What is the average dealer mark up?

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.

Keystone

Hmm. In all candor it’s our system at work when larger businesses push out smaller businesses primarily due to economies of scale. Take Walmart as an example. I don’t like the fact that they often crush their smaller competitors but how can it not be so in a free economy like ours? 
Who benefits from the lower prices?
The other thing that irritates me is the rabid criticism of larger corporations started big time by our last president. Are corporations not a conglomeration of many individuals working together to deliver a widget to the marketplace? When govt seeks to punish or destroy corporations who suffers the most? What exactly are laid off employees supposed to do? Work for the govt is the solution of certain factions in our society and that’s not good.
An enormous problem we’re facing now and will be more so in the future is our overall taxation. Income tax is just a part of our overall tax burden. This directly impacts the pressure put on households. Unfortunately it’s the American household that lets our govt pilfer OUR tax dollars away. Obviously this is just my opinion but I believe that it has merit. My true apologies for being so verbose. 

To me, that's why it's important to find a dealer that you like and trust.  That way, you find his/her service and insight valuable and show you appreciation by buying from him or her.

To me, the greed portion or this business has always been in the distributors (in instances where they control pricing in countries they serve).  A real example.  Pair of speakers X goes for $6,850 at U.S. dealers.  Same set of speakers goes for $6,790 in Canada or $4,864 in US$$.  The Canadian price is in line with the price in their country of origin.  So why am I paying a 40% mark up for the right to buy in the US?  

In this instance, I feel bad for the dealer as he/she has no control over the pricing.  To me, that's what's out of whack--and it's very rarely the mom and pop shop that you have grown to trust who is "making bank".