HiFi Dealers, good or bad.

this could be the most refreshing thread ever.
Mods, please don't kill it.

 

agree with class A unfortunately ,

 

Good Chaps I know
Walrus
Worthing Audio
Audiolincs
Steves Hifi (Budget equipment thats always in great condition well worth keeping an eye on his website)
Purité Audio
Audioboffs

It would be a bad show to for me say or imply anything negative against other dealers.

 

Go on Paul, spill the beans

On a serious note, Paul has been very helpful to me for a long time even before ABC. Keep trying M8...surprise me with something super special.

Also Dave (Hifiguy) is another nice chap to deal with but I don't classify him being a "dealer".

 

Well, provided they're doing that near the edge of a cliff...

 

Laugh out very LOUD.....

 

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i have being in retail and design since 1973, my last place of retail work was in covent garden, in my days off i used to go to retail shops incognito to see the new "kids" on the block and how they treated aficionados of music and addits of hi-fi, i became so depressed and sad that i quit the retail and hi-fi world for two years, doing mainly passing time doing nothing untill manufacturers covinced me to do it from home so i did, going all over the country to peaples places, hence i have done well and word of mouth has proven to be a lottery win, never one complaint, only more sales and friends, "MOTO"it cost's nothing to spend time and knowledge shared with the customer who if satisfied will become a friend indeed,
nando

 

You're one of the few - keep it up nando!

 

Given the current economic situation and the fall off in interest of all things audio his claims seem somewhat unlikely.

People dislike him being rude arrogant and ignorant.

As soon as I said I would provide my own custom cables he lost interest - thats where his margin is obviously. He then made up some story that I had called before and wasted his time and that I owned a michel orbe (both untrue) and on and on and on once I didnt accept his nonsense. I told him it was in his imagination but of course he said he couldnt possibly be wrong. What an idiot.

 

Hi Guys

Very interesting thread ,some of those who have posted on this do at least know what they are talking about some don't.

mr c Sorry and i do take your point about a dealer earning their pay but whoever told you that dealers make up to 60%+ on some kit hasn't a clue what hes talking about . The average margin before any deductions (overheads,vat ,etc)is about on average 35%. Now on some brands it might go as high as 45% or 50%(and that is assuming ,you take a settlement,i.e pay within a week/pro-forma(pay before getting goods),or have nearly all of a certain brand in stock and on demo). Now in this day and age customers ,tend to demand the right to at least a 10% discount ,despite all the effort a dealer may have put in. Home Demos(going to the customer house),use of his or her demo facilities,ordering in stock for customer etc . If its in stock and no work is needed then fare enough a 10% discount may be okay but if a lot of help(work) is offered ,why should any discount be forth coming ;assuming the dealer has worked hard(some don't i know). And after all his/her hard work the knowledge and experience gained at the dealers expense is then used to buy from an on-line source at near trade cost or buy second hand etc,is that fare or right .Shame on you if you have ever done that and put your greed above the earnings of an excellent dealer who has bent over backwards to help you in your quest and who you have then shafted .

Bad dealers will go out of business ,but many good to excellent dealers are being screwed by the way many think they should do business with them.

If a dealer has invested a small fortune in demo stock(it isn't free by the way)and trained his staff well(also not free)or has a highly motivated staff(most audio shops don't pay staff commission)i.e for the love of it ! Why should a no staff/no demo facilities etc be able to sell at near cost and undermine the work that is being used against them,i.e use their demo facilities and buy cheap.

The Audio industry is in a mess and there is a lot wrong with some business models but if a man/or woman (dealer)deserves their wage then no one should try and steal it from them and that is the fact that many so called audio enthusiasts do and regularly.

I don't know what most of the posters here do for a living,have you ever had a bad day and not been as helpful in your work as you should .If you say Yes you never have a bad day then i suspect you are being less than truth full with your self. Dealers are human and have bad days . Frankly i know that many despair at the crap that gets talked to them by the brain washed masses,who phone or come into their stores,those who think they know a lot but who know nothing or it is flawed. Imagine that you are the Dealer (good to excellent) and you try to steer these people in the right way,the path thats right for them(not just to make more money) and you have all of this thrown in your face.Your accused of being a liar, a thief etc by the ill informed know all who believes every thing they read or hear , or even the reviews of certain five star magazines and they have no experience. Is it any wonder some dealers crack-up and are less than polite.

I have stood in hi-fi shops and have heard this type of crap and i have despaired for both the dealer and the person who has spoken it . Doing any kind of business in this modern world is very hard and i feel that those who work hard and who are honest should be treated with respect and not viewed as some sort of hi-fi lending library just so the borrower can buy else where .

