Dealer Discount

@glupson2The harsh stuff you did not care for did not come until AFTER the business was up and running.

MY education, which my dad said I needed since he had been in retail all his life, was provided by customers I still don’t believe sometimes.

I was totally astounded by this behavior, and HAD to come up with ways to combat it. One day, a guy walked in, picked up an item from the shelf, and ran out. Good grief! I was so amazed I barely had the sense to call the police.

Another time, the locksmith next door who put new locks on my door for me hired a criminal from NJ to drive down and rob the shop. Cops stopped him at 3am driving a van full of my stuff cause in Boca in those days NO ONE drove around at 3am. I was lucky as they thought it was an inside job. Good news was I had not even had time to get insurance yet, so they realized what happened eventually, but I WAS THEIR PRIME SUSPECT!!

I was a kid trying to open a business with great intentions to bring wonderful music to as many people as I could. HAH! As my dear dad tried to explain to me, retail is a nutty business.

SO, the harsh stuff above was simply a necessary REACTION to the behavior I experienced from nutty customers.

That is why I sold the business--could not believe people were such dorks when all I wanted to do was HELP them. Naive? You betcha!

Went back to school, got a couple more degrees, and spent my career at a major computer company while the PC was being invented. Exciting times, and most customers were thrilled to see and use this new technology. Sure, there were nutty ones, but mostly it was a very professional environment that was what I THOUGHT I would have with the shop.

Live and learn, my friend, live and learn.

Cheers,

Richard

richopp,

That was an interesting look back. In particular that part about a locksmith. I did witness once a man driving off a BMW through the window of the dealership after he had come in a few times and established some "relationship" with salespeople. I also sat in the car at the red light when a person crossing the street tried to take the emblem off of it. I honked and he walked away. Very strange.

Now, I am curious. You have some experience in sales, even if it was long ago. In case a person, me although really just a person from the street, walked in your store and said he was interested in some item, clearly stating the model etc., and asked what would be the lowest price you would sell it to him what would you have thought or done? Would you consider it a potential sale and quickly figure out what you would sell it for, even if it is MSRP? Would you consider a person not being serious at all and maybe try to get rid of him? Is there anything else you would do or think in that situation?

This basically depends on the dealer and to brand he is discounting for. Some brands have better margin for a dealer and some not that good.
For high end equipment 10% is low in my opinion

@glupson Thank you for your reply. If you walked in, and many did in those days as I was the only Audio Research/Magnepan/Nakamichi/Sequerra/Linn/B&O dealer around back then (Mc was handled by Jimmy Ryder of Ryder Truck fame if you remember them) down in Miami at HiFi Buys (no longer there).

If the item you wanted was NOT a fair trade item--remember those rules from my first post about this--I would have spoken to you about the rest of your system first. Remember, I was dumb/naive enough to believe that customers actually WANTED advice and counsel about their total system, and we would have discussed WHY you wanted that item. Once we had established some sort of dialogue, I might have sold you the item for a good price if I could. I did it sometimes, of course, but usually on a Marantz or Scott or Tandberg item--what we called semi-high-end back then, and they were.

If it happened to be an Audio Research item, probably not as they were in very short supply back then and the margins were not great. A popular pre-amp back then--SP3 and SP3-A1 were 595 then 695 then 795 all in the space of less than a year. What I MIGHT have done had you purchased the pre-amp and maybe another item is throw in the wood case, which was not cheap either. We paid about 70% for that brand once shipping was included.

Most manufacturers had a NET 10/15/30 price break on shipping, but some did not. Example: my highly-anticipated first D-150 (STILL one of the best amps ever made and I would buy one today if I needed it) came in DOA. It happens. Cost me 130 to send it back and they would not pay. How does a dealer combat that? You lose money.

Plus, back then, Audio Research wanted copies of the sales tickets and sometimes called the buyer--Mr. Johnson himself did sometimes, I was told--and the price paid was discussed. SO, some brands, yes, and some brands, probably not and definitely NO if it was a fair trade item like AR and B&O and SONY and so many others.

We gave GREAT service for no cost--delivered, set-up, made sure you were happy, answered my personal phone at 2AM because you had people over and your system did not play (push TAPE MONITOR, you dummy) but of course did not put it that way. My customers sometimes spent close to 6 figures even back then as we sold handbuilt hardwood cabinets (I had a wood shop across town) to go with your system. Today, if you have a Sound &Sight/Sound+Wood cabinet, you have a Bentley as we only made a few of them--fewer than 150, I think--and it was designed, created, and installed by us for you and was one-of-a-kind from walnut, teak (UGH--hard on equipment!), red or white oak, Honduras mahogany--not available any more--or, if you were really into it, rosewood.

We also contracted with Mark Levinson to make his HQD system stuff. He was a VERY slow-pay, as we say.

https://www.google.com/search?q=hqd+system&rlz=1C1ZCEB_enUS845US845&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=mDeE57BQgiUvpM%253A%252C4idAb6AkN4A07M%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTZUYQn-tcvKDkpYHfPaYqtLa891w&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjY29L78qDlAhUEc60KHSqLDCMQ9QEwB3oECAMQGA#imgrc=mDeE57BQgiUvpM:

So, yes,a discount was possible, and one thing gone was good, but I was after forming relationships with customers, many of whom back then were audio hobbyists who were classical music lovers. Even Mr. Johnson did not like that we played rock on his stuff...wanted us to demo classical ONLY. Much different times.

BTW, I sold MANY pair of Magneplanars with Audio Research gear (they had a marketing relationship back then...Wendell was at Audio Research in those days)...to customers who loved "Money" and "Midnight at the Oasis" and ANY Linda Ronstadt played on that system using various sources from TT with expensive arms and cartridges--SUPEX and SATIN and DECCA and so forth were big then, and low-output versions were just coming online for the masses--to Nakamichi decks (all broke within a couple of weeks but they sounded pretty good!) to even the Sequerra tuners.

It was a great time to be in this business--before a lot of the silliness entered--and had I been less naive I might have stayed. Turns out dear old dad was right, as he often was. Funny how that works out, huh?

Cheers,

Richard

richopp,

Thanks. It is interesting to see how things work on the other side. I am just not sure why a manufacturer thought it was fine to call people home (I assume it was before cell phones) and ask how much they paid for what. Or someone calling you at night to ask what is going on with their equipment. Different times, I guess.

I was prompted to ask what you would do if someone walked in, the way I would,  by benjie's statement a few posts above. He thought the salesperson would not take me seriously and would say anything to get rid of me. I think I also became a jerk somewhere in that statement because I would ask straight forward and not negotiate afterwards. Maybe the most important aspect for me is skipping any further discussion and surprise about price. MSRP is fine with me, but further push-pull games are not. Which is what this thread really started about. In reality, I never thought of asking for discount on electronics or expected it existed.

Of course, a good advice is always welcome but these days that is lacking wherever you go. Some of the experiences in audio stores are baffling although it is not limited to audio stores.