Retail Buying - Reality Check

Flex, In response to your question

"where in this tiny,eclectic, highly specialized market do you see room for agressive negotiation and competition"?

Consider this:

1. The paradigm for really successful internet business has already been established:

If you visit the web site strikingitrich.com you will find a discussion of the top ten websites that have made web entrepreneurs rich beyond their wildest dreams. Audiogon has hit upon their underlying recipe with a vengeance - provide customers with reliable information, LOTS of it for free, with no obligation to buy, find a way for the customer's opinion to REALLY matter (this breeds trust), then provide CHOICE, along with a sense that the customer is getting the maximum for his dollar. If you visit any of these websites, you will see how much Audiogon has in common with them.

2. The internet brings new customers AND new money to bear. Instead of setting up a zero sum game between audio manufacturers (e.g.will I buy B&Ws or Avalons), the internet sets up a zero sum game with other luxury items (will I buy high end audio or a Jacuzzi?).

Exclusive dealerships are not configured to take proper advantage of the paradigm for expanded customer base and $$$ that the internet offers. I contend that this new money is real - look at the number of posts here where people want to talk to savvy experienced buyers/listeners and then start building new systems.

If there is one thing that we have learned from the past few years on the internet, it is that some things can be sold this way, some cannot. Remember the dot com bubble?

Audio on the internet is a by-product of the established 2-channel dealer-based market, and dealers can use it to their advantage by setting up a good brick-and-mortar based website. However, high end audio *systems* cannot exist on the exclusive basis of internet distribution. Word of mouth is nowhere near good enough to convince an entire new generation of buyers to get into something they've never heard. I would think this is completely self-evident. There is no sensible internet-based business model for high end systems.

Dealerships offer numerous advantages: a place to audition combinations of equipment that you want to hear together ( I have traveled 2000 miles in order to hear specific equipment together in one place), warranty and repair service (often free even beyond the warranty), trade-ins/ups, advice (find the right people and its good), good contact with the manufacturer (often), and increasingly excellent sound rooms for listening, with experience on sound room building and optimization.

You can get pieces of this information, in greater depth, from entrepeneurs and internet forums, and that is good. Education serves everyone's best interests, though much of what is in forums is just opinion.

As far as jacuzzis vs. audio, Judit you're in the wrong forum.

I am awed by the innate insights of Zaikesman into the depths of my psyche. I no longer feel the need to pay my analyst to help me figure out why I like cigars - I'm sure he already knows.

I laugh at the suggestion of insincere, gratuitous ratinalizations. Tell me forum - I don't know this- Is burn in BS or not? The only place I ever heard about this concept is on this site. ">>>>XXXX brand sounded so much better after burn in." Do I believe it? I don't know. I haven't ever bought any equipment that offered burn in as a concept. But, I do know a lot of people on this site swear buy it. I tend think it may be a bit of fine hair splitting - but I don't know. Does it matter in this context? Of course not.

Zaikesman - Have you ever bought a new car on the internet? With your ethics and integrity I'm sure you didn't test drive it at a dealer before you did. You just bought it via the web because you read some neat review from car buffs on Cardiogon.com. And your E&I must also cause you to only buy used equipment on the web that you have never heard or that you heard at a friend's house. Because if you heard it at a store and spent time with the dealer, you would you been wasting his time and I know you're not that kind of person. You know the difference in price between buying a new car at a dealer and buying one through the web or some purchasing company is only a thousand or so dollars. The pricing differential between the web and these stores was many times more than that- new to new, apples to apples. I didn't even consider used as an alterative until they sent me into sticker shock. Is a saleperson's time spent with me (3-4 hours total at the very most - I spent somewhere near that much time on each individual item I bought here on Audiogon.) worth $30,000 on a $85,000 purchase? If you think so Zaikesman, then you're either more naive or disengenuos then me. I would love to quote a price on my products that was based on huge profits to me, but I've come to learn that real prospects are tough to come buy and I'd reather give them a great price and leave a few $$ of my profit on the table so they don't go looking somewhere else.

Did I mislead the stores into believing I'd be delighted to full MSRP. No. I told them up front that I was new to the hobby, talking to a few places and ready to do something.

