PhilNYC;171756 Wrote: > 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...
I see your point. The issue might be then that they need to "shit or get off the pot", ie, decide whether they're a direct business or a dealer oriented one. Not a fun position to be in, I guess, but they initiated the whole thing themselves. Again, I view this discussion as orthogonal to the misleading marketing. Sure, there are valid reasons to have this policy. But this doesn't excuse being misleading or dishonest about it. I personally don't think there is such a thing as "dishonest discounting". The obverse is really price-fixing, which is illegal in some cases, and is certainly not how a market is supposed to work. -- totoro squeezebox 3 -> mccormack dna .5 -> audio physic tempo 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ totoro's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5935 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
