Visited a Store and was shunned

There's only one or two hifi stores in my city and the main one has the rudest employees---I've given them the benefit of the doubt before and would try and go back to check things out. Each time, rudeness. So, needless to say, I've never bought anything from them. I have driven about 95 miles to another brick and mortar and was treated like a real customer and have purchased quite a few items from them. They'll get my business every time. Sorry you had to go through that.

Sure is as lot of excuse making for rude abominable behavior.  Name the store.

Opposite experience. Many, many years ago I was in California on business and decided to stop in a brick and mortar audio store. Not really shopping to buy, but the staff was friendly and insisted on showing me the new Dali Epicon 6s, way out of my price range, which I told them.  Maybe four or five years later I was in the market for new speakers and I decided on lesser Dali’s and called that store without hesitation and had them ship to my home in MD. So their five minute investment in me paid off five years later. 

As others have made automotive analogies, I'll add mine. When I got out of the service in 1970, I went to work at a small Lincoln and Mercury dealership as a service advisor. We had a wise old salesman who shared that he learned never to judge a customer by appearance, He had an older gentleman cone in, dressed in overalls who wanted to look at cars. Longer story short, when he decided what he wanted, he went and got a paper lunch bag and pulled out a wad of bills and paid cash for a new Lincoln. Turned out he was the owner of a successful steak house.

I carried that thought with me through my career in the business and made it my policy to always under promise and over deliver, In later years, when I spent a lot of time in wholesale parts, I had a lot of customers who would always ask for me when putting in their body shop orders,
 

I can tell of my experience - NYC, Upper East Side, well known dealer representing high end brands and sole dealer for the two brands I was most interested in (Naim and Linn).

It was a quiet Friday at work, and I had several hours before I had to meet with anyone, so I walked the 8 blocks to the audio salon.  Spoke with the receptionist and told her that I was planning to purchase either CD Player A or Turntable B, but I wanted to buy one of those two that day.  Purchase was in the $3-5k range with taxes.  She said great and could I wait for a salesperson?  Yep.  No problem.

After roughly 15 minutes, a salesperson meets up with me in an empty sound room.  British dude, believe he was part of the overseas ownership team.  I tell him what my plans are for the day, he essentially ignores what I said, and launches into a soliloquy on cables and the importance of a single strand of wire.  I am like WTF and when I repeat what I was looking to do, the conversation turned to his personal life.  

After about an hour of this, I just left. Essentially stunned that I couldn't buy the exact component I wanted to buy.   

These days, I would rather buy w/o the audition, if this is what it takes to see something.

Rich