shy about prices


I assume a lot of you are in the industry and maybe you can answer this: why is it so hard or impossible to get pricing info for speakers?

I received a lot of suggestions for my speaker list to include more brands and I tried. I lookup up the company homepage, I searched for pricelists, however out of date, I emailed the company - nothing. Why are companies "hiding" the prices of their products they intend to sell?

This is not a generalization, I don’t mean to conflate companies with user-friendly and informative web sites (~30%) with the mystery ones (~20%). And the rest (~50%) are OK/could be better.

grislybutter

@lonemountain I totally get the model of prices to be shown on the dealer page. The problem I ran into: I go to the dealer pages from the manufacturer's page and 4 out of 5 times, it's a barely usable site, the information on the speaker is a link BACK to the manufacturer's site. Checkmate!

@grislybutter

Yes I get that. Frustrating for us both, as we cannot control the dealers or tell them what to do. We can only give them an opportunity-some take it and some dont.

The internet business is a completely different thing to the local shops that rely on relationships (and most likely good advice) to build their business. I grew up in the busness when it was like that and still prefer it. Nothing like a dealer who thinks long term and isnt greedy. There is a hybrid model growng as a few dealers are beginning to offer personal relationships AND internet information. Its a tough go as you need such signficant resources to be good at both. And yes, there are few local shops that offer bad advice, but I think that’s increasingly rare as word travels fast about bad deals and transactions.

 

Brad

@lonemountain Yes, very true.... and the retail changes that affect how we buy and use audio equipment (covid/amazon/spotify/price transparency, etc) drives how manufacturers and dealers reach the customers.


What I see suffering is the low-end/budget segment. The price range where new customers would enter the hifi world and would eventually step up, e.g. BestBuy, Tweeter, local hifi shops that used to be a 10 minute drive in every big city. When I go to high end dealers, I see people arriving with 120+K cars and naturally they will get the special treatment. Going to amazon to browse 500-1000 dollar gear is not much fun. 

One issue for the exporters is global pricing…. which tacks on a LOT of $€£¥…… in the home market….. which leads to wildly irrelevant home market “ suggested retail pricing “….. 

@tomic601 yes, that can be confusing (and disturbing). And can cause for example speakers from the UK to be cheaper in the US, than across the street from the factory