
Gimpy Ric
Moderator
pAlso, you aren't going to get any help from a knowledgable sales staff. I mean, the guy helping you is probably a high school kid working their part time for lunch money.![]()
ROFLMAO
pAlso, you aren't going to get any help from a knowledgable sales staff. I mean, the guy helping you is probably a high school kid working their part time for lunch money.![]()
Well, I didn't mean to sound like an ID fanboy. ID's are not the only good values in the industry. There are plenty of great reputable places to find great deals on good audia gear. I just don't think the big box retailers fall into that category. That's all I meant.Spoken like a true ID fanboy there.![]()
Just a preface, I am a BB employee and have worked there quite a bit in the past, so take this as you like. At a lot of BB stores, sales people are woefully under trained. Especially around holiday season since mostly what the retailer wants are warm bodies to corral the crowds. Magnolia is a different story. The amount of training those guys go through is pretty intense. When our store got it, the people that were being moved up to it went away on a 2 week, 10 hour a day training session and came back knowing things that I am just now starting to learn. As far as markup goes, yes, it's pretty ridiculous, but take into account that the reason stores such as BB and CC stay open is the margin in the HT department, without that these stores wouldn't exist at all. Computers, media, appliances and all that stuff are very nearly no profit whatsoever. I think that's all I have to say about that. Thanks for reading my devil's advocate spiel for the day.
Mike
I don't know where you get your facts about margins but here's a good look at a first hand perspective of them. accessories are a huge markup, but the sheer numbers that have to sold to make the same amount as a single TV would make it impossible to make the kind of profit necessary to remain a business, as the next post after you states, a $32 margin on a single usb cable. Ok, $32/usb is the margin on that and i would say an average margin on an HDTV is somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-$750 or better on some models. Even at the low end of $300 a TV, that's a lot of usb cables. yes accessories are a lot of margin, but there are only a few items in the stores, accessories wise, that are this kind of margin. yes, HT cables are a decent amount of margin, but I haven't meet a salesman yet that can average the sales margin on accessories in a day to what selling 1 TV would bring in (and we sell a lot more than 1 a day). Another note, DVD's, CD's, and games ARE NOT large margin items. On average these are only a buck maybe 2 in mark up. Warranties are also a large margin item, but the number of consumers that are willing to buy one (especially after Consumer Reports constant, and for the most part rightly so, bashing of them) is going down and down, as is reflected in the number of them that is expected for us to sell on a daily basis. Do I agree with this business model, not really, I'm very much a full service kind of guy and would rather work with 3 customers over a shift than 20, but numbers are what is expected of me, so I do what I must and go home at the end of the night. As people are fond of saying around here, Joe Sixpack wants what he saw the infomercial say was the best, and he's "done a lot of research on the product" and doesn't want to be educated otherwise. Those are the people that big box stores cater to, not usually people on forums such as these that take pride in have a good knowledge base in their hobby. I have personally NEVER sold Bose, even though it is a large margin and very popular item, I refuse to send a customer home with it, I'll send them home and have them come to forums such as these long before I send them home with those "cute, unobtrusive speakers that sound amazing".No offense, but you drank the same koolaid that they force down the throats of the majority of their customers. These items arent any more marked up than other dealers. If any thing, a lot of the avg price sold for say the Klipsch RF62 will be less than a boutique shop. These stores DO NOT STAY OPEN due to their HT margins. They stay open due to bulk buying and margins are pretty good across the board. not to mention the warranty options they offer when you buy anything from a 4000 dollar tv or a pack of gum. There is always money in dvd's cd's games, software and most importantly ACCESSORIES!!! they load you up with everything they can. "Are you sure you don't need batteries for your memory card?" "Oh, and wait til you see the difference this cable will make!!"
Part of the money you pay for high end audio gear is service and consultation. Big box shops miss the boat on this.. Doesnt matter if its Audio or Golf clubs.. thats just the walmart new age business model..
I see your point. Huge ROI is good, but how do these store stores sell enough at this price point to NET the numbers would over take higher margin items. In my experience, expected accessory sales, and subsequently net margins on these are significantly lower than that of bigger ticket items such as tvs and speakers. I am very curious how that whole thing works out. If you could add more insight into your last post, that would be awesome (I was a music major, not econ)
Mike