As someone who's actually worked and managed a Best Buy 12v section let me be the first to say its the best place in the world to get a 99 dollar deck.
I started at 54 in Dallas and GO'ed 470 and 477 in Seattle which were two of the first Best Buy's in Seattle (Concept 4.5 and Concept 5). Let me see... my crackshot group of "audiophiles" consisted of no one who knew left from right as far as car audio. They could sell decks all day long because any knucklehead can sell a deck, don't bother with correctly done amp sub setups. Both locations had to literally hire THE WHOLE crew from Circuit City's to do installs, which like it has been said involved as much custom as you could do with a stationary grinder bolted to your plush attractive bench.
I remember when BB sold HiFonics, i was there a great Bastardization of a otherwise solid brand. Clarion... another great bastardization of an other wise solid brand. This was done through emphasis on lower end models and not carrying higher models. Ever wonder why so many people had Clarions up until about 2000? They got a cheap one from BB and like any cheap deck they broke which gave everyone "Man my/my buddy's Clarion broke every which way except for catching on fire in his Accord!"
I was a 12v Manager at CCity 1610 Roadshop and saw it go down hill when they went non commission. Alot of high end brands WILL NOT be in a non commission enviroment. Wonder why you couldn't get the full Alpine line at Circuit in 2004? They wouldn't let us carry it because it doesn't get accurate representation. Same thing with Kenwood Excelon/Pioneer Premier/Clarion Pro Audio/Directed Amplifier Brands.
I laughed because someone said that Tweeter is on the way out earlier in the post. My misguided little chumpski, you are wrong. First of all Tweeter and CarToys said to Alpine when this was all being finalized that both would drop Alpine if by having it at Best Buy we would have worse margins on it and if they carried the whole line. Which is why you will basically see what you saw at Circuit for 2004 at Best Buy in 2005. All the decks up to and possibly not even including the CDA-9831's, Type S speakers and Subs, Type E subs, V-power amps, A CVA1004, maybe maybe a IVAD300 Special Order, maybe a MRDM301 and a MRPF340. But thats it guys. No Type X, no Type R, No big V-12's, No IVAD901, None of their headrest monitors, No CDA-9835 or 9833's.
You have to remember you will never be able to change best buy's customer base. If they blue giant has gotten to you trust me it never included anyone who would consistantly buy high end alpine. You'll sell the hell out of 9827's and 9825's but then again who didn't? You won't have an Alpine rep minus once a year if even just to see that the product is out for the model year.
Alpine has and will always cater to Cartoys, Tweeter, and Ultimate Electronics becuase they have the customer base to time and time again consistantly drive higher end sells. Jesus my average ticket is 1200-1300 dollars and i'm not talking about mobile video. 1200 dollars for average ticket sales at BB 12v not including any mobile video will get you promoted to Manager and get you a district wide party. And trust me I use high end Alpine to do it. Best Buy bought Magnolia HiFi to try to add the small high end Tweeteresque element. And they have found that even though they own them and run them as separate companies they can't get the customer bases to cross.
I'm not losing any sleep of Best Buy diluting the market for Type E sub on v-power amps ran off a CDA-9825. You can't dilute that market, its gigantic. Those little chains that somehow sell a 549.99 Alpine V-12 4 Channel will always be there because Best Buy doesn't have the know how or customers to do that.
Thank You I felt so compelled to post that i signed up.
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