What is the average dealer mark up?

Some of those employees lived right down the road from you, right next to the English teacher...

@wesheadley Well said. Does anyone else remember when the English teacher could live the "middle class" lifestyle?

In the end, I think that what matters is that it's a free world, at least in America, and you can't tell business owners what they are suppose to charge or how much profit they're supposed to make. Nor should you want to. Too much price control would just water down the creativity and expertise that goes into the advanced audio gear we enjoy today. I don't expect that audio dealers are making a killing because most are in high end neighborhoods that have high rent and have to keep the place looking nice along with retaining and paying reliable and knowledgeable staff. If they are making big profits, more power to them and foo on me for not doing the same.  Having been in business myself I know it's not a gimme to run a successful business.  I want to shop audio where the staff is knowledgeable, can demo the gear in a way that I can relate to, and is there when I need help.  You'll never be able to control prices or profits.  You yourself may open a business some day and then you'll see why things cost what they do.

garrettc

... at least in America, and you can't tell business owners what they are suppose to charge ...

Actually, in the US, a manufacturer can indeed tell a business what it can charge for its products, and some do.

Who said anything about price control or limiting profits? Cheating is not "savvy business", it’s just cheating. And in the long run, it’s toxic to almost any capitalist economy. The comments were about a rigged system that has been anything BUT good for small business. I pity any small business owner that just benignly accepts monopoly power as a given or as a positive force for business and innovation-- it has been anything but. More importantly it has led to the USA becoming a downwardly economically mobile society-- and those, like it are not, are the facts. Regulations are critical to all human endeavors from sporting events to businesses. Sad that so many people no longer "get" that. Mass deregulation has led to a hyper-consolidation of industry and capital-- and the data is in after more than forty years worth of it-- it is toxic to small business, to innovation, and most importantly, to the lives and fortunes of MOST people. France has a higher launch and success rate for small businesses than the US-- and that is truly pathetic. While in America more than forty percent of our household can no longer come up with $400 to pay an unexpected bill-- so it's a small wonder small businesses have done so poorly for so long.

In terms of accepting a typical dealer markup, the ethical answer for me is whether I want to listen to a product before buying. I recently auditioned 12 pairs of speakers at 7 different stores before buying a pair of speakers that I love. From the perspective of my time, that was a lot more efficient than doing 12 separate in-home trials from direct-to-consumer speaker companies along with mailing the speakers back to the manufacturer. The mark-up is the cost I was willing to pay for this convenience.

I am open to direct-to-consumer selling models, but would need to be pretty sure that a component is likely to be the right fit for my needs before doing an in-home trial.