totoro;171750 Wrote: > Yeah, I thought of that after posting. It might be impossible to balance > having dealers _and_ selling direct. That said, if someone wanted to use > the services of a dealer, why would they demo from bel canto first? I'd > assume in that case, they'd have a dealer they could get to reasonably > easily. > > If the problem is that their dealers are undercutting them, then > they've probably set the price too high (my original point). > > I would have thought that the _only_ thing their dealers would be > capable of competing on would have to be service (not just repairs, but > the whole package). Given the fact that they're selling direct for more > than they sell wholesale, I would think that they could set their price > so that it would be uneconomic for dealers to undercut them. > > But still, there are other companies that do both that don't charge > these restocking fees (benchmark being one, I think). > > The whole thing is somewhat unconvincing to me (others of course may > disagree). > > This whole thing is a diversion from the main point of this thread, > that their website offer was misleading.
There are a couple of reasons why a consumer might do what Bel Canto describes: -There are some dealers who will not accomodate a home-demo (either via policy or that they just don't have the specific component available) -There are some dealers who unethically discount and sell into other dealers' territories...so the consumer demos the unit to determine that s/he likes it, then solicits "bids" from as many dealers as s/he can to get the lowest price. The issue with lowering the price is this...there is an industry-accepted standard range for dealer margin. If Bel Canto does anything to lower this margin (ie. lower the retail price without lowering the dealer price), then the dealer is incented to sell a higher-margin product to his/her customer...and Bel Canto essentially loses a dealer. Regarding Benchmark, there's a reason why you don't see many high end dealers representing them...they offer a tiny margin, and most dealers would rather represent a higher-margin product. Most of Benchmark's retailers are "pro audio" businesses that have lower dealer margins and tend to do higher volume. For the record, I don't run my business based on the margins I get...I basically only represent the stuff that I own myself, regardless of the margins...but what I've described above is the reality of most high end audio dealer businesses... -- PhilNYC Sonic Spirits Inc. http://www.sonicspirits.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PhilNYC's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=837 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=31562 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
