Anyone still using dealers?

Having been in and out of a number of retailers recently, the general impression is that the only thing missing is customers.

The shops are dead, have been really since this time last year. What ever people tell you, they are all amazingly quiet. So are any forum members thinking of using their local dealer in the near future and if so why?

Do you think it is a case of the public not being interested, or is it, as one prominent Scottish dealership suggests, more a case of the enthusiasts voting with their feet and becoming internet shoppers?

 

I was talking to a dealer recently and he was moaning about how slow the business was and how he's losing sales to grey importers and dealers who sell over the 'net.

He's definitely seen better days. Hopefully the situation will improve, I'd hate to lose the ability to audition kit before buying. Having said I'm afraid I can only see doom and gloom for small dealers.

 

Funnily enough, the last three items I've bought have been through dealers. None were new, (heaven forbid ) two ex-dem at very favourable prices and one was second hand.

Two were sourced on-line and one through an ad in HFN. An example of how the net can benefit both sides??

 

sorry
thought the thread was about something else

 

Actually Mr P, I reckon you generally get a better deal from those kind of "Dealers" generally than the self obsessed hifi retailers. Less overheads I guess?

Dev, I too would miss the opportunity to listen to kit prior to purchase, but would have to question whether that facility were worth the exhorbtant amount charged by UK dealerships.

Maybe the HiFi dealer will be forced "underground" ,maybe to work from home, when lower margins can be passed on to the end user. I think savvy dealerships outside of the luxury inner city markets have already cottoned onto this. HiFi is not a high street product, but many still complain about rates, rents and staffing costs.

 

most of the ones near me have nothing over there head!

 

there are some good dealers out there but in my last auditioning round there were a number who just didn;t seem to want to make a sale at all, not returning phone calls, emails or whatever. if a dealer is friendly, knowledgable and takes the time to listen to what you want then i'll gladly pay a bit extra and buy from him. if however he's surly and tries to push some crap onto you just because he can make a bigger profit with that bit of kit instead of what you want then **** him.
cheers

julian

 

Good point Merlin, but who/what is more likely to go under though? a high dealer or a chain of low-medium end. I suspect that without the option of auditioning, it'll be a lot harder to sell high end stuff. To be honest with traditional sources being slowly replaced by servers, the whole market is shifting anyway. In a few years, I think all hard formats will follow Vinyl. I.e. have something of a cult following.

In Tottehham Court Road now it's difficult to spot a HiFi dealer who doesn't sell PCs as well.

 

At least TCR still has two real dealers (HiFi Experience and Cornflake, just off it) which is more than can be said for most streets in the country.

Michael.

 

No doubt the internet has taken its toll. But the other thing to remember is that there is far more competition in terms of home entertainment gear than there was say five years ago. You used to buy a TV and a video then you got the hi-fi, now you have the AV amp, the digibox, satellite, 5:1 speaker systems, widescreen tv, Xbox, DVD, laminate flooring etc. etc.

Another factor is I pop into my dealer when I want to upgrade, which is only every 5 to 10 years or so (if they are lucky).

 

spot on...combination of lots of things to spend cash on, internet, home cinema, rip off britain.

never have, never will, unless they have something I badly want.

 

too much stuff s/h to ignore now and I have yet to get a dealer let me home demo equipment,and i have twice entered the market with 2k to spend,they clearly think thats nowt.I have been lucky with s/h purchases becuase i have taken advice from forum users and its paid off,i got a 4k system for £1500,amp 2 years old,cdp,1 year old,speakers 4 years old,too good to ignore when you have Pcs,home cinema,digy cameras,pdas etc etc to buy

 

good question this.

Yeah, I used a dealer to by my second hand turntable earlier this year.

But then I saw the advert for the product on the internet..

I think that dealers need to embrace the internet and have a good website, and also competitive prices on trade ins/second hand stock/ ex demonstration stock to get the bargain hunters interested.

life is too short for bad dealers.

NB
I picked up a copy of hifi+ today, read the offending article and put the magazine back. Anyone else do the same?

