Dealers and changing product lines


I tend to visit the local audio/video dealers in the area every year or so just to see what they have on display and what is new. It seems as though many of them change product lines every two to three years. In fact, what is happening is dealers are essentially swapping product lines every few years. Is this a normal practice in the business? Some times I will call a manufacturer and they will give me the name of a dealer and when I call the dealer they tell me they no longer carry the product line. I guess I am just curious. I find it strange that manufacturers are sometimes not even current with the dealers that carry their products.
mchd1

Showing 1 response by sean

Gregg brings up what may be a very valid point. Dealers can "blow out" a lot of stock quite quickly by reducing prices that otherwise may have cost them their dealership with that brand of product. As such, the manufacturer is glad that the dealer decided to maintain their business relationship with them and can't afford to "reprimand" them even if the dealer might have been selling measurably below what they wanted them to.

Besides that point, bringing in new lines can sometimes lead to fresh sales via "upgrades", "flavor of the month" and "i've never seen that" type of dealings. If we are honest with ourselves, we have pretty much all bought various odds and ends simply because we wanted something new or different than what we had. It wasn't necessarily because we needed it, felt our "old" pieces were not up to snuff, etc... it's just that the "new" stuff caught our interest.

I also find it interesting that manufacturers are not up to date on who is actually selling their products. What really amazes me are the dealers that carry specific product lines, yet try to steer you away from them and into other makes and models. While these are typically more expensive, WHY carry the "you don't really want that" line of products if they didn't have confidence in it in the first place ???? Sean
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