Ever feel like a "low dollar" customer that your dealer doesn't think worth their time?


I'm a careful researcher for audio gear and I also understand the value of brick and mortar stores. I am not OCD and I am not an irascible haggler. Indeed, I have told my local stores that if they carry something I like, I will buy from them and not try to find it cheaper on the net. I have purchased major pieces of gear from them.

Nevertheless, one local shop is erratic in how it treats me. Emails can take a long time to get acknowledged, and often exchanges take several back-and-forths to get clear questions answered. This shop sells gear at my price point and up to 10x more (think Wilson speakers, $7k power cords). I often feel I'm more like a fly buzzing around their heads than a valued customer trying to establish a customer-dealer relationship. I am trying to be loyal, but it makes me want to shop online. I could be reading the situation wrong, but this is definitely a pattern.

Has anyone else had the sense that they were too much of a "low dollar" customer to be worth the dealer's time?
hilde45

Showing 1 response by fdroadrunner

Let’s add another good story to the mix:
I am what I would charitably call a thrifty audiophile who almost always buys used; the key pieces in my system are a 55-year-old Mac preamp and 35-year-old Cornwalls. A couple years ago, I was in Omaha and stopped into Absolute Sound just to check it out. My wife and three young kids were with me (we were in the city for one of the kids to play a football game). I’d never been there before and clearly had the look of someone who was doing a good job to keep making payments on the minivan I pulled up in, but the family and I were treated with kindness and respect; they even auditioned what had to be a half-million dollar system for all of us for more than a half hour. I ended buying about $50 of speaker wire, but I never felt like I was wasting the salesman’s time at all.
I’ve since returned to upgrade my wire and interconnects with entry-level products, but again, I never felt like anything but a valued customer.
If my youngest ever makes good on his dreams of being in the NFL and he wants to buy his old man some new stereo gear, guess where we’re going?