Walking Into A Brick & Mortar High End Audio Store

Roxy54, I understand what you're saying and you make a valid point, albeit rudely. But with the limited amount of HiFi stores in my area, the salesman gets to know me and I have ended up buying items within the year. It's not like I'm pretending to buy in a Ferrari dealership.

I do tell them I am in an auditioning period, because let's face it, many folks on this forum are in a constant state of upgrading. I have found due to the poor economy, the salesmen are more open to developing relationships with the customers. I'm not going into the $20K speaker room; clearly that would be wrong if my income bracket could only afford $6000 spkrs, but I would ask to see speakers higher up their line.

You may call me a "tire-kicker" or worse but when I'm treated right by a salesman, I'll be back and ask for him personally.
And it's part of the salesman's job to know the risks of having someone waste their time. When I went back and forth between 2 stores looking at speakers and 6 months later bought speakers at one of the stores, I'm not thinking that I wasted the other salesman's time.

Roxy54 has been in sales too long is obviously burnt out. If your time is that valuable you shouldn't be in sales.

Retail workers never look at the other side of the story. Maybe you should inform the customer on the downside of buying such gear online. I personally would never (and have never) bought anything more expensive than headphones and a headphone amp online. The local shop where I buy my gear appreciates the fact that I buy from them so much that I saved $300 on my speaker cables compared to Cable Co prices. That's something people don't think about. The perks I get as a customer are ridiculous and not obtainable anywhere online. I demanded that my local shop sell Hegel and he did it. He kept in touch with me while they filled out and sent in all the necessary paper work. It's give and take and if you've never experienced this, no wonder your local B&M closed down.

Mitch and Joman,
I agree with both of you that I got a little heavy handed at the end there, but he's treating it like it's a game, and believe me, that's just what it is. It is really annoying to read a flippant post like that when you have to deal with this issue 5 days a week.
It's not a joke; it's selfish and inconsiderate. Both of you may or may not realize just how much time people like this drain from a salesperson's selling time. Some spend 90 minutes prying information from you so that they feel confident about making their purchase from the internet, while others have nothing to do and assume that you are in the same situation, so they bend your ear for an hour or so about what they own and where they bought it for a price you wouldn't believe.
So forgive me if I don't have a lot of patience. Maybe someone else who works in retail will step in with their perspective.

I thought I made it clear that I am not abusing the privilege of honoring a HiFi salesman with a possible sale. This is a hobby and a business where there needs to be information exchanged and demos given.

I like Donjr's statement...

Half the people that go in with no plan to buy probably find a way to buy something after they do it.

My most recent visit resulted in an exchange with the salesman about our taste in music and about the vintage system he is building. And after that he showed me a pair of Dynaudios (his choice), then showed me his favorite TT in the store; well out of my price range.
His passion about this hobby of ours will take me back there to buy those speakers.

It's not an atmosphere where there is contempt for the buyer (or the tire-kicker).