Actually there is two local stores that do liquidations of various articles including car audio and they are insanely busy year round as the products they carry sell at dealer cost, the products carry full warranty through the manufacturers as well.
These stores in question are Princess auto and XScargo and they sell enough car audio to actually threaten big box stores and shops an hours drive away.
These bulk wholesalers shops will most likely be the thing of the future as far as local shopping goes, with only custom installation shops left.
um yuh but the places they get their stuff (at least the ones here) still isnt straight up. they get alot of be stock and close outs and typically if you want and or need the latest and greatest you wont find it there. the one by me has mtx 8000 series audiobahn and some chiniese "focal" lolol
If you doubt that, you are sincerely Naive. It also means that you don't understand anything from the manufacturer's level of doing business. Most of them do not produce anything, rather market imported good with their name on the product and it's packaging. Also, if you would have read a little closer in my comment above, you'd notice that I said that Mom and Pop stores need to change. You can cast blame all you want at your customers, they'll simply go elsewhere. A system that blows up is just as much the shops (system designer, salesperson, installer or all 3, don't matter) as it is the customers. If the customer is to blame at all. Think on that one for a few minutes and you MIGHT understand what was inferred. Systems fail (non-lemon equipment) when the initial system designer does not ask the right questions and does not really find out what the customer wants and expects and delivers a final system that does not perform, at about 80% duty cycle, as the customer wanted. Gains set correctly as well as customer education are both equally important and necessary pieces of the whole end product. If YOU skip any one of those, you are the cause of the system failure, not the guy that knew nothing more about a sound system than when he drove in to get it. Point about the Mom and Pops....... The companies that supply you goods, as a "brick and mortar" dealer are in it to make money, the ones that aren't will not be around for long. They will follow the INDUSTRY standard for making that money. When they find out that group A is doing this or that, you can bet your *** that they'll be doing it soon enough. That most definitely means that if they need to keep this move from their dealers to make that extra sum of revenue, they'll do it without batting an eye. To believe that they are out there just waiting by the phone with jaws open, dying to assist you and make everything better so that YOUR store can move what...20 pieces a week?, they are thinking global and you are stuck thinking local. It's a global economy and actually very few in the US are ontop of it. Thank Unions if you want to waste time blaming things.
You are correct in that from a marketplace perspective, the customer is never to blame. It's not the customer's fault they maxxed out thier gains and clipped the shit out of thier subs, it is the submakers fault, thus the customer won't be buying those subs anymore.
I do see a trend in the marketplace however, and personally, I think it is for the must. The trend is also quite similar to an economic household trend. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
I see some mainstream manufacturers marketing mainly to novice and the CC/Best Buy crowd, fueled by a more competition oriented gear for competitors. The competitors get in magazines, thus an implied advertisement to the magazine reading but not personally testing CC/Best Buy crowd. It makes perfect sense. Which sells more subs, pioneer breaking the world record or pioneer taking out a 1 page ad. The world record is quite more advertising and quite a bit cheaper. (if you count the length of time word-of-mouth discusses world record vs. the1 page ad.)
Brick-and-morter will only be sucessful by having the authorized warranty guarentee and installations. If the situations online are that in some cases you can buy 2 at the authorized price of 1, very few aren't going to make that gamble. And if I buy two and they both fail, then I don't want them **** thing from a company that produces so many faulty products.
I do see a trend in the marketplace however, and personally, I think it is for the must. The trend is also quite similar to an economic household trend. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
I see some mainstream manufacturers marketing mainly to novice and the CC/Best Buy crowd, fueled by a more competition oriented gear for competitors. The competitors get in magazines, thus an implied advertisement to the magazine reading but not personally testing CC/Best Buy crowd. It makes perfect sense. Which sells more subs, pioneer breaking the world record or pioneer taking out a 1 page ad. The world record is quite more advertising and quite a bit cheaper. (if you count the length of time word-of-mouth discusses world record vs. the1 page ad.)
Brick-and-morter will only be sucessful by having the authorized warranty guarentee and installations. If the situations online are that in some cases you can buy 2 at the authorized price of 1, very few aren't going to make that gamble. And if I buy two and they both fail, then I don't want them **** thing from a company that produces so many faulty products.
Most of the stuff being sold online way below retail isn't exactly the quality equipment most people are after. It is more of the common stuff sourced out in asia.
If brick and mortar stores want to do well, they should start selling the good shit that you CANT find on ebay - or at least not new on ebay.
Good shit as in McIntosh, Sinfoni, Brax type good shit. Yea it will be pricey, but if people are going to spend brick and mortar store prices, might as well spend it on the good shit.
Lets face it, the Car Audio industry has taken a dump. Most of the once great brands like Fosgate, Sony (yes sony was good at one time), Soundstream etc, are not as good as they once were. THey are being mass produced cheaply in Asia. This allows people to buy them in bulk and sell them for next to nothing online.
