Dealers and changing product lines

I have a new hypothesis about this (at least it is new to me). I believe if sales are slow, by dropping the line the dealer has the luxury of selling stock at a discount--something they are unable to do by contract with the manufacturer. I bought a center channel speaker here on Agon for a great price because the dealer was "dropping" the line. I know that he completely unloaded a lot of stuff which had to have helped with cash flow. Well, after talking to the manufacturer about changing out a grill, I find that the same dealer has changed their mind, deciding to stick with the brand. The bottom line is that the dealer was able to unload the inventory out of his territory under the guise of dropping the line. If not, he would have been in legal hot water. Like I said, just a hypothesis.

Gregg

My local dealer is very good about keeping a stable line of products. Some have been in the store for 10+ years. Every two years one line is dropped/picked up. Just here lately I inquired about them dropping VAC, he said the owner wanted to scale back on the number of lines they were carrying. Thus ARC stays, and VAC didn't (mistake I think). MikE

Gregg brings up what may be a very valid point. Dealers can "blow out" a lot of stock quite quickly by reducing prices that otherwise may have cost them their dealership with that brand of product. As such, the manufacturer is glad that the dealer decided to maintain their business relationship with them and can't afford to "reprimand" them even if the dealer might have been selling measurably below what they wanted them to.

Besides that point, bringing in new lines can sometimes lead to fresh sales via "upgrades", "flavor of the month" and "i've never seen that" type of dealings. If we are honest with ourselves, we have pretty much all bought various odds and ends simply because we wanted something new or different than what we had. It wasn't necessarily because we needed it, felt our "old" pieces were not up to snuff, etc... it's just that the "new" stuff caught our interest.

I also find it interesting that manufacturers are not up to date on who is actually selling their products. What really amazes me are the dealers that carry specific product lines, yet try to steer you away from them and into other makes and models. While these are typically more expensive, WHY carry the "you don't really want that" line of products if they didn't have confidence in it in the first place ???? Sean
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