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Alternatives to Brick and Mortar

I didn't want to further derail @millercarbon's Tekton Moab thread, but I think it is a worthwhile topic to discuss how to find speakers that meet our listening tastes, aesthetic tastes, budget, room, etc. Brick and mortar retail is dying because it's becoming very difficult to operate profitably. 

Full disclosure - I own and operate an e-commerce cycling business. For ten years, I also had a brick and mortar operation (multiple locations). The economics are a bit different than audio since our average sale was only in the very low three figures, but it's not that different. We still had bicycles that we sold for over $10K, but the cost of those sales was quite high. Over the ten years we had the stores (which were 4-5 times the national average in size and revenue), we made a profit from the stores in three of those years. Fortunately, our e-commerce business was much more profitable and allowed us to cover those losses. 

Brick and mortar is becoming more expensive due to higher lease rates, higher payroll costs, and competition with other sales channels. To keep a brick-and-mortar sales channel viable, the manufacturer has to offer the dealer a fairly sizable margin (generally 35% to 60%) and have enough sales velocity that the store can cover their expenses. It's pretty rare these days that there are products that fly off the shelves at a specialty audio retailer. 

Our handling costs are a lot lower in our e-commerce operation, but even in this business, the only products we're willing to carry that have less than 40% margins are products we can get 8 turns or more on. This means that the manufacturer has to have plenty of back stock and be able to replenish our inventory quickly, and also means that the product has to have high and consistent sell-through so we can accurately predict our inventory requirements.

For a specialty audio dealer, there are very few products that have high volume. If you think about how much time you've taken up of a dealer, products you've brought home to listen to, etc., versus the products you've actually purchased, it's an awful lot of cost that has to be absorbed by the dealer. I've read countless posts on this forum and others of people that have brought multiple products home from the dealer (or from an e-commerce vendor) only to return it. This costs the dealer (whether brick-and-mortar or e-commerce) a lot. A lot of this returned product has to be sold as open-box or b-stock at considerably less profit, let alone the shipping cost that is often absorbed by the dealer. To stay in business, they have to make enough profit on the product they actually sell to cover their expenses.

For an audio manufacturer, they have to consider the cost vs the value added by having a brick and mortar channel. More and more are deciding they can offer more value to the consumer by keeping the dealer margin in their own coffers. 

My career has resulted in my living in a number of different areas in the country since I've been an audiophile, so I've probably shopped at 25-30 different stores. Very few of these have had listening rooms that did the products justice. In many cases, the rooms were crammed with 5 to 20 different speakers. Even in the shops that catered to high-end budgets, the speakers were not optimally set up. This isn't surprising since the dealer is trying to sell a lot of different models. 

In the more affluent markets, dealers are willing to provide home auditions which helps a lot, but this is expensive for the dealer and they have to count on a reasonable conversion rate. Too many consumers are willing to take advantage of dealers that offer this. I've seen posts from consumers that literally try a dozen or more speakers, or other components. How do they expect the dealer network to survive. 

So what's the alternative? I think for the manufacturer, the best alternative is to do what companies like PS Audio offer. They have a very nice showroom at their facility if you are willing to make the effort. They offer easy returns if you want to purchase a product and aren't happy. And they participate in many audio shows where you can compare their products against many others. By selling direct, they save the considerable dealer margin can cover a lot of customer service costs, including dealing with higher returns and supporting more audio shows.

Sorry for the long post. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas. 
128x128jaytor
edcyn
1,876 posts
 
jaytor -- I recently retired to a small town in Hawaii where high end retailers are few and far between, but I lived in L.A. for most of my life and for much of that life I've been an audio enthusiast. 

In those days I always put my money down at brick-and-mortar stores.  It was truly seldom that I resorted to mail order.  It's just an incredible luxury to go to a quality retail outlet and have them put on a demo for you, letting you bring some of your own stuff for a good old taste test.  I want to see the merchandise IRL and flip switches.  It's only when the stuff is up to snuff that you take it home for the night.  Plus, I just hate waiting for a delivery guy to show up.  Even worse is waiting in an endless line at the post office/whatever to do the return.

