Online selling is becoming more common place these days. Once upon a time you had to go to a shop to buy your Hi Fi. Those who wanted to save money went to the second-hand shops or local classifieds. Ebay started a trend, and now more and more Hi-Fi distributors and manufacturers are selling online.
Obviously, cutting out the middle man (the retailer/dealer) the end user is getting a better price.
But for those who work in the retail shops - they must be worried about their jobs.
If you want to demo a piece of gear, it is becoming more difficult as less retailers are stocking the brands that are sold online.
The world is a changing place, is this a change for the better, or are jobs at risk? Presumeably as online sales become more common place people who once worked in front-line retail may find they work in a customer service/ warehousing/ packing role instead. Warehouses may start to have demo rooms?
I for one embrace the change. In the short term, there will be some pain.
Who knows, perhaps many of us will be working from home in front of the computer sooner than we thought. Peak hour wont be so bad at least?
Comments?
Obviously, cutting out the middle man (the retailer/dealer) the end user is getting a better price.
But for those who work in the retail shops - they must be worried about their jobs.
If you want to demo a piece of gear, it is becoming more difficult as less retailers are stocking the brands that are sold online.
The world is a changing place, is this a change for the better, or are jobs at risk? Presumeably as online sales become more common place people who once worked in front-line retail may find they work in a customer service/ warehousing/ packing role instead. Warehouses may start to have demo rooms?
I for one embrace the change. In the short term, there will be some pain.
Who knows, perhaps many of us will be working from home in front of the computer sooner than we thought. Peak hour wont be so bad at least?
Comments?
I'd certainly feel like a scumbag if I went to a retailer and asked for a demo of some kit with the sole intention of buying it cheaper online. So I don't see it making sense at all for retailers to stock stuff which is sold online - they'll quickly go out of business. Either there will be two tiers of stuff - direct sold and retail sold with no overlap, or retailers will go to the wall.
I don't see overall that jobs need to reduce, just change. The job of the demo guy in a retailer is slowly being taken over by others who write about what they hear online. They mostly are doing this for free on blogs, forums and various audio websites. Those sources of info are ad-supported in the main.
When I bought my first hifi system, I don't recall paying much attention to the demo at the retailer. What impressed me was that the kit I was buying got a good review in my favourite magazine (which at that time was HiFi Answers). I trusted the reviewer's ears, not my own when making the purchase. If the demo guy had disagreed with the reviewer, I'd probably have followed the demo guy's recommendations. I was green, looking up to 'the experts'.
Fast-forward to now - if the net existed when I was first getting into hifi, I'd be trusting the online information about what to buy. So hardly any need to demo, I'd research online then I'd buy online.
But this is the problem at the moment. Products that retailers are selling is sold online - often at cheper prices.
The world is a changing place. In the economic sense it changes for the better. After all, it is we who are changing it, and not inadvertently in this case. We wouldn't change it for the worse, would we?
w
Think of it as evolution in action.
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This tends to make manufacturers cut corners to save money and compete with others.
My experience of ebay was buying amplifiers which were miles out from the spec given. i.e. I bought a 400 watt amplifier which had less than 50 watts output power. Looking insoide it was obvious why, small transfomer, small heatsink and tiny output transistors.
I prefer to go somewhere to listen to what I am buying first.
Sadly, locally the number of hi fi and music stores has dwindled away.
Even cash converters is no longer trading locally.
Sure, I don't see it as 'a problem' - its just evolution. So the retailers do need to add value or they'll go out of business. If they fail to innovate, they'll die. Has always been thus.
As to components not living up to their ratings due to undersized supplies, etc...this is often obvious on its face. How many times have you seen a 7 channel surround amplifier rated at, for example, 200 watts per channel and the maximum AC input rated as 8 amps @ 115V. Makes it pretty clear that extreme specsmanship is at play.
The irony here is that such a reaction to the market's evolution brings the manufacturer even closer to extinction than it was before. In evolution, competition is an illusion. Each species creates its own environment, businesses in that sense are no different - each has its own created market. As Peter Drucker remarked - 'the purpose of business is to create a customer'.
Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. With so many online reviews, if the quaility is not up to a certain standard, either sonicly or in build quality, word will get around. It would be in the manufacturers interest to maintain certain high standards.
Erin
I agree.
I don't have a great deal of sympathy for the major retailers with their inflated prices, and more often than not, staff only trained to what appears to be the level of a McDonalds employee. ( ever notice that you can CLEARLY say "to take away", yet you still often get it on a tray ?) Perhaps prices wouldn't be so high if they didn't see the need to make huge profits to enable opening whole chains of their stores across the country, wiping out the smaller competition in the process, and paying even higher dividends to increasingly greedy shareholders.
I recently bought a 40" Samsung HD "LED" TV on line, because even with delivery charges, it was a couple of a hundred dollars cheaper than the Dick Smith stores with their massive buying power.
Alex
I'd guess that their 'inflated prices' would be because of being public companies with greedy shareholders (as you mention) and because they're paying inflated rents and property taxes. Oh and also expanding (as you also mention) - which is presumably down to greedy shareholders again, or perhaps megalomaniac CEO?
I agree, sympathy is totally unwarranted, business wouldn't be business if those who aren't good at it (don't/can't adapt) didn't drop out of the game.
I'm not a regular in McDs these days, but when I was it never happened to me here. So I conclude that English listening skills are better in China than they are in Oz
McD's I read isn't primarily in the burger business at all, its real estate. Food (if that's not too euphemistic a word) is apparently a side-effect of amassing and maintaining prime real estate on a global scale.Gerry Harvey Shoppers react angrily to retailer Gerry Harvey's comments | Herald Sun (link for overseas readers) raised some interesting issues, but in the end he is motivated by greed, not altruistic love of his country. In the end, he just needs to change his business model. In the end, the Aust. government allowed the Aust. Electronics manufacturing industry to die years ago. (although I'm sure there were many factors involved and more than needs to be discussed here) Cost of local vs. Imported products was one of the main reasons anyway. Price is always a factor.
The goods are manufactured overseas anyway. I'm sure there will always be someone who wants their goods "today" and will go to a retail shop and spend the bit extra to have it.
But going say 10 years into the future - I wonder about this.
I think retailing is going to change quite a bit.
The goods are manufactured overseas anyway. I'm sure there will always be someone who wants their goods "today" and will go to a retail shop and spend the bit extra to have it.
But going say 10 years into the future - I wonder about this.
I think retailing is going to change quite a bit.
Yes - you can be fairly sure that anyone arguing for higher taxes for other people is only acting from fear (for his business), not love. I have little doubt that higher taxes on his own business would not be something he'd campaign for
It really interesting to see that no one seems to trust established magazine reviews, including myself! (edit -one person does so far!) I find that they (paper magazines) always seem to listen on megabucks systems with esoteric equipment that I have never heard of, let alone heard. I just can't get a point of reference when they describe the sound. Online reviews are much more humble, usually using older gear that I have heard and have some form of reference point.
The other thing with online reviews is that you can send the reviewer a question to clarify something and have your answer on the spot, or next day.
The other thing with online reviews is that you can send the reviewer a question to clarify something and have your answer on the spot, or next day.
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I'd guess that their 'inflated prices' would be because of being public companies with greedy shareholders (as you mention) and because they're paying inflated rents and property taxes. Oh and also expanding (as you also mention) - which is presumably down to greedy shareholders again, or perhaps megalomaniac CEO?
I agree, sympathy is totally unwarranted, business wouldn't be business if those who aren't good at it (don't/can't adapt) didn't drop out of the game.
I'm not a regular in McDs these days, but when I was it never happened to me here. So I conclude that English listening skills are better in China than they are in Oz
Richard
I am not a regular either ! Perhaps English listening skills are better in China, than they are among Chinese living in Australia, but not born here ?
Woolworths Supermarket locally has what appears to be almost exclusively Asian assistants except for the manager, in the delicatessen area. You are very lucky to get exactly what you asked for if you don't carefully watch what they are doing. The majority of those employees certainly do NOT have a very good working command of the english language. I would be surprised if they are actually employed by Woolworths directly.The same problem appears to happen with many franchised operations. I won't even go there about franchised operations in some parts of Sydney, where the menu has been changed due to religion.
Alex
A shareholder wanting a return on his/her hard earned money is not greed...just business. A retailer building outlets to increase sales and lower costs is not greed...just business. An internet retailer developing a different business model with even lower costs that let him sell cheaper and still profit while squeezing out his brick & mortar competitors is not benificence...just business.
I am counting on the businesses that I have invested my retirement savings with to keep the checks coming until I assume room temperature. If that is greed then someone has rewritten Websters recently.
I am counting on the businesses that I have invested my retirement savings with to keep the checks coming until I assume room temperature. If that is greed then someone has rewritten Websters recently.
Since when have greed and business been mutually opposed?
Wanting a reasonable return on investment isn't greed, so its a matter of how big the return is.So long as the retailer wants to increase sales because there's real demand. But if they incite demand through pushy advertising, that's greed.
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