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life without audio dealers

currently there is a thread eliciting comments regarding the purpose of audio dealers. i would like to go a step further and consider the question:

what would it be like without audio dealers ?

in order to answer this question one should analyze the activities of audio dealers, such as:

providing an opportunity to audition stereo systems.

possibly lending components.

providing advice as to component selection, providing repair service for components under warranty and providing information as to how to deal with component "malfunction" which do not require a technician.

the obvious, namely, ordering and selling components, both new and used

i maintain that auditioning components at a dealer's store is usually not helpful. if you cannot listen in your own stereo system, the demo may be useless.

some dealers may lend components over the weeekend , or for longer periods of time. this is a very useful service.

advice may not be useful, as there is no guarantee that a recomendation if purchased will satisfy your needs. providing advice when a component acts up may be helpful at times. providing service during a warranty period is of value.

lastly selling a component may be necessary if one wants to buy new and is willing to pay the price.

as a consumer, i prefer buying direct from the manufacturer. in that context many of the dealer functions are now provided by the manufacturer.

it would seem that a dealer is not indispensable and while there might be some inconvenience in absence of dealers, i don't think i would suffer too much if there weren't any dealers.
mrtennis

Showing 2 responses by kthomas

kthomas
911 posts
 
I could live without B&M dealers. That said, if it was the case that B&M dealers disappeared completely, I believe that the environment would "morph" a bit, and there would be more hi-end manufacturers who would have to offer alternative methods of interaction. Direct sales, with generous return policies, and continued enhancement of the information that is available online would yield an environment that I could comfortably interact with ethically and get good value for the dollar.

I don't really think the current model works very well to begin with. There are several manufacturers that I would love to explore auditioning / buying, but my best option is to wait until something comes available used. There is no reasonable way for me to interact with a dealer even if I was wanting to, so I'm not sure that I'd be missing anything if the dealers suddenly went away.
kthomas
911 posts
 
Many already do experience "life without audio dealers" - it would appear that the vast majority of people on A-gon recount how they do not have access to a good dealer, either due to geographic location, or lack of quality in the dealers that do exist.

I think the majority of us would welcome the opportunity to have a full-service, knowledgeable dealer with whom to develop an ongoing relationship with. If we take the somewhat idealized version of dealers that some recount, this dealer would know us, would know our system and preferences, and would save us time and money by being able to direct our attentions and $$ to the place they would most benefit our quest, even if, occassionally, that place wasn't a place that they profited from.

I don't understand why the industry seems to be retracting its business model instead of modifying it. It seems much harder now to get in-home auditions, to get trade-up policies, to, in some cases, even get a dealer's attention. Pricing, for at least the upper-end, seems to have no boundary, and the dealers are probably more dependent on the large margins than they've ever been.

I used to live in Lawrence, KS, home of Kief's. It's a college town, so they dealt with tire-kickers in spades. Even back then, they had a three-tiered pricing structure. There was full service - advice, home demo, full support, etc. - for a small discount off of retail. There was "partial service" - advice, home demo, 30-days direct support, after which you dealt with the manufacturer directly, for a larger discount off of retail. Then there was mail order - they'd get the unit in, but as they said - if it comes in two halves, you own both halves. This was for a competitive mail order price.

I don't know why some version of this type of tiered model couldn't work for a modern dealer, something that makes the service more explicitly paid for by the customer.
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