I asked this question not to brag or seek penance, but to stretch me to consider perspectives other than my own. As I said in earlier posts, I appreciate the thoughtful responses, even the ones that sought more information as to my motives. Personal attacks, on the other hand without recognotion of today's global marketplace, sound like the sour grapes from an out of touch MSRP salesman to me.

Learning about a new expensive hobby is just that - A learning experience. I don't have many and I don't do new ones very often. Thanks for the continuing education one and all - even Zaikesman.

Rogocop,

"Personal attacks without recognition of today's global marketplace, sound like sour grapes from an out of touch MSRP salesman to me".

Thankyou. Amen.

Flex,

I think you incorrectly profile the average internet customer. Robocop has hit the nail on the head in a very objective way. We are dealing with a global marketplace, and there is no going back.

I also think that my original post is flawed. It betrays my own frustration at being caught in the middle of the shifting business paradigm.

I bought every single piece of gear I own on the internet. Not once did I ever even go into any high end dealer to audition or see any of the equipment. I don't go into those places. I'd rather go to the dentist, than into a high end audio store. And I don't ever even pick up an audio magazine, although I have been known to read excerpts of reviews on websites. I get all my reviews from "word of mouth", directly from actual users who also have alot of experience. Even on this website, there is alot of valuable information, if you have the insight to be able to sift out the gems from the coal.

Many might ask,"How do you know what will sound best?" That's an interesting question. Isn't it? The answer is I've had many years of experience to show me what is a good audio design, and system concept, and what isn't. If I make a wrong purchase, I can re-sell it, if I don't like it. That has only happened to me once, and I went against my better judgment in the optimistic hope that buying a good digital player could compete with analog. I have now sold that item, and all my other choices were right in the bull's eye. I have enough experience to tell pretty close what a piece of gear will sound like before it is even turned on. I don't need a salesman. I just need a venue to purchase the equipment I know that I want to buy.

What I find really interesting about this, is that by using this method, I ended up with an extraordinarily musical system, which has virtually no well-known products in it. Some of the products I do have that are now well-known, like the Teres and Shelter 501, were virtually unknown to most audiophiles when I got them, and alot of the visibility that has arisen about them on this website, is from my activity in telling you all about them. I found out about them through other means, and tried them out, and was delighted, because the recommendations came from people that were deep into this hobby, and knew of things that most don't. So now I have one of the most unusual systems on this website, and it is a very capable one, to my ears.

And none of it came from a dealer, and most of it cannot even be gotten from a dealer. Some of it, I had to build myself, or have it custom built. It all came from internet sales. And that is the way I will continue to operate.

It's funny when I read the posts about the concerns of people wasting the dealer's time, and buying on the internet to save money. I think that going to a dealer is a waste of MY time. I don't buy on the internet to save money. I do it to get a higher level of performance that the dealers don't even know about. When I go to a dealer, I feel like I'm in Best Buy or Circuit City. They don't even have anything I'd want.

As far as warranty service, that's a joke. The service they provide is that they will box it up and send it off to the manufacturer, instead of you boxing it up and sending it. Big deal. And just FYI, none of my equipment has needed boxing up and sending back. So that means nothing to me. I don't need their set up advice, because I already know how to set my stuff up fine, thank you very much. So all they are to me is an annoyance, and a money pit for 25% to 50% of what I have to spend.

And I agree with in-home auditions, like has been stated by others, and this can be done by internet sellers as well as dealers. I have gotten product to audition from internet vendors, and sent it back unpurchased, just like anyone else would do from a dealer. Primarily cables. And I have gotten stuff sent to me from audiophile friends who wanted me to hear something that they thought I might like in my system. And I have done the same for them. These people are not interested in selling me anything, or telling me that I should trade in my custom 45 SE ZOTL for the latest gear on the glossy brochure. They want to help me to achieve MY goals with MY system. Not exchange my gear for the latest products of the month, that will put money in their pockets, with little or no concern that my system performance may suffer as a result. As soon as they can make that cash register go "Ka-ching", they are ready to go on to the next victim.

I understand that my circumstances are different than many others', but this is the way I choose to operate. Other people may need/want dealers to sell them things. I don't. I just want my system to work the way I want it to, and dealers are not part of that process for me.