As an aside, I gotta tell you, too, that, like several other posters on this site, I'm a ready-to-be-committed bicycle enthusiast.  And, when it comes to bicycles my brick-and-mortar predilection is even more extreme.  I've bought high-end bicycles from Bicycle John's in Burbank, I. Martin Imports in West Hollywood, and Velo Pasadena.  I bought my current ride, a Campy Chorus Bianchi Infinito, at a place that was within walking distance of me for a while (I can't remember their name but they were in Sherman Oaks).  The only high-end bicycle I ever bought sight unseen was a Rivendell Ramboulet...which turned out to be the one I liked the least and got rid of the most quickly.  Beautiful to look at but a dead dog for actually tooling down the road.  Now I'm happily downsized with just the Bianchi and a modestly built-up Tomac Buckshot.

Long story short:  If I could still buy at a brick-and-mortar store I would, but that luxury is now in the past.  I can say, though, that I've found a couple of dandy high-end bicycle shops in the vicinity and always do my best to patronize them.  It did, though, take an agonizing amount of time for one of the bicycle stores to score me a  fresh set of cleats for my Mavic pedals.
jaytor's avatar
jaytor OP
747 posts
 
I guess I didn't do a very good job in my original post explaining what I was getting at. I have nothing against dealers. I have worked with a number of dealers over the years that I really liked and got a lot of value from.

My concern is that this kind of dealer is becoming the exception, and not the norm. And it's not the dealer's fault.

When I was starting as an audio enthusiast in the early 70's, the products I became familiar with, and ultimately purchased, were those offered by the few dealers I had access to. Yes, Stereophile and TAS introduced me to a few other brands, but it's nothing like it is today.

The wealth of information available on the internet results in consumers (myself included) that are often looking at a much broader range of products and brands than any one dealer can carry (or even all dealers in a small city), particularly in the mid to upper end of the market. Closing the deal on a purchase for a dealer becomes much less likely. This, combined with rising operating costs, makes it more difficult for the traditional dealer model to survive, or at least to provide the service I'd like to see.

I'm not rooting for dealers to fail - quite the opposite. But I'd like to have the opportunity to hear products in a well designed listening environment and most of the dealers in my area, for one reason or another, don't seem to have been able to pull this off, and many of the products I'd like to hear aren't available for demonstration near me.

So what are the alternatives?
northman
237 posts
 
I've been thinking a lot about these issues since December, when my go-to store for over thirty-five years closed. Let me say that I completely understand those passionate folks who are "hobbyists," frequently buying/selling/trading equipment. For them, I think that buying online without a test drive makes sense; as long as they can be relatively confident of the resale value, it sounds like great fun to bring things into your listening space for a month or two, get the feel of it. That's not me, at least not yet; when I buy a pair of speakers or an amplifier, I'm in it for the long haul.

And I would never spend $5k-$10k on a pair of speakers that I hadn't auditioned. Honestly, that seems nuts to me. Research can get me close but there are so many subtle differences even from the same company that it's impossible to simply read/research and know. Take, for example, the many threads that compare Harbeth to Spendors, or that compare speakers within the Harbeth line. 

Of course it's possible to spend five figures online on a set of speakers and love them. Most speakers at that price point should sound pretty darn good. But you'll never really know how much of your pleasure is simply your desire to like something you have put your heart and faith into, and there's no way to know how those speakers might compare to the other speakers you didn't buy--unless you want to spend months buying/returning. How many speakers, just within the Harbeth line (for example), can you listen to that way? And what about speakers that weigh 75lbs or more--not so easy to set up and ship back. I'm not knocking anyone who buys online; I just don't think it's as good as being able to go to a store and listen.

