Definition of Local Dealer


Oftentimes in an Audiogon/eBay ad from a dealer, you will see the phrase, "only offered if no local dealer", "support your local dealer", or similar verbage. Question: What constitutes a "local dealer"? One who is located in the same (large) city as you? A city 10 miles away? 50 miles? 200 miles? What is a reasonable distance/travel time? Does each manufacturer have its own definition of "local dealer"? What do y'all think?
boleary

Showing 1 response by usa

I think what the phrases refer to in principal mean that you should want to support your local dealers and buy from them, not just waste there time in getting free education at their expense and then jump online to buy from audiogon.

If the local dealers can’t pay their bills and go out of business, you’ll find it very difficult to listen to anything without making a long journey. Doing it once or twice its fun – but, doing it every single time can be tedious.

Audiogon has replaced the local dealers in some respects making it very difficult for these smaller folks to make a living, leaving them with no money to be able to afford to bring in newer product lines or to expand in anyway or even be able to afford advertisements to let us know they even exist.

I think, personally, to some extent all the verbiage may be screaming these thoughts out.

If the local dealers cant sell to consumers then the manufactures suffer as well and if they have to go online to sell directly or through audiogon and ebay then we’ll have a scenario where we’ll be relying only on hearsay of what gear sounds like and no opportunity to listen to anything or get sound advise from the dealers that actually listen to a wider range of equipment then we’ll ever have access to.

This is my take on it