'In Home Dealers' are the future?


Seems there is growing trend for various distributors to be doing business with 'in home dealers'. These appear to be audio hobbyist that are selling factory product from their homes, at 20 to 25 percent off list. Certainly not fair to the dealer network, but it seems to move additional product, especially at these soft purchasing times. Your opinion?
buconero117

Showing 2 responses by macrojack

Our economy has been in trouble for a long time but we chose to ignore the fact until it was inescapable. The same goes for the entire high end audio farce. We have been paying the price and believing the reviewers while blissfully overlooking the fact that there was a scam afoot and we were sustaining it. Now we are finding that we can no longer afford the luxury of wanton spending and can no longer allow ourselves to be used in that way. B&M stores are only the first line to evaporate. Manufacturers will soon start dropping like flies and hobbyists will slow their activity as momentum wanes. The magazines have long been meaningless and are on the brink of outright obsolescence.
Then there's the fact that we, as a demographic are aging and dying away, either literally or piece by piece. You can't have much of a system in the nursing home. And you may not be able to hear it anyway.
For me, and I suspect, many others, high end audio is largely nostalgic at this point. It's still kinda fun but my enthusiasm has waned substantially. I suppose at least some of the trading that takes place anymore is in search of an audio Viagra.

The dream is over ...... but the dreamers persist.
Sns - Good point about sales tax. Shipping on a $3000 phono cartridge is maybe $200. Shipping from out of state is probably more like $10.
The above is an extreme example but one that applies to a lesser degree with most other purchases.