(The argument that we save money online is questionable. Sometimes yes, sometimes no--but the real issue is whether online sales help or hurt the audiophile market. Most mid to high end equipment that is currently sold both online and in person costs roughly the same. It may be that a company that is only online can sell their stuff for less without the dealer mark-up, but that's speculation. To use the big example out here, do we really know what Tekton speakers would cost from a dealer? And dealers provide a service, so it's reasonable to pay for that. I've found many dealers are ready to discount, especially with established customers.)

I didn't take the OP's post to be aggressive. I thought he was simply asking, as he did in his recent post: what is the alternative to BOTH online sales and brick and mortar stores? That's a good question. Audio shows are part of an answer. I auditioned a pair of high-end speakers through a dealer who had everything set up at his house. There wasn't as much selection, of course, but there also wasn't any rush. I made an appointment and we spent a few hours, talking about room treatments as well as speakers and music. Maybe we get used to having 5-10 stores, located mostly in big cities, and they carry a wider variety. I know that manufacturers might not want their speakers competing with lots of other brands, but it might help us. Imagine being able to compare Harbeth, Spendors, KEF, Wilson Benesch, B&W ... all at once? 

I love reading and researching, and I appreciate being able to buy online. I bought my DAC, streamer, and cables that way. And no doubt it's easy to buy really good speakers online. Finding that "magic," finding the sound that makes *your* ears happy, though, requires a lot of listening, and no amount of research can do that for you.

teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
I think that Jaytor did a great job of explaining himself and the realities of the market.

I think the next combative post down from the Op, was just..welll....

The customers and the world economic scenarios is what is killing retail. the world generally speaking, has no more room for retail.

The previously expansive middle of the world has been eaten up by the excessive number of humans who seem to each want to individually own the entire world.

It’s difficult to avoid as that is part of the basic design spec for a human being. We can’t all individually be ’king of the world’, but we all do something in that direction, in each and every breath as this is part of the basic underlying animal carrier specification.

It’s a bit of this, a bit of that and most definitely a bit of the aforementioned ’feverish lemming to the cliff’ running that has takes us to where we are right now.

the audio retail market condition is just one of the multitudes of canaries in the coal mine, for those who have the eyes to see it for what it is.

And thus chose a direction that includes survival. Which is no retail, no brick and mortar.

As the majority lemming customs are, overall, making it so. They are doing as they are being squeezed. And are involved in the creation of the squeeze, even though some will deny culpability, etc.

Of course, this only like, a hundredth of what I'd like to say, so please, no one take my  incomplete remarks out context by adding one's own context...and attack me with such. Thanks....

speedbump6
760 posts
 
Contuzzi, you obviously do not own a business. If you did then you would understand better about the things that affect overhead. Yes having speakers to let you go home with to try out does cost money. They’re not sending their display room models, or they can’t demo them to a customer in the store. Also, I’m sure that for higher end speakers, the dealer would bring and set them up, there’s labor costs involved that they have to eat, whether or not you purchase. I think jays post was right on the mark, and wasn’t trying to be negative in any way, just shining light in the current state of affairs. I know see real of my local dealers very well, and owning a different kind of business myself, we talk about the issues involved, as running a brick and mortar store of any kind can be a challenge these days. We all find that most consumers are not aware of the costs involved, nor do many care. We consumers tend to want the best deal, while expecting a high level of service. And we want it now! Lol. It’s just part of the modern world, and we each have to find our niche in order to survive, and thrive. Peoples buying habits have changed over the years, so old ways of doing things don’t work the same, and therefore my industry, and others like to audio industry have lost a lot of independents who just were not able to find their niche. The types of products I carry today is wildly different than when I started, and so is the customer that I’m catering to. The same can be said of audio stores. It can be hard to market to a younger audience who has many distractions, and high end audio doesn’t have the sex appeal to them that other toys might. The market for us older customers grows limited with time, and if they hang their future on that, eventually it won’t last. 
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