Supporting Local Audio Stores are we?

Seems like we all want the moon but are expecting to pay the price of a thrift store shirt.
Some bitch about how much the dealer pays for item X from manufacturer Y, and sells for Z.
I think you may possibly have to work in retail to understand overheads etc, and not come out with figures out of your ass that you think you should be paying, or how much profit a company should be making. If you can't afford it or don't like the price, and are truly miffed when somebody makes a profit, then buy second hand. I mean who goes to work for nothing? except for maybe the pope, oops forgot he belongs to the richest entity on the planet, and then preaches about ending starvation, but that's a different topic.I used to work for a large department store,
possibly the most famous in the world, our mark up funnily enough I was in furniture, was wait for it... 150/170%!, now that may seen a lot of 'mark up' from what we paid for it, and you would be correct, BUT, the overheads, when they are all taken into consideration including the 110,000,000 million pounds sterling tax per year, (that awful three letter cuss word), staff, utilities, maintenance, land tax (huge amount due to size of premises in the most expensive part of town) etc etc, the profit margin whittled down to not a large percentage at the end of the day.
I try not to buy new because I think hi-fi gear, especially
as we are a dying breed, a mere grain of sand in the desert is way way to expensive. I would be interested to know how much a pair of the Martin Design Coltrane speakers selling at $295,000 costs the manufacturer to make, not really a good example so maybe a mass produced speaker manufacturer like Wilson, Dali or some such company would be a better example. An earth shattering price, a lottery win speaker for 99.9% of the population, and the other 00.1% should have better ears, more sense, and less money, oops back to the subject of money again,lol.

The biggest problem facing the dealer channel is its delivery mechanism. Margins have lost any grounding in reality, and so a $500 amplifier needs to be sold for $5000 in order for the manufacturer, the distributor, if any, and the retailer to stay in business. Why? Small volume for the mf, light sales for the retailer, and the need to make big margin at 2 or 3 levels in the delivery-to-market chain. And, as the potential customers for any product diminishes, the people involved in selling that product must derive larger profit margins to sustain the business. it's a vicious circle all right, Because as prices rise, less and less consumers see value and leave the market. It's a death spiral, and it's made high end audio pricing a laughingstock for people who get a glimpse at it from outside the hobby. Try justifying a 2 way loudspeaker priced at 25k to anyone outside the hobby. Especially when the parts cost for said loudspeaker might come in around 2.5k.

How has the industry responded to this condition? They've raised prices, naturally, and they institute price fixing at the dealer level to protect the network. which, of course, offers the same operating conditions no matter if a dealer can get by with a 20% profit margin or needs a 50% markup (And yes, margins for speakers can get at least that high, as well as electronics, with showroom discounts or bulk pricing) to pay his bills. This results in constraining the retailer who tries to bring some sanity to the price of the product and perhaps grow the volume on a product, and protects the retailer who continues to push a business model that has not evolved in, what, 50 years? Forever? This dealer seems to be happier selling one unit at a 50% margin rather than 5 units at a 20% margin. And so a consumer looks for better value, and takes his business online. As it exists currently, the dealer channel is unsupportable.

Is the business salvageable? I think so. Interest in better quality audio gear seems as strong a it ever was. Used gear that's priced well seems to sell very well here and on EBay. There are products that show good value at retail or just below, PSB and Magnepan come to mind.
And, and this is a big one, there's another media migration in the works,:CD to media servers. Sadly,, the industry still doesn't seem to get it if the products on display at the CES are any example. 25k CD players; 7k media servers like the Blue Smoke? Preamps with no DAC, DAC's with no volume control? Fortunately, some companies do get it, like Berkeley Systems and AVI. Maybe high end audio needs a sub-structure of companies that will help bring some value back to the market; and maybe these products need a to be offered at 30 day home trial direct from manufacturer or dealer. Let's face it, a listen at the dealer can not compare to having the product at home in your system for a month. Or, conversely, develop dealers who have other, more mainstream products to sell, such as computer dealers, who salivate at the thought of a 20% profit margin. Let them sell at whatever the market will bear, at some point pricing will self-regulate. Bring products to the awareness of the general public in stores that sell other products; how many average consumers enter high end audio stores? And yet, everyone listens to music.

No one likes to think they have made a bad deal;, we all look for good value when we make a purchase. But when I know 5k of my speaker purchase money is going to support my local dealer when I buy 10k speakers, I don't feel like I'm receiving good value. And, of course, I'm not. I'm really buying a 1k speaker with overhead. Of course it costs money to get a product to market, but when that cost is 10 times what the product's finished goods cost is, the perception of value, which is critical, loses credibility.

Well Luxury Yachts come to mind but its besides the point, I think many are coming of age in audio where they for reasons from no dealer in area to lack of income have never experienced what a great dealer can give you. A demo both in store even when closed so your really alone, in home for extended audition, a call for technical support and a trip over to tweak, measure and even pack up and assist in a items sale to replace it with a new one. Some dont put much value in that and thats just fine but we are all going to be a bit worse off when they all go the way of the Dinosaur..even if we dont see it yet.
What happens years down the road when there may sadly and hopefully not be any store front dealers and its all over the net?, the comparison in price will soon fade and once again folks will feel they are being conned and overcharged
then what happens after that, do we all just switch to used gear until the entire thing will collapse because we only are driven by low price? Internet direct is like having a coupon now.....what happens when it expires?
There is also another way to look at this, internet direct sellers are can actually be argued that they are taking even more advantage of us because there profit margins are huge, many items are not half or 60-70% of reatail of compareable dealer stuctured products so they are making at times really obscene profits that actually make you even madder than paying a dealer mark up for the service. IMO