Just to touch upon certain issues raised by Judith & others -- a bit late in the day (as usual). I'll give a small European perspective (basically Paris, & London, with some experience of Brussels & Athens).
Until recently, we had important price cross-country price differentials and "exclusive dealerships". Certain products were unattainable for many of us at the "local" prices; they could have been attainable at the going prices in another country... The local market was, in a way, protected by difficulties in cross-border trading, currencies, etc etc.
The EU changed that and the Internet simply accelerated the change. Prices are now mainly comparable, and the need to provide added value for price differentials is obvious...
**Buying used/cheaper; this is NOT the issue, we always had the opportunity to do that and we did that: newsletters, dealers, etc catered to that. The difference NOW is that the Internet not ONLY widens the buyers' choices but also makes them FAR REACHING -- going well beyond the geographical confines of local stores/national retail network. Once, we couldn't buy an 200watt XYZ used unless our local dealers had it; now we can, from wherever thru the Net... used OR new!
**Dealers: the Internet simply changes their role from convenience (geographical, familiarity or otherwise) to providers of a fuller service. The Net urges the need to to provide OBVIOUS, perceived, added-value for the price differential... if people are to pay for it. OTOH, many dealers are Internet savvy and use its facilities to reach more customers (a great way to sell your trade-in items, for example). So, it looks more like a solution than a problem; after all, getting & keeping a customer has always been a primary aspect of boutique retailing -- it's all the more so now!
**Manufacturers: good point. They needed a distribution network to provide direct contact with potential buyers & service for their products. It used to be said that manufacturers do NOT get the best deal because the cost of distributing (i.e. the importer/dealers network) required a mark-up of ~100% (=margin 50%), whereas the actual creator of the object got less per unit... I suspect, but do not actually know, that such was (is) the case -- at least for the smaller manufacturers. The direct manufacturing cost-to-retail price ratio used to be 1:7-12, not including the intagibles (r&d, designing, testing facilities, etc, etc). How much of that ended in the actual manufacturers' pockets I don't know -- not much per unit, I expect, if you deduct the cost of the sales network & add all the intagibles... so it was (is) a volume game with manufacturers. Hence certain manufacturers have turned to the Internet to do business...
Having said all this, I have bought most of my stuff through retailers probably because I got service, reasonable prices, equip loans, and help with payment. One exception: a pair a german active stats I once had cost $~16k where I was living & $~9k retail in Germany (Germany being ~500miles away). I drove to Germany & purchased them, with the benediction of the local dealer (who arranged to service them anyway)! So, of course, I purchased the new pre from that dealer, didn't I...
