Avoiding US dealer markups


Looking at a phono stage by a UK manufacturer. The US authorized dealer monopolist seems to mark up by ~30% from what I could buy this for locally. On a $2200 unit, that's not nothing. 

I am considering shipping it to a friend who is local and having them ship it to me, at a relatively small cost.

Seems like a logical approach. I could buy 25-50 LPs with the savings.

Am I missing something?

saulh

If you continue the journey in audio always deal with a good and reputable dealer, at the end of the day you will have won much more than the mark up.

 

Check because after the dealers treated me like I do not exist when I want to spend a few hundreds of thousands I say why buy with these guys, when I have a dealer that my father used to buy from, and I have been buying for more that 28-30 years that treat my family very well.

You can ask for 110 and see. Maybe they will sell you one, and honor the warranty if you ship the unit back
. Import fees are nothing to the USA, I am from Spain and bought a house in Seattle, I bought from my dealer here 2 Techdas Aiforce 3 premium with 2 x SAT and 2 Kuzma, brought them to the USA, through a customs brokerage company with shipping, customs and brokers fees I think it was $9-$10k usa dollars. I don’t remember exactly because I shipped also a a pair of Avantgrade Duo XD, CH1 Phono in mono and it’s external power supply.

The only person to treat me good was the Acoustic Signature dealer in CA when I bought a Montana from him, the one that sold me the Tannoy’s was a joke, they sold me years old for new speakers, which I would not mind if they were kept in conditioned storage, but they were exposed to so much heat that the wax was all melted.

honestly I do not know how dealers in the USA keep on business

@astolfor honestly I do not know how dealers in the USA keep on business

There have been one or two threads here in the last year discussing dealers/salespeople, primarily those in the USA. The prognosis was poor.

My modest observation at the time was that it seems to be not entirely due to the intemperate disposition of only the dealers. Read into that what you may.

 

hifi dealers

doctors, chiropractors, psychologists, car mechanics, contractors, roofers, lawyers, babysitters, teachers

there are always good and bad ones, in how they do their work, and how they get along with people they interact - cuz they are people too...

bottom line, with internet commerce and widespread online savvy of even elderly consumers, it is harder than ever for stocking, brick-n-mortar hi-fi retailers to survive and prosper... but there are still a good amount that do, run their business well, have customers/clients that value what they bring to the table - but it is harder than ever... costs are high, finding and keeping good employees is very difficult, and while there is a top 1% customer base that is affluent and willing, most others try to bypass these channels to save $... then there is/was covid and all the mayhem that has brought...