701 A-1763-462-A
- KDL60EX703 A-1763-462-A
- KDL60NX800 A-1765-668-B
- KDL60NX801 A-1765-668-B

If you have more information on this subject (or others) please share! We’re always eager to pass along helpful tips to our customers!

NEWS FLASH: We have awesome customers.

We sent an email this morning to many of you asking if you’d complete our annual customer feedback survey. While we appreciate your daily feedback, this survey is a chance for us to compile all of your thoughts and adapt to your collective needs. Call it cliché, but we really want to make you — our customers — happy.

Anyway, the response and feedback we’ve received so far is tremendous. We can’t wait to analyze your suggestions and continue our endless quest to improve. Thank you all!

So, yeah, our customers are pretty amazing. But, given that you’re probably one of them, that isn’t news to you at all.

P.S. If you didn’t receive an email this morning and would like to share your thoughts with us, please contact us and we’ll send you the survey!

We’re thinking of a TV part — can you guess it? Here’s our clue (it’s a Rebus Puzzle!):

The first person to guess the exact part (and add the SJ link to that part to their comment) wins 20% off! Good luck! Thanks to Nate, our Parts Manager, for the creative clue.

This past weekend, a group of SJ’ers and friends gathered to chase a little white ball in the very first ShopJimmy Scramble. Birdies were made, bogies were “edited” on scorecards, and fun was had by all. Here are a few snapshots from the day…

Let the scramble begin!

A group teeing off on one of the par 3 holes. You can’t teach that form.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon, right? Thanks to Braemar Golf Course for hosting us!

The golfers post-round. There are more than a few guys in this group with serious game!

Jack and Ryan S. hoisting the trophy (half of the winning group, along with Blake and Gil)!

We want to sincerely thank all of our ShopJimmy Scramble Sponsors:

- J.R.’S Advanced Recyclers
- RJ Ahmann
- Coleman, Hull & van Vliet
- Advantage Corrugated and Packaging
- Weber & Deegan, Ltd.

A portion of their contributions and our tournament fees went to benefit the LiveStrong Foundation!

So, not only was the weather perfect and the tournament a success, but a great cause also benefited from the event. We don’t know about you, but that’s a birdie on our scorecard!