Starting my showroom again


 

Hello, audiophiles. I would like to get your honest feedback. Back in 2022, I had to close my business in Nashville owing to a series of unexpected occurrences (several deaths in the family, a rapid move to assist my mother-in-law, and a brain operation); all of this necessitated that I close the store in a matter of weeks. It was now a two-hour trek to Nashville. I worked as a glorified gate operator at a chemical company because that is all was available in our small town. I received an opportunity to become national sales director for an audio company, which would provide some income—not much, but enough to go back into the hifi business at the bottom level.

 

 

 

So now you know the incredibly brief version of the story. Here's the question: there is a little town about 30 minutes away that is booming and gaining more expensive retailers like Ulta and StarBucks. So here's the question.

 

Do you believe a small town like that might support an up-and-coming hifi business that sells receivers, speakers like PS Audio, KEF, and other manufacturers at a lower price point until the store can handle more expensive items? The closest "electronics store," Electronics Express, is nearly an hour and a half away. I have had an audio shop since 2003, beginning in Florida. Thoughts?

 

128x128nashvillehifi

Showing 7 responses by grislybutter

I have no doubt a small town/population could sustain your business, 100K people or so, in a 20 mile radius. It's mostly about what would sell. A few expensive brands and components are boring to most of the public, you would attract maybe a few 100 people. I would think you would need a range of audio products and systems under $1000. You'd have inexpensive but quality equipment during Christmas time flying off the shelves. I would avoid brands Amazon sells.

But honestly, I don't know how much starting a business like this would cost, so I should stay out of it.

those are good questions @mswale I would also be curious if there is an active music scenes where you could advertise. 

I would love a store that also does repairs and sells and buys albums and vintage gear. 

Btw I could analyze the demographics, age, education, income, etc. if you told us what town it is, that's part of my day job

on the same wave as @audiokinesis I looked at 120+ speaker companies web sites (for 100s of hours but closer to 1000s) and more than half of them have no presence in the US. But it is worse than that because they do have a global distribution page, a link to a US company's web site (or in many cases broken link with domain for sale) who do not carry their products. Essentially most of them have an outdated network, with no representation in the US.

not everyone should get a boring corporate job with possibly little to nothing to contribute to society. I know I am naive and a dreamer but when you retire, what would you rather have behind you, 20 years in an "office space" cubicle or 1000s of happy clients and lasting friendships that often come with this passion?

@ghasley you didn't say it, I did.

97% of the world doesn't have 2.34 million or whatever the number is for a "secure"
 retirement as we are being fed that by wealth management "gurus" and "experts"  and they seem to be a lot happier and less tense than Americans. By your logic, nobody should have a small business. Maybe it's not the small business idea that's wrong but the fact that private health care and everything else cost so much here. 

My #1 priority is to take care of my sick mother, support my kids and not to put money away for retirement - it's a binary choice - I can't do both. That's the old model that worked for 2000+ years. I know it's not the model of the last 50 in the US but call me stupid, I know I am not "normal". 

Sorry for the tangent @nashvillehifi my offer still stands to run the stats on the hifi buying potential of the area. 

Nashville is exploding and full of very affluent people

very true and not in a good way, for the most part. Where has its charm gone?