 

I used to like going to HiFi Experience when Rubens was working there, somehow it's different now

 

Just so I'm clear, we are talking about specialist dealers, right? Not your multiple chains or mid-fi dealers flogging this seasons' home cinema kit alongside the odd bit of separates kit...

Several dealers I speak to tell me that high-end trade is still good. CDPs etc over £1K are selling, it's the sub £1K products that are getting harder to shift. As PumaMan said, there's lots of competition for the leisure pound.

Isn't this a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it?

Surely a dealer is only going to be able to offer a low selling price on s/h goods if they didn't give much for it at trade-in time. That's hard to do without upsetting a potential customer

Hex

 

I thought you might like one manufacturer's perspective.

After much soul searching over the last few months I've finally decided not to use dealers at all - in the UK anyway.

On the one hand dealers have ready established customer bases and, possibly, walk through or 'pop in' trade from people who need advice on what products to buy. They also offer customers the opportunity to do A/B comparisons of various pieces of kit, although obviously, only in their selected range of products.

On the other hand, they demand high margins which increase the price of the products. They have their own biases and can't always be relied on to give good demonstrations. The partnering equipment they choose isn't always ideal and many don't take the necessary care with equipment set up.

Yes, listening demonstrations are necessary and high-end manufacturers who choose to sell direct will need to offer demonstration facilities.

As has already been pointed out, the advent of the Internet and relatively inexpensive web sites make it possible for even small manufacturers to market directly to the customers.

That's my take anyway.

 

Steve,

Seems like you've been giving this some serious afterdark hydrocarbon combustion to this conundrum?
So in essence you've decided to forgo the usual coffee & Digestive on a saturday morning at your local friendly disc spinning emporium then?
In favour of a presonal "at you door service", may cause the ruffle of the odd feather, however this enables you to give the prospective client your fullest attention and unriveled skanking skills eh? Demon plan!!!
Some thing else caught my eye to whilst purusing the information superhigh this very afternoon, sa Safeways would say you dropped your prices have you sustained an other bang on the head due to over use of your skanking mat?

 

When I put my system together originally, (Amp, CDP, Speakers, cables) I used a dealer, Acoustic Arts in Watford and had a great experience, demoing and comparing quite a lot of kit. Friendly helpful and knowledgable advice, not pushy - it was fun.

I can see why manufacturers may want to go the direct route, but it would surely be a sad day if dealers dispappeared, it wouldn't just make it difficult to demo kit, but next to impossible to compare it to the competition.

Frankly one of the reasons may well be that many just come across as too intimidating and quite frankly sniffy and unhelpful to too many people - but that's a function of their being bad at what they do, not the market itself.

A friendly and welcoming atmosphere, good advice, a good website, losing the attitude that if its less than a grand's worth it ain't worth the effort, all might help.

Steve, So what's the plan - tour the country doing home dems or somehow persuade customers to come to you?

 

Well spotted that man. Yup, I've dropped the prices quite substantially. I originally based the prices on estimating that sales would come from a combination of dealer and direct sales. Now I'm just basing them on direct sales.

I have also found some new sub-contractors that do good quality work at lower prices than the original guys so that's helped as well. New price details are on the web site.

All of the above plus hi-fi shows, etc. I also plan to open my own high street showroom in the near future which will allow me to set up systems the way I like them.

I suspect it will get easier when there are more speakers out there.

 

frankly with forums like this enabling people to share information / opinion and increasingly even listen to kit, i think that dealers days are numbered.

i didn't buy any of my kit in a "shop", instead i got it all off the internet and saved a packet in the process. i actually found that most of the dealers i spoke to were just as opinionated as many here, and (unsurprisingly) really pushed their stock as opposed to helping you find what best suited you.

for high end stuff i think your going to see more system consultants emerge. people who bring their knowledge to help other achieve their goals and source that equipment for them, rather than sitting on large amounts of stock. "the right note" in bath seems to take this approach from the number of telephone conversations i had with the proprietor (can't remember his name) and i know he works out of his house.

otherwise i think you'll see an increasing number of hi fi shops turn into home theatre installation specialist, who are as much chipys as a hi fi experts....

as always, it'll be the niche players that survive, leveraging off of their expertise and reputation in a specific area, such as walrus and their knowledge of all things vinyl.