Worth mentioning that Sight and Sound sold camera equipment as well as audio (hence the 'Sight' bit). I bought a Nikon SLR at their Swindon shop last year and found the staff very helpful. Also they had a lot of stock of very sellable cameras at best prices, so you can't really complain about that (or you could argue, that makes it all the more worrying). Additionally they took trade-ins, so the shop was a gold mine of vintage audio - rather nice and old-fashioned. Wonder what's happening with that (ebay I suppose).
matthewpiano
Well-known member
- Nov 23, 2007
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Interesting comments Chris. How much do you think you can save in overheads (vs loss in sales) if you had no demo or shop presence? Have you thought about the man with a van home demo approach? I'm intersted as I would have listened to more and probably spent more on new kit not used had something like this been available. I don't want to critiscise retailers too much by the way, I guess a lot of responsibility lies with the manufacturers, who maybe just rely on non franchised outlets generating sales, using the media (magazines etc) as their primary marketing tool; I don't know how much support they give to the retailer other than some kind of pricing / volume incentive.
If so, then at least some of the comments in this thread suggest that it's not altogether joined up.
If so, then at least some of the comments in this thread suggest that it's not altogether joined up.
SteveR750 said:
Hi Steve,
Difficult one to answer. I always feel you need some sort of base even if its not a store to demo product, for credibility reasons as much as anything. The "man with a van" approach is certainly an interesting one although I do feel you would need a loyal and known customer base already to even attempt something like that. What kit would you stock? You can guarantee whatever you have will be wrong. Where do you keep it? Transport? Logisitcs? Time? It would be difficult to start from scratch particularly at the minute. I do agree that the best environment for a customer to test kit in is their own home though. We used to do quite a bit of home dems when we were at the store but it tended to be with people we were familiar with. Often very effective. Creative thinking should be encouraged though!
As regards your statement "where does the responsibility lie?" Another massive question which I'm not qualified to answer but many people on here will have opinions on! All of us I guess. Manufacturers need support from their retailers, retailers need support from their customers. Once customers stop spending, retailers become more cautious and stock less and all the knock on effects of that....and so on...and so on....
As David mentioned in an earlier post for stores and CI/online businesses like mine to continue servicing customers effectively we need to remain profitable and have to be allowed to make money otherwise more of us will go to the wall and there will be even less choice for the consumer out there. So far I'm happy with choice I made and the brands I represent but I do miss having the store (and all that comes with it
Going back to the original point of the post we just dont want to see more businesses like Sight and Sound go under its not good for anyone.matthewpiano said:
I expect you're right - just that the Swindon shop went bust at the same time!
Just confirming that Mastercard have refunded my money for the goods not received if anyone else was in the same position as me. All ended OK for me but sad to see another outlet disappear. About to buy from Peter Tyson - from the shop face to face!
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