A lot of people also don't want to listen to carefully thought out advice ,they want to go with that five star review against the advice of the dealer and even what they have heard themselves,because they don't trust their own ears . If a dealer says not to do something and they are not making any money out of this advice,should you not consider it ? why would they say not to do a thing if they but the owner of the system will benefit.
I have seen this happen too .

Human relationships are difficult and no more or less in the world of retail . A lot of mutual respect is needed ,care and consideration. A dealer should be fare and honest but so should the potential buyer and i have to say this is becoming a rare thing
in some cases on both sides. It costs a lot to run any business and these pressures do sometimes led to mistakes .

As a final point and question ,how many of you tell a dealer when he has got it wrong and when its right ? How many of you try to understand the complexity of trying to offer a good service ? How many of you are honest with him/her? How many of you think its okay to screw over a dealer ,essentially stealing his time effort to save a few pounds ?

Regards D Louth.

 

I agree with the above post.

Luickily, I don't deal with the public in my consulting work. However, I imagine it is a hard enough job even when the product sold is not a "subjective" or "emotive" purchase, i.e. selling windows, but God help anyone who has to deal with hifi. I don't buy gear from hifi shops. But I also would never think of going in to one to demo a load of gear that I knew I would go off and buying on line.

Overheads for some shops must be relatively large, i.e. rent, insurance(!!!), finance payments on demo stock, etc. I personally can't see how many business models worked during the "good times", let alone now.

Also, you can;t blame them for switching over to home cinema installs. I assume that 20 years ago, good hfi shops would get the "dream customer" several times a year that wanted the best 2-channel system cost not an issue. Those customers would subsidize much of the crap the dealer had put up with for the rest of the year just to keep the shop doors open. From what I have seen of the home cinema market, the new dream customer is building a top spec basement home cinema and wants to blow £100k on electronics.

 

Of course any dealer can have a bad day - but for some it goes beyond that, there are dealers and distributors who have repuations for being difficult rude and ignorant or trying to exploit customers consistently. Doubtless the same is also true for customers but everyone knows that and its not the topic of the thread

 

No need to be sorry but you must get some more reliable information next time. As I have stated elsewhere I used to work in a hifi shop and I have seen these 60+% figures with my own eyes. This isn't an average figure but is common with some of the so called 'high end' equipment.

Edit: Just to try and avoid any more needless posts, the % issue is a very minor one (I'm sorry I mentioned it) and really does distract from the larger, more important issues of the good/bad elements of hifi dealers and the industry at large.

 

People, good or bad?

My overall experience of Hifi dealers hasn't been great and I now give them a wide berth. Rather like a bespoke tailor if they put in the work to make you a tailor-made system, home demo's-fittings if you like, then they should be rewarded accordingly if, however you know what you want, take a quick instore demo and buy 'off the peg' then they should discount the price.

 

Always worth remembering that a dealer i there to make money in the long run; maybe not a sale *now* but thats the name of the game.

I've been dealing with my man ( oo err ) for probably 20 years now, since I bought my Dual 505 / NAD 3020 / Kef CODs waaay back. Last thing I bought from him had a fair old price tag ( Naim 252 ) but the dem took most of a day and he worked for the sale.

I've noted that there are some little tricks some dealers use to boost income; selling the box that comes with a reconditioned Ekos, for example. And what happened to all the Valhalla borads taken out of LP12s?

I've also become very suspicious of those who bemoan dealers when they quite clearly are in the business of shifting their own product.

A Grandmaster Flash so aptly put it; "Its all about money ain't the damn thing funny"

 

mr louth makes some excellent points and hi fi punters can no doubt be an absolute pain in the backside but you can see certain patterns in the dealers mentioned and the same ones seem to get a bad press which implies perhaps more than just having a bad day.
can i recommend music matters in solihull for their excellent help and patience for several years

 

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THANKS, I AM DOING VERY WELL, AND WILL CONTINUE TO OFFER OLD FASHION SERVICE,
REGARDS NANDO.

 

Yes I have heard that Stephen Harper (audioconsultants) has got up a few noses. I think he is good at picking out timewasters but also goes to a lot of trouble if he smells a sale. Nothing wrong with that. Like many dealers, what he sells has to be better than the competition in his view, until something better (more lucrative) comes along. (same everywhere).
As a bonus he no longer does business with Audiofreaks but who does? (such an arrogant ***hole) imho

 

Its FREE to be polite and nice on the phone at the very least.