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One of these days I gotta get myself organizized.
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One time I asked them to order a component for me. They carried the line, but not the model I wanted. They would not do it. I got it mail order instead.
quite some time ago. I wonder if VA knew what was coming or just saw declining sales.Ironically, I personally found the help at Tweeter much better than
Magnolia, so I don't know what to think.
....that when any store/retailer decides to target a certain customer base, they rely on slick marketing men rather than doing the obvious and consulting the customer.If Tweeter were to make some small donation to the Asylum I'm sure they'd learn more from posting a questionnaire here than they would from any market strategist.
They've decided to target the 'ultra high-end' market (and it was thought mere 'high-end' was dying!) so why not ask 'us' what we want in a store rather than have strategists deciding what they think we want in a store?
This is only part of the truth. They were at one time actively targeting the "high end", but have tried in recent years to go toward the middle and compete more with the big boxes.But in all this, they have paid less and less and have lost their best sales people.
Hours have also extended to the 9-9 hours of Best Buy and Circuit. Add a cut of pay, and many good sales people jumped ship.
I remember back in Chi, when Tweeter bought out United Audio. I had a friend working their, and he left within the first few months because United used to pay him $200 extra a week to clean. Tweeter stopped this immediately, but still expected the stores to get cleaned. Incedently, the stores that were truly beautiful, got messy real quick.
You are right that those slick marketing men were the ones that were filling the walls with TVs, and probably the ones saying cut pay to pay for it.
"You are right that those slick marketing men were the ones that were filling the walls with TVs, and probably the ones saying cut pay to pay for it."
If companies didn't pay for image consultants and slick marketing men, they could perhaps afford to pay decent wages to those on the shop floor.There really is a mine of information available nowadays on the web and whereas at one time a company would have employ a market research organisation to annoy people on the street with questionnaires, now it's a simple procedure to target the exact customer they are aiming for and get invaluable feedback.
For instance, I'd be prepared to pay a small sum to audition equipment in a store so that if the store can't compete with Internet prices at least their time has been paid for, and if I did buