The car audio market is dominated by so-called "big boxes" like Circuit City, Best Buy, Tweeter and so on these days. On the flip-side of the coin we have online retailers. Some are legit and sell the same product that the big-boxes sell, others sell B-product, grey market product, trans shipped items, refurbed gear without you realizing it sometimes.
Before you head to a Box or website to make a purchase, consider the privately owned shops in your area! Think of the pros and cons of each option based on the three available factors for consideration: price, product and service.
Big Box:
--Price--
BB and CC have good prices, this is their main selling point. They have the funds to run weekly ads often with gimmick ads to do a "bait and switch" since the Sony CD player they offered for $99.99 was the only unit in stock and is sold out. They will however have its big brother for $159.99 and do their best to convince you to buy it. They may not be as cheap as an e-retailer, but do offer more security, meaning it's more likely to get the "Error 404-page not found" message than it is for Best Buy to shut down tommorrow. The boxes will usually always undercut the local shops prices as well, even if they have to kill the audio market in the process.
--Product--
Big Boxes are now selling just about any brand these days. Many of which the audio faithful will tell you have "sold out" to corporate ways. These once exclusive and high end brands like Alpine and Eclipse are on the local BB and Tweeter demo boards instead of better-grade retailers shelves. You will not find the upper crust of audio at these places however.
--Service--
Here's the Boxes' biggest failure. The salespeople usually know far less about the product than a hobbyist consumer, which is a turnoff usually. The installers are often new and inexperienced, as the BigBoxes are most commonly the starting point in an installers career. However, the service here is obviously better than with a site. Warranty issues can be handled quite well or be a total headache depending on the person behind the counter and the brand involved. Need an alarm installed? Be afraid....very afraid! The kid installing it may have just started yesterday and is totally depending on the printout that the computer spat out for him showing the wiring colors and locations. Sometimes these printouts aren't quite right......
E-commerce website
--Price--
Website's prices are impossible for the local shops or the BigBoxes to beat in many cases. The reason is simple; they have far less overhead. There is no huge building to rent and upkeep, the utilities are far less, no insurance hassles with peoples cars, no installs to perform thus no liability issues, far less payroll and so on. Often, sites will receive and sell grey market items, trans shipped items and the like to avoid the costs of being a legit dealer of merchandise. That killer deal on the Rockford amp may be due to the fact that it's not a US market product or has been smoked and refurbed. Dealing with someone over the internet via a machine, whether it's a phone or 'puter, isn't like talking to a salesman and holding the product in your hands prior to purchase.
--Product--
Web dealers sell almost everything these days. Very few companies attempt to prevent this from occurring sadly. The main one that comes to mind is JL Audio, they have e-bulldogs that gnaw the legs off of e-dealers peddling their product without permission, thus killing the market for the traditional store-based retailers. Want high end? Just search for Focal or Dynaudio one day and you get 50+ "dealers". Are all of these products legit and as-advertised? Flip a coin, that's your chances sometimes.
--Service--
This is the stumbling block of Ecommerce. You just killed that nice Focal Utopia component set and email the website you bought them from. You get a reply stating, "We aren't an authorized dealer, consult Focal directly, have a good day." Congrats! You saved $150 on that $800 set and now that its blown and you have no warranty, you just lost your investment. Having an issue with an amp that seems to not be working properly and need a little advice? They can't see your install over the web, a BigBox or local retailer could help you. Don't forget the classic aforementioned, "Error 404....site not found" to make your day happier after you just fried those JBL GTi's you bought from an unauthorized dealer. From the install service point of view, there is none, which can cost you more in the long run. When you take these e-commerce bought pieces to a local, they'll often automatically charge you more for installing components that aren't theirs or charge you a bench testing fee to assure that it all works prior to installing the pieces.
Local Retailer
Before I get into the pros and cons here, let me say a few things about locals. Most of the time these folks are depending on this business to pay their power bill to heat their home in the winter and buy food to put on the table. Often, these people are like myself, and absolutely love car audio, and home and pro audio as well. Some of these folks compete in competitions and work on their vehicle because they love what they are doing and they are the reason that high end products exist. Now, you may not care about the high end of things, but don't forget that technology trickles down. When I bought a Sony Mobile ES system in 1992, it was simply the most advanced system you could put in a car. Now, some head units contain many of these same functions built in like time alignment, parametric EQ's, adjustable slope and frequency crossovers and so on. Were it not for these folks and their customers, this progression of technology wouldn't happen as fast, if at all in car audio, since web site and Big Boxes don't touch these items usually.
--Price--
Locals are usually not as cheap as BigBoxes, and certainly can't compete with websites. This is simply due to volume pricing at Boxes and low overhead at sites. Locals will have to cut their throats to even attempt to compete in many instances.
--Product--
Locals will, as mentioned above, offer some products you simply can't get at a BigBox or site, like JL. Some local shops will attempt to sell refurbs and other shady products, so I am by no means saying they are perfect in this respect. Sometimes inventory may be an issues with locals that you wouldn't face at a Box who has 20 of the unit you want in the back on the shelves.
--Service--
Local shops will often go above and beyond their call of duty to satisfy a customer not only because they have to do so to survive, buy because they love what they are doing and know that a positive experience will lead to positive word of mouth. WOM advertising is what most locals depend on since they usually don't have the cash to dump on advertising that BB and CC do weekly. Service is the one thing that a local dealer can provide that a site or BigBox can not touch.
You can see from these comparisons that you can only have two of the three factors at any given time. If you want the lowest price, you have to sacrifice either service or product choice. If you want the best service, you'll pay more for it. Want the newest product on the street? You have to pick either product and service from a local or product and price from a Box or a web retailer.
Also, not every installer at a BigBox retailer is a newbie or moron and not every website is shady in their business practices. If you can establish a good relationship with a highly reputable local retailer, you will not be sorry. You'll end up possibly paying more than at Circuit or dirtcheapaudio.com, but you'll receive professional service and a warranty that often consists of, "no problem, we'll swap it out. No, you won't be without a cd player, we'll give you a new one over the counter and just send this one back." Often, you will end up receiving discounts on merchandise when you return or send others in to the shop to have work done. The reason being that these people appreciate you as a customer and depend on you to help support their business that their blood, sweat and tears has built.
Thanks for taking the time to read through this loooooooong post. This topic is important to me, since I have friends that either own shops, work for shops or rep brands to shops. There are good and bad locals, just try to help out the good ones when you need A/V gear for your AV.
Before you head to a Box or website to make a purchase, consider the privately owned shops in your area! Think of the pros and cons of each option based on the three available factors for consideration: price, product and service.
Big Box:
--Price--
BB and CC have good prices, this is their main selling point. They have the funds to run weekly ads often with gimmick ads to do a "bait and switch" since the Sony CD player they offered for $99.99 was the only unit in stock and is sold out. They will however have its big brother for $159.99 and do their best to convince you to buy it. They may not be as cheap as an e-retailer, but do offer more security, meaning it's more likely to get the "Error 404-page not found" message than it is for Best Buy to shut down tommorrow. The boxes will usually always undercut the local shops prices as well, even if they have to kill the audio market in the process.
--Product--
Big Boxes are now selling just about any brand these days. Many of which the audio faithful will tell you have "sold out" to corporate ways. These once exclusive and high end brands like Alpine and Eclipse are on the local BB and Tweeter demo boards instead of better-grade retailers shelves. You will not find the upper crust of audio at these places however.
--Service--
Here's the Boxes' biggest failure. The salespeople usually know far less about the product than a hobbyist consumer, which is a turnoff usually. The installers are often new and inexperienced, as the BigBoxes are most commonly the starting point in an installers career. However, the service here is obviously better than with a site. Warranty issues can be handled quite well or be a total headache depending on the person behind the counter and the brand involved. Need an alarm installed? Be afraid....very afraid! The kid installing it may have just started yesterday and is totally depending on the printout that the computer spat out for him showing the wiring colors and locations. Sometimes these printouts aren't quite right......
E-commerce website
--Price--
Website's prices are impossible for the local shops or the BigBoxes to beat in many cases. The reason is simple; they have far less overhead. There is no huge building to rent and upkeep, the utilities are far less, no insurance hassles with peoples cars, no installs to perform thus no liability issues, far less payroll and so on. Often, sites will receive and sell grey market items, trans shipped items and the like to avoid the costs of being a legit dealer of merchandise. That killer deal on the Rockford amp may be due to the fact that it's not a US market product or has been smoked and refurbed. Dealing with someone over the internet via a machine, whether it's a phone or 'puter, isn't like talking to a salesman and holding the product in your hands prior to purchase.
--Product--
Web dealers sell almost everything these days. Very few companies attempt to prevent this from occurring sadly. The main one that comes to mind is JL Audio, they have e-bulldogs that gnaw the legs off of e-dealers peddling their product without permission, thus killing the market for the traditional store-based retailers. Want high end? Just search for Focal or Dynaudio one day and you get 50+ "dealers". Are all of these products legit and as-advertised? Flip a coin, that's your chances sometimes.
--Service--
This is the stumbling block of Ecommerce. You just killed that nice Focal Utopia component set and email the website you bought them from. You get a reply stating, "We aren't an authorized dealer, consult Focal directly, have a good day." Congrats! You saved $150 on that $800 set and now that its blown and you have no warranty, you just lost your investment. Having an issue with an amp that seems to not be working properly and need a little advice? They can't see your install over the web, a BigBox or local retailer could help you. Don't forget the classic aforementioned, "Error 404....site not found" to make your day happier after you just fried those JBL GTi's you bought from an unauthorized dealer. From the install service point of view, there is none, which can cost you more in the long run. When you take these e-commerce bought pieces to a local, they'll often automatically charge you more for installing components that aren't theirs or charge you a bench testing fee to assure that it all works prior to installing the pieces.
Local Retailer
Before I get into the pros and cons here, let me say a few things about locals. Most of the time these folks are depending on this business to pay their power bill to heat their home in the winter and buy food to put on the table. Often, these people are like myself, and absolutely love car audio, and home and pro audio as well. Some of these folks compete in competitions and work on their vehicle because they love what they are doing and they are the reason that high end products exist. Now, you may not care about the high end of things, but don't forget that technology trickles down. When I bought a Sony Mobile ES system in 1992, it was simply the most advanced system you could put in a car. Now, some head units contain many of these same functions built in like time alignment, parametric EQ's, adjustable slope and frequency crossovers and so on. Were it not for these folks and their customers, this progression of technology wouldn't happen as fast, if at all in car audio, since web site and Big Boxes don't touch these items usually.
--Price--
Locals are usually not as cheap as BigBoxes, and certainly can't compete with websites. This is simply due to volume pricing at Boxes and low overhead at sites. Locals will have to cut their throats to even attempt to compete in many instances.
--Product--
Locals will, as mentioned above, offer some products you simply can't get at a BigBox or site, like JL. Some local shops will attempt to sell refurbs and other shady products, so I am by no means saying they are perfect in this respect. Sometimes inventory may be an issues with locals that you wouldn't face at a Box who has 20 of the unit you want in the back on the shelves.
--Service--
Local shops will often go above and beyond their call of duty to satisfy a customer not only because they have to do so to survive, buy because they love what they are doing and know that a positive experience will lead to positive word of mouth. WOM advertising is what most locals depend on since they usually don't have the cash to dump on advertising that BB and CC do weekly. Service is the one thing that a local dealer can provide that a site or BigBox can not touch.
You can see from these comparisons that you can only have two of the three factors at any given time. If you want the lowest price, you have to sacrifice either service or product choice. If you want the best service, you'll pay more for it. Want the newest product on the street? You have to pick either product and service from a local or product and price from a Box or a web retailer.
Also, not every installer at a BigBox retailer is a newbie or moron and not every website is shady in their business practices. If you can establish a good relationship with a highly reputable local retailer, you will not be sorry. You'll end up possibly paying more than at Circuit or dirtcheapaudio.com, but you'll receive professional service and a warranty that often consists of, "no problem, we'll swap it out. No, you won't be without a cd player, we'll give you a new one over the counter and just send this one back." Often, you will end up receiving discounts on merchandise when you return or send others in to the shop to have work done. The reason being that these people appreciate you as a customer and depend on you to help support their business that their blood, sweat and tears has built.
Thanks for taking the time to read through this loooooooong post. This topic is important to me, since I have friends that either own shops, work for shops or rep brands to shops. There are good and bad locals, just try to help out the good ones when you need A/V gear for your AV.