Local dealer cuts store in half says audio is dead

I have started a thread with a complaint about a local dealer, and it took off like wild fire. A lot of people are frustrated with some stores. I don't think it's wishing failure. Audio dealing is not like other businesses. You cater to a community more than a market share, and I would hope someone who goes into this business does so with a passion for sound and music along with business and technical knowledge. When that lacks, things are not going to work out. If your experience was typical of the store, then it's more surprising that they have been in business for 30 years than that they are closing...

Tale of two dealers:

Dealer #1 says you have to buy it to audition it in home. If it doesn't work out you can return it.

Dealer #2 took my CC information and gave me 72 hours for demo.

Guess where I spent my $1500.

Audio dead, I don't think so. Yes, it is very difficult for a dealer in high end audio to have a business if they are not doing home theater, which helps carry the two channel line. The 'loaner' model is essential to make two channel work profitably. A few dealers I have talked to over the years indicated that getting into the customer's home, that is deliver the first loaner, really helps in that you get much more information about the prospect. After that, the prospect gets to pick up the item.

Honestly, I am not sure how one can survive these days in a brick and mortar dealership today. I think it's a fool's game.

The dealer simply has too many things going against him:
1) Simple business. Obviously, it takes a pretty good inflow of capital to support keeping the doors open, the lights on, and everyone paid.

2) The economy. Not much explanation needed along those lines today. Simply, for better or worse, customers have closed their wallets to a certain extent.

3) The competition. In the old days, you basically bought components from the dealers that were local to you. While not unheard of, it was rare for a guy in Maryland to purchase component ABC from a dealer in Oregon. There was a lot less selection then available to the consumer, and the competition was mostly consisted of the other dealers within a one hour drive, who normally were selling different brands. Customers more often than not either bought from the place that sold the component that offered the best combination of sound/cost to suit them or from the dealer they liked best.

For us customers, competition has proved a good thing, we have access to a lot more product, and we can get dealers working against each other in order to obtain that component at the best possible price. However, this has truly decimated the high-end audio dealer network over the past decade.

The prevailing thought today is to focus one's efforts on the more expensive components, as I've heard "If it takes me X hours to sell a component, I want to spend my time selling to the customer who is going to make me $1500 on the sale as opposed to $150." It sounds logical, and I am sure there is some wisdom in that, but I question how smart it is to basically abandon the lower ground to the likes of the internet box movers, many of which are the backbone of this site's retailers.

Facing facts, all but the more loyal or less internet savvy customers are going to find and then subsequently buy that $800 from the low/no overhead internet seller working out of his house that has no problem in selling it for $650 against the brick and mortar dealer who either can't or won't let it go for less than $725 or $750.

4) Personal interaction. Some customers will mesh well with you, and you can do business together. Others, as has been described in this thread will simply not be a good fit, and the two sides enter into either a war of wills or can't get going at all. In either instance, the chances of a customer handing over a nice sale to a business are pretty slim.

There are a fraction of the audio dealers today that existed when I first got into this hobby. I'm afraid 10 or 15 years down the line I'm going to be saying that there are a lot less dealers around than there were back in the mid 2000s.

I don't usually stand up for dealers especially if they are a bit crusty. With that being said, while visiting an audio store in a neighboring city a pair of speakers were being returned which had been out for a home demo. The metal bass drivers in both cabinets were utterly destroyed. Whoever did this was either an idiot or it was purposely done. I've never been able to ask for a home demo since.