Rip off British Hi-Fi Industry

[WikiBoy]

Do you feel you are being served fairly by British Hi-Fi retailers or do you feel you are being largely ripped off.

[Steve Toy]

I've put no because I do have a basic understanding of business. A lot of hi-fi dealers, especially the service-based ones (as opposed to the mere box shifters) are struggling.

It is not they who are ripping us off, it our lovely tax & spend/waste government for making this a very expensive country to live and trade in.

[WikiBoy]

I've put no because I do have a basic understanding of business. A lot of hi-fi dealers, especially the service-based ones (as opposed to the mere box shifters) are struggling.

It is not they who are ripping us off, it our lovely tax & spend/waste government for making this a very expensive country to live and trade in.

Everyone is subject to the same trading conditions in this country, so why does Hi-Fi retail have to have such rip off mark ups. No other industy but maybe furniture (but that is changing fast) and jewelry has it. The price a manufacturer charges a retailer (Not the likes of Richer Sound, but the independents) is *doubled* to the price he asks you for it!!!

[Steve Toy]

The turnover in good service-based dealerships is rather low. You get what you pay for.

[WikiBoy]

The turnover in good service-based dealerships is rather low. You get what you pay for.

Computer or washing machine sellers don't have to give service!

There is no excuse apart from the industry was talked into it by the flat earth mafia in the late 70' and 80's.

Originally everything was very simple.

1 a manufacturer made something.
2 he took it to wholesellers who put a 20% margin on it and sold it to retailers.
3 the retailers (Imhofs was a classic example) displayed and promoted it and put a 30% margin on it
4 end of 60's retail price maintenance was banned and the discounters appeared. That process promoted and generated great expansion in the market.
5 Linn and Naim saw a marketing niche (actually Julian just followed Ivor as Ivor needed him at that time and they marketed as siamese twins). The traditional retailers were going bust due to the discounters. So they were given *exclusives* with high profit margins (100% up or 50% down depending on how you look at it, and a promise that they would use blackmail and illegal control practises to make sure no one discounted) and an overkill marketing campaign linked to the emotional and intellectual (and in a small number of cases financial) hi-jacking of the magazine editors and writers.

That is how the hi-fi mafia was born, and every new sector of the market like valves coming in since has had to play the game or do no business.

Now the world is different and becoming more so. You now can do business without pandering to this overt corruption - the reason - the web - many thing from politics downwards is going to be able to dispence with the middle men, the on cost, the leaches who feed off *your* hard earned wages.

[Colinx]

It depends who's position you look at it from.
1.That of a manufacturing company that where screwed by the industry structure.
2.The retailer trying to make a living, and cover ever increasing overhead and tax costs in a restrictive market,
3. The final customer, looking to see, hear, and use the stuff before he buys it.

I have no direct experience of the first, a little of the second, but in a different industry, and a fair amount of the third.

I keep being told by various companies that selling on the web is the way forward. You can buy it, and if you don't like it send it back, you pay only for the transport. In theory fine, other than lets say, I want to compare 3 amps at say £500.00. So I either have to pay for all 3 and get them to my home at the same time, or have one follow the other. I would prefer all at the same time, so I need to have 3x the cost price available at the time of purchase. I have to pay 3 x delivery fee's, plus 3 x return fee's, say £25 a box each way, so that £150 in transports cost to buy a £500 amp. Most couriers deliver between 8 and 5.30, so some one has to be at home to receive them. Will they all deliver on same day, or a weekend, will they hell, so that's either one or two days holiday gone to take delivery, another to send them back. How much is that- anywhere between £80 and £320 in lost wages on a low wage- lets half it £200, so £200 plus transport of £150, thats cost the customer £350 to buy a £500 pound amp, those margins don't look so silly do they? If we assume that the man selling the amp at £500 is not registered for VAT, but needs to be with the direct scheme, thats £80 ish- these £500 pound amps are soon going to be £1000 when all the costs are covered. I would rather use a day off to visit a retailer, compare how stuff looks and sounds and make my choice rather than have a box sent to me. All the internet sales route does is move the logistics problems- and point them straight at the paying customer.

[Steve Toy]

And you don't get the holistic approach that makes your system actually play music.

[Mike]

Are we voting whether we are being ripped off but the 'Hi-Fi Industry' in general (as the thread title suggests) or the 'Hi-Fi Retailer' which is more specific (as the poll title suggests)???

[WikiBoy]

It depends who's position you look at it from.
1.That of a manufacturing company that where screwed by the industry structure.
2.The retailer trying to make a living, and cover ever increasing overhead and tax costs in a restrictive market,
3. The final customer, looking to see, hear, and use the stuff before he buys it.

I have no direct experience of the first, a little of the second, but in a different industry, and a fair amount of the third.

I keep being told by various companies that selling on the web is the way forward. You can buy it, and if you don't like it send it back, you pay only for the transport. In theory fine, other than lets say, I want to compare 3 amps at say £500.00. So I either have to pay for all 3 and get them to my home at the same time, or have one follow the other. I would prefer all at the same time, so I need to have 3x the cost price available at the time of purchase. I have to pay 3 x delivery fee's, plus 3 x return fee's, say £25 a box each way, so that £150 in transports cost to buy a £500 amp. Most couriers deliver between 8 and 5.30, so some one has to be at home to receive them. Will they all deliver on same day, or a weekend, will they hell, so that's either one or two days holiday gone to take delivery, another to send them back. How much is that- anywhere between £80 and £320 in lost wages on a low wage- lets half it £200, so £200 plus transport of £150, thats cost the customer £350 to buy a £500 pound amp, those margins don't look so silly do they? If we assume that the man selling the amp at £500 is not registered for VAT, but needs to be with the direct scheme, thats £80 ish- these £500 pound amps are soon going to be £1000 when all the costs are covered. I would rather use a day off to visit a retailer, compare how stuff looks and sounds and make my choice rather than have a box sent to me. All the internet sales route does is move the logistics problems- and point them straight at the paying customer.

Colin you are obviously an intelligent man and I completely agree with you. BUT it is early days in the revolution. Even though I have my disputes 'wiv der management' at wigwam, I still think it represents the future far more than here or PF and DEFINITELY not ZG. Reason - it has developed community. This is the future of the web, and has been my point in numerous past posts. It is not just selling on the web, that is a very small part of the equation. All hobby industry will or should develop this community, what is in the way of it - well the marketing men and retailers who pollute the web with their bullshit. There are many who don't and try to become part of community instead of trying to feed of it, and if they want to survive that is what they should do - have to do - to get goodwill.

The advice given and especially the bakeoffs at wigwam for me are the largest and strongest current finger pointing at the future. Head-fi in the US has similar. The customers *own* home will become the future retail point, but instead of being financially and marketing based, it will be information and community based. Groups of local enthusiasts who *want* to have like friends and people to help and help them. That is the future and if I have my way that is the way this forum will go as it has enormous potential as being the only one that hasn't had the management succumb to trough slurping.

[WikiBoy]

Are we voting whether we are being ripped off but the 'Hi-Fi Industry' in general (as the thread title suggests) or the 'Hi-Fi Retailer' which is more specific (as the poll title suggests)???

It is the hi-fi mafia that set the rules for the game but the retailers just feed off it. In your terms it is they that gets yer money.