Demos - To Charge a Fee or to Not Charge a Fee?

I demoed a hegel h360 from holm audio  a few years back along with several other products and once I made my decision I asked the salesman for a discount he said no so I asked to pay them for the demo time as I was going to go ahead and buy one used online if they couldn’t budge. On the drive from the store the shop owner called and asked what I was paying for the used one online and after I told him he made me a competitive offer to buy his demo. 

Where there’s a will there’s a way

@millercarbon the people who will have a big problem with this are the bungholes who want to use the dealer services for free and then buy off the internet. Those of us who would prefer to have and support local dealers won’t have a problem with it.

I don’t think that’s quite accurate.

I guess it depends on exactly what we are talking about.


It seems awfully odd to have to pay simply to have a salesman demonstrate a product he wants to sell you.

Especially if YOU the customer are taking time out of your schedule to make the trip to HIS dealership, to offer yourself as a potential customer.He’s got the equipment set up...he should be able to demonstrate it for a customer.


I can’t think of any other business where a customer shows up to check out the wares of a salesman, and has to pay the salesman for the privilege. Can you?


Home demos are another thing, though. That’s hauling gear, sometimes heavy, out to do a "house call" at someone’s house. I can see paying for that.

It's completely accurate, just not usual.  High performance audio requires dealers to exist.  Differences are generally subtle and it's important for there to be places to figure out what the differences are.  Most dealers have disappeared.  Whether other businesses do it isn't important.  What matters is who is providing value to who.  The value is the dealer providing the opportunity for a consumer to decide whether relatively subtle differences are worth the cost.  That's way more important than whatever else dealers do.  

NO...it's part of the business unfortunately, hopefully you will get a sale, if not, you tried. 

I wonder how many times somebody has walked into a dealer and asked to audition half a dozen or so full-range, big, heavy, loudspeakers, taking a great deal of time and effort for the dealer, only to be told "I like that one - now I'll go online to see if I can find a used one or one on sale!". My guess is that it's happened more than a few times, and some have then set up auditioning surcharges to reduce or eliminate this kind of being stiffed in time and effort by the 'customer'