Ever feel like a "low dollar" customer that your dealer doesn't think worth their time?

Give it up folks! Retail Hifi is dead as a doornail and now the virus has sealed the coffin.
IMCE nothing affects a retail sales floor like lack of traffic/business. Once depression really catches hold, it can spread rapidly. When a salesperson realizes--no matter how diligent s/he is in doing the job--that s/he has little chance of making the rent this month, things change. Customers who don’t buy become thieves swiping your expertise and your demonstrations in order to buy elsewhere--especially online.
We are stuck in a frustrating liminal era in which the unknown far outweighs the future knowns. We are the ones who will preserve our hobby/business by spearheading a new structure for the preservation of great sound.
1. Make evaluations based upon multiple inputs: youTube, Stereophile, Absolute Sound, Audiogon, etc., etc.
2. Gather in groups to share gear when possible.
3. Acquire the 2 or 3 likeliest choices for audition of 2 to 4 weeks.
4. Buy with much more assurance than if you had heard the equipment in some retail store with who knows what kind of help.
Believe me, the guidance you will get in well-managed stores has as much to do with what’s in stock and its gross margin as it does with satisfying your needs or desires.
Oh, one other thing: audio salespeople are not there to entertain you. They’re there to do business and you can hardly blame them if they ask you for an order before you split.

Give it up folks! Retail Hifi is dead as a doornail and now the virus has sealed the coffin.

Pretty all small retails will die....

Neural link for audio and for those who will afford it, the rest will buy Amazon speakers freely delivered  to your door off course....

:)

@denverfred 

Believe me, the guidance you will get in well-managed stores has as much to do with what’s in stock and its gross margin as it does with satisfying your needs or desires.
Oh, one other thing: audio salespeople are not there to entertain you. They’re there to do business and you can hardly blame them if they ask you for an order before you split.

So true. It is a tough business to be in and probably only for those with a real passion for the hobby. 

I look for many manufacturers to jump on the direct sales bandwagon. We should all pay attention to Paul Barton's interesting business model out here high in the Rocky Mountains. He's got no local shops, factory direct, and a generous trade-in policy linked to The Music Room--where, IMCE they make a really slick presentation and even a newly constructed SHOWROOM. In addition, PSAudio is nearby with more show-and-tell.
Maybe I'm too old and idealistic but I think this plan will work really well if they can ever get a handle on realistic pricing for used gear. 
I'm really not sure we should expect to continue paying 1/2 off MSRP for stuff that's really getting kinda old--though working fine at sale.
Admittedly, the market, and "late stage capitalism" will eventually impose its will but I'm afraid a lot of us old timers won't make it past the mountaintop. It will be a while before audiophiles will appreciate any price benefit from this process of "cancelling" a very large part of the audio industry. Sad to think of how many of we AGrs have depended on retail audio for much or all of our lives.

By Paul Barton you mean Paul McGowan, I think. Agree with your comment. I'm in same region.