Struggling to spend 13k with three dealers

My thoughts are that a lot of dealers are plenty busy catering to the 1% ers.

They aren’t going to give the rest of us a lot of time when they are busy installing complete AV/Security and whole home networking and music systems. That’s who gets their prime dealer attention.

It's also worth thinking about how they are going to make money on this deal, at least a little.  If these are trade-ins, they probably need to recoup 100% of the trade in value so have no desire to negotiate or need to charge more to make up for a prior deal.  Another thing to consider is, among their customers are you going to be in the middle or low end of spenders?   Not saying you shouldn't be treated well, but that dealing with a vendor who thinks of you as their prime customer makes a difference.

As others have suggested, I would call them.  You can hash out the deal within a couple of minutes that way and get the ball rolling.

Call John Rutan at Audio Connection in New Jersey.....he'll be responsive and make you smile.

Seriously, just checked a site that does only pre owned and they say they need two weeks to respond to provide a trade in quote...ridiculous- you can trade car in and drive out in two hours; you can buy a house in a day but our audio dealers can't return calls, can't develop quotes and need weeks to respond.

Some of this may be specific to the dealers in question, but I wonder how of it is a function of the general "pandemic economy."

Here in central NY, we have been getting callbacks for all manner of goods and services, even for previously reliable providers, or providers who text saying when to expect a call.

If supply chain issues mean you don't have stuff to sell (or have multiple buyers for every item), and labor issues mean you don't have services to provide, your incentive to communicate must diminish.

There's worse problems in the world, of course, but it is a drag. 

Others experiencing similar?