decision about amps

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Quote "I'd echo customsuburb, it is very important to listen to audio components before buying.  My advice is to listen to a speaker at your local dealer charging you $500 for a speaker pair, then order them online for $300."

Thats pretty damn cold man. I understand wanting to save money but if you are going to go in and waste a salespersons time to get them to demo a set of speakers that you have no intetion of buying from them than thats kinda mean. I used to do sales and I can tell you that a salesmans time is valuable, esspecially if they work on commision. Thats thier way of making a living and the more time of theirs that you waste, the less time they have to make money. If you are going to their store and use their time and their gear then you should be spending your money with them. Most places will give you a deal if you can give them a reason to. For exaple when I was in sales if some one was looking at a 500 dollar amp and they told me they could get it online for 300 hundred I would pull up the site they were getting it from. If they were an authorized dealer with full factory warrenty then I would price match. If they carried no warrenty then I factored that in. I also factored in the shipping when I would do the price match so the customer could get the  product from my store for the exact same price and then I didnt waste my time. I understand that you have to look out for number one but using and abusing some guy at a retail store so you can save a couple bucks seems really wrong to me. Thats it from me.

I certainly understand where you're coming from.  My strategy IS a bit cold hearted.  I might feel differently if I actually felt that any local dealer I talked to added any value to the transaction over the warranty.  However, when he comes out and tells me uninformed lies like, "you'll need at least 150w to those quart's to even make it worthwhile - you should just use the deck power", in some attempt to upsell me, I don't feel badly walking out and buying somewhere else.  Repeat:  I'm more than happy to buy from a dealer who spends good time with me AND adds valuable knowledge or insight to the buying process.  He NEEDS to add value for me stick there though.  I usually tell the manager the reason I am leaving.  If it is his way of making a living HE should act like it too.  He should do his homework.  HE should get his boss to give him the authority to negotiate the spread.  I refuse to pay a crazy number of points for some guy to press 3 buttons on the wall. 

Secondly, I grow sick of negotiating with retail stores.  It might be tough, but all industries are dealing with the 'information age.'  More information to the consumers causes pressure on prices .. blah blah should be priced more efficiently .. they need to deal with it like everyone from the book man to the tax attorney.  Business models outdated, etc.  Yeah, I need to run.. Wish I could complete this argument, but you know where I'm going.

now let's add another element to this already cyclical argument.....

it's frustrating as heck when I spend an hour with a potential customer selling them on a remote starter or security system, explaining all the differences in features and qualifying and quantifying it down to one or two specific models that will do exactly what they want, and then they trot on down to the local big box store armed with all the info i've given them and buying it for 50 bucks less.... there's nothing worse than having a guy hump your leg for 45 minutes and then seeing them go shop based on price alone.....

the unfortunate reality is that many of us small independant shops pay more for product than the big box stores... i buy a couple dozen of one model, they buy 10 thousand and pay way less.... we have to sell service because we'll get beaten every day on price..... thats why it's a little funny to hear the big box stores whine about being beat out by some online retailer based on price, when that's exactly what they do to the small local independant shops every day... and they do it gladly.....

it's too bad we cant go back to the days when people were willing to pay a little more based on quality or to reward the people who spent time with them, educating them about the products they are looking to purchase... unfortunately as a society i feel we have sunk to a pathetic E-bay mentality... buy it cheap, cheap, cheap......

i have no problem supporting a local stereo place or any place for that matter. but i base my purchase on many things. how well the sales rep knows the products, how much he wants to help me, how well he explains things to me and how professional he is.

when i went to the place that gave me the idea for the kicker amp and everything, they guy knew his stuff, yet i had to ask him a few questions because i did not understand a few things. he gave a response that made me feel like a complete idiot. also, i know when i was looking for my car alarm i went to the same place and the guy was a total jacka$$. all he wanted to do was talk to his friend there. when i went in this time about the amp i was the only person there so he was more than happy to help me. the main turn down was that he was not very professional at all. he kept on using the F word and SH word ( i know i can't cuss on here) and to me that is something that reflects negatively on your company.

yeah sometimes i feel like  a total dick when i walk in and spend someone's time for 30 minutes listening to speakers and talking to them about different systems, but everyone in the world likes to save a penny here and there, unless you're the Trump man. although i have never worked in retail selling anything i can see where it would be quite frusterating having people do that to you left and right.

so, how do i go about saving money and yet not wastes all these people's time? should i find a site that is a dealer of the product and tell them that i can find it cheaper there? i'm guessing they are not willing to negotiate, considering how this guy talked to me the other day). any suggestions?

Kgerry,

That situation DOES suck.  If you spend that much time with a customer it is unfortunate that they are drawn away by the big vendor.  However, I don't think this phenomenon is unique to the car stereo industry.  Economies of scale say the large retailer will always be able to beat the smaller vendor on price. 

Because you'll get beaten on price, you say you need to sell service.  Unfortunately, for small businesses like yourself, I feel that the need for you to take on more of a service role will be a continuing trend.  With the rising popularity of internet commerce and large retailers, small local retailers no longer have local monopolies over the product lines they sell.  Small retailers are competing with the volume sellers like never before.  Before the rise of these volume sellers you used to compete because there were fewer suitable replacements for consumers in your region.  In a region of 100,000 people there might have been a handful of other stores sold that similar products.  Small retailers could differentiate based on the brands they sold.  Since this is no longer the case, small retailers simply must find another way to differentiate.  Small retailers also used to have a corner on information.  With the internet, consumers can take up information faster than ever.  Service is a start, it is difficult for even large retailers to sell quality service in volume and impossible for internet retailers to offer the same service. 

For consumers, the situation has never looked better.  Small retailers are still around offering knowledge and service, large retailers are offering volume wholesale style pricing.  We, as consumers, currently get the best of both worlds.  Price and knowledge!

I suggest that this won't last.  Small business close and the large retailers will continue to grow - for a time.  I then believe that small business will adapt as it has hundreds of times throughout history.  They will focus on carrying unique items the large stores cannot sell.  They will adopt flexible inventory control and ordering methods.  They will train their employees like the large stores cannot.  They will offer smart advice.  They will offer financing packages.  They will offer more combination deals.  They will start customizing products.  They will stop playing games with the prices of products.  They need to wake up and realize that negotiating on price simply doesn't work when they can neither compete on price nor differentiate their product.  What leverage do they have?  Do they expect to leverage the fact that people feel badly for wasting their time?

Those retailers that are unable to adopt, unfortunately, will be out of business.  We cannot fault the consumer for this.  Fault the distributers for not offering flexible inventory control devices to small business.  Fault the large retailers to the extent they are abusing their positions.  Hell, fault economics.  However, I stress again that we cannot fault the consumer. 

$1000 of my system would have cost $1800 had I bought it retail.  Add tax to that retail cost and I paid nearly half of retail.  I saved nearly $1000.  Even if the salesperson would have spend 2 hours with me I sure as sh*t am not going to pay an extra $500 an hour for some guy to tell me what I can learn in 20 minutes on the manufacturers web-site. 

For the owners and employees of small businesses the situation does suck.  I summarize to say that it is unfair to blame the mentality of the mass consuming public for walking out - even after they demo product for 45 minutes.

* Yeah, I didn't mean for this to turn into such a long post, but I've been studying some of these economic topics in my antitrust policy course and talking about the topics in the context of car audio is more fun than studying it straight up. :-)

Trump got where he is saving a penny here and there.

back to the amp question of which ones? are xtant or diamond audio any good?

true, now granted i am not the next Trump i would like to save a little money, considering i'm in college and paying for everything as well.