Knuconcepts has the right idea. They make and sell their own product. Same with ED. Whether or not they make it is besides the point - the point is they SELL directly to the public. I think this is going to be the direction Car Audio will take.
You will see manufacturers both making and SELLING their product directly. This allows for higher quality because it cuts out the middleman. The manufacturers would need to make a good product or else they would suffer directly - not their distributors. Finally we can get manufacturers competing against each other to make the BEST quality product cheaper when their sales are directly at stake. The absence of a middleman will achieve higher quality.
Agree?
If brick and mortar stores want to do well, they should start selling the good shit that you CANT find on ebay - or at least not new on ebay.
Good shit as in McIntosh, Sinfoni, Brax type good shit. Yea it will be pricey, but if people are going to spend brick and mortar store prices, might as well spend it on the good shit.
Lets face it, the Car Audio industry has taken a dump. Most of the once great brands like Fosgate, Sony (yes sony was good at one time), Soundstream etc, are not as good as they once were. THey are being mass produced cheaply in Asia. This allows people to buy them in bulk and sell them for next to nothing online.
Knuconcepts has the right idea. They make and sell their own product. Same with ED. Whether or not they make it is besides the point - the point is they SELL directly to the public. I think this is going to be the direction Car Audio will take.
You will see manufacturers both making and SELLING their product directly. This allows for higher quality because it cuts out the middleman. The manufacturers would need to make a good product or else they would suffer directly - not their distributors. Finally we can get manufacturers competing against each other to make the BEST quality product cheaper when their sales are directly at stake. The absence of a middleman will achieve higher quality.
Agree?
Not sure you understand the scope of the problem. I see the deals because I'm offered the deals, and some of the stuff I passed on (or took) shows up online at other places at prices (again, 10 point margins seem to be the going rate to keep the lights on) that would suggest they had to have gotten it for the same deal as a larger direct dealer. Many distributors make in the low teens.
Juan
i work for a manufacturer..who makes the product has what bearing to any of this? companies dont come out with 50 different prices for the same thing with the highest price being "the get rich price". reguardless WHO MAKES IT WHERE WHEN WHY IT STILL COSTS X AMOUNT OF DOLLARS. when the prices dropped due to being made over seas the retail prices reflected that yes back in the 90's $600-$1500 amps were COMMON and that was for between 300-1000 watts (2 bucks a watt was a steal). why do you think when net companies move into dealers why their prices go up? the ma and pops are ripping you off? NO you were buying it direct with what that company needed to make on it or should someone only make 10% on it? i never seen a place that wouldnt sell for below suggested retail price at some level. who do you think sets the suggested price?not the stores. what percentage do you think an average store needs to make just to stay afloat? the average is alot more than 10% christ when you shop for clothes and think you get a deal on some 20 dollar jeans that sell for 40 regularly you are still probably paying a higher mark up (by percentage) than what a SUGGSTED retail price of most audio stuff. with what you are saying is i can directly say that if you get paid 20 bucks an hour for busting your butt that you are ripping people off because somewhere someone would be willing to do it for less and probably do it better if not at least as good. all i can say is the market shrinks year by year and net sales are a SMALL percentage of that it isnt a factor as how well or bad your shop will do but yr in and out that percentage gets bigger. the bigger companies get into trouble some go under. when a big company goes it gets replaced by what? a small net company? if you lose the ability to buy it local trust me the market for it will have died and variety WILL get smaller.
on a more common sense level when people look for jobs do they A. look for something they can make more than enough to live on? B. Look for a job that they cant make a living at? natural answer is A and believe it or not most people talented enough to design, make, and sell audio equipment can probably get paid more going into another field. you think someone overseas just makes something and someone here just puts there name on it? most companies i know that are made over seas still have alot of input to the design of the product as well and the company can and does pay for that. if local stores dieall you would have left is best buy cc and the net and in turn that kills about everything we call good. if you cant see it noone will buy it. why do you think people know a jbl amp is good? isnt FROM THE NET. its from someone seeing it local and then thinking "hmmm i can save 38% buying it on line" either that or their "buddy" bought one local so they hunt down the same thing on line.
why would anyone enter into a venture with a guaranteed less than 10% return on investment? sell at 10% over you will have other costs and it would be more difficult than playing the stock market really. not only that there are just so many speaker manufacturers to start with. also if your idea on it is so right why is it the inpiration of almost every net speaker company to build a brick and morter dealer base?
Perhaps we should have a sticked and moderated thread entitled "Who got burned on line". This would be a post only thread for the individual that got burned by whatever e-tailer or E-Bay seller it may have been. I think that this thread should be a no response thread by members at the same time, thus the heavy moderation. Then and only then will the general public realize how much this is truly happening. Everything from the bait and switch to counterfeit items, broken items, stolen items, unwarrantyable items etc. can be posted there.
60_cent
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buying online is a great thing, less hassle while saving money...
for people who know what they want it is the best way to shop
for people who know what they want it is the best way to shop
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