Visited a Store and was shunned

Regarding making an appointment.  If you want someone to do something for you, then you should make it as easy as possible for them to do what you want.  Making an appointment and letting them know what your intentions/expectations are is a way of making it easy for the retailer.

Many years ago I had the owner of a multi-store Chicago area hi-fi emporium tell me that audiophiles were a pain to deal with.  They would spend hours talking and listening, but not do that much buying.  They were tolerated as long as they didn't interfere with paying customers.

when I first walked into an audio store (mid 90s on Boylston), the salesmen tried to sell me one of the cheapest speakers (which he did and which I still own and love btw) and he pointed to the most expensive ones and said: I don't care about selling the entry level ones today, I want to sell you these in 20 years. Because that's where you will end up.

I always remembered it. That some day I will have a killer system because I will just be 10 times better off financially and be ready to buy such a great piece of equipment. That's how a good salesman thinks.

A lot of high end brick and mortar dealers are their own worst enemy. Not terribly different from my experiences with car dealerships actually. It seems like offering great service to people that walk in potentially ready to spend five figures on your products would be the bare minimum... but it doesn’t work out that way in a lot of cases. 

With audio dealers and car dealers, when you find a good one, stick with them.

a little late to the show here, but felt I had to comment.

Growing up on Long Island in the late 70's to mid 80's is when I found my passion for Stereo Equipment. Back then, we spent winter Saturdays going to the mall. Plenty of them in all different sizes back in the day on the Island. We would do the rounds, Spencer's, some clothing stores, hobbie shops, meet girls, play video games at the arcade, get food, but the best part was browsing the Audio stores and dreaming about building our ultimate systems. The proprietors of these stores were always welcoming and accommodating. And yes, they were New Yorkers and not rude. You could always tell they had passion for what they were doing and wanted to share with you, even if you were a kid and just browsing. Rules of sales is what 20 touches. They seemed to know, when we did finally have the money, we'd come back and spend it with them. Sure I did. I really miss that feeling of just browsing an Audio shop for fun. Now I'm down in Virginia, and we don't have one in the area, closest is Richmond (unless you count best buy). Shame. I would love to go to Service Merchandise with my Mom, she would drop me in the audio cave and do what she needed to do and I got to talk to the sales guy and browse. One time she surprised me and bought a JVC Linear Tracking Turntable that I was talking to the guy about. It was simple, she came in and saw us playing with it, she said you want one...I said Yes! This was not a regular occurrence, it was special!

So, long winded and probably no one will be reading this, but what gets me is these guys asking for appointments and asking for $250 to just listen? What a shame, no wonder the breed is dying out. Kids can't afford that. They are putting the nails in their own coffins. Soon Sounbars will be the...I'm not going there.

This is major problem for the audio industry.  It is my repeated experience that I get below-average customer treatment in audio stores until I tell them my current system or level of interest, then the experience changes.  I am not one to go in talking about me, my stuff, or bragging, so it took me awhile to figure this out.  After I share my system, I go from being somewhat ignored (not treated rudely, but often not acknowledged) to actively shown the products and invited to listen in the private or back room.  

The problem is that new people getting into the hobby or younger people don't have the existing system or know how to get attention, and often leave with a sour experience.  This stunts the growth of the hobby.  I believe that if dealers gave more people a taste of an amazing audio system, more people would be willing to drop the 10k to 50k to get started.  That is why car dealerships promote test drives and home builders spend so much on model homes.