What is the average dealer mark up?


What is an "average" mark up on quality or high end audio gear? I realize that there are many manufacturers who force dealers to hold this tight and not disclose, but surely without naming specific manufacturers there are some here that do in fact know the mark up.

Let the fun begin!
128x128badger_erich
I am a small business owner, specializing in a high end custom home improvement product with an average sale price of around $2K.
My gross profit margin is around 75% on average.  
This sounds like a lot or profit until you factor in all of the overhead costs.  I won't list all of these here as several others already have.  
My gross sales per year are around $1 million and at the end of the year if we've done a good job I can expect about $50K additional income above my salary.  This might also sound like a lot but for the amount of risk I take in owning the business it's really not that much.  
I get a lot of customers who come into my shop asking me to match a competitor's price, and I never bend on price, knowing that my product and service are much better than the other guys.  The best audio dealers are the ones who understand their value to the customer based on their market position and their overall service offerings.  
Prior to starting my business I had considered a high end audio shop.  After running my current business (successfully) for 5 years and having a deeper understanding of all the costs involved in running a B&M business, there is no way I would start an audio store.  I honestly don't know how several local shops in my town have stayed in business as long as they have.  There are two shops in my town that have been around for more than 30 years.  
My guess is that they have developed a strong customer base who are repeat customers, and provide great service.  They also offer consignment sales, which they get 30% of the sale price with no inventory cost involved.  Some of them also sell audiophile vinyl and used records to add some extra revenue.  
I like to get a discount on large purchases, but if I ask for one from a dealer I offer them something in return.  For example, I offer to pay cash rather than credit card.  Many dealers are very receptive to this as even the 3% cost of taking credit cards is a lot.  If they offer a 10% discount and also have to pay a 3% fee that really hits them hard.  
We live in a free market and everyone wants a deal.  It's not a crime to ask for a discount but it is important to understand how expensive it is to run a business when asking a B&M dealer for a price break.  This discussion is valuable (IMO) for the reason that we should all use this info to seek win-win scenarios.
There used to be this country, now vanished beneath the seas, where countless small retail shops flourished and customers would come in and buy things like televisions and stereos at retail prices that they could afford because they had solid middle-class (or above) jobs with wages and salaries that went up every year along with that country’s economic productivity-- that they helped create. This let them use some of their savings to routinely make purchases like this throughout most of their lives.

Massive big-box retailers could not score deals with manufacturers or sell products below cost to crush their competition (and then jack those prices right back up after most of their small shop competitors were wiped out). The small customer-centric shops had protections that came from "fair trade laws", and domestic manufacturers were protected by laws that did not allow foreign countries to dump products onto our shores that were made by slaves, by children, or by otherwise exploited workers-- all as a means of unfairly competing with our own manufacturers. So they had to sell on value and quality through stores that had to focus more on customer service and locality to remain in business and thrive.

The employees at these countless shops were not paid a fortune, but they were decently-compensated. They had steady jobs and benefits that allowed them to live respectable lives while working in those stereo shops-- many of them located right there in your town. Remember? No? Some of those employees lived right down the road from you, right next to the English teacher, or the auto dealership service manager, or the grocery store clerk. Remember? No?

This long dead country also had higher annual GDP, their children did a little better than them when they grew up because they went to well-funded schools that were paid for by the taxes that everyone paid according to their means, and in most cases, if they had kids, and almost all of those households did, it only took the salary of one parent to accomplish all of this. Hell, they even had dinner together every night. Remember?

That country’s political and business leaders decided somewhere along the line that it didn’t want that life for its own people anymore, and the kids that are growing up in this new country can’t afford to desire or buy things like stereos, new cars, appliances, houses, or to even send their own kids one day to college-- the way that their parents helped them do. It’s just no longer possible for most of them-- so their kids go into debt and make decades worth of payments to just hang on-- dreaming of a new set of ear buds so that they can stream crap-sounding digitized dreck into their heads everyday, partly to shut out a world that shut them out long ago.

It does not have to be this way. Every crisis brings with it new opportunities to change this world. The question is, just what kind of country do you want to live in? A winner take all society, run by global monopolies, that mostly sell cheap disposable crap out of warehouse sized stores to going nowhere stressed-out families, or would you maybe like a country where that little hi-fi shop down the road can exist again and prosper along with you and your family?

We actually have that choice- whether we know it or not, we have it.

And yes, this is absolutely on topic.

Some of those employees lived right down the road from you, right next to the English teacher...
@wesheadley Well said. Does anyone else remember when the English teacher could live the "middle class" lifestyle?

In the end, I think that what matters is that it's a free world, at least in America, and you can't tell business owners what they are suppose to charge or how much profit they're supposed to make. Nor should you want to. Too much price control would just water down the creativity and expertise that goes into the advanced audio gear we enjoy today. I don't expect that audio dealers are making a killing because most are in high end neighborhoods that have high rent and have to keep the place looking nice along with retaining and paying reliable and knowledgeable staff. If they are making big profits, more power to them and foo on me for not doing the same.  Having been in business myself I know it's not a gimme to run a successful business.  I want to shop audio where the staff is knowledgeable, can demo the gear in a way that I can relate to, and is there when I need help.  You'll never be able to control prices or profits.  You yourself may open a business some day and then you'll see why things cost what they do.
garrettc
... at least in America, and you can't tell business owners what they are suppose to charge ...
Actually, in the US, a manufacturer can indeed tell a business what it can charge for its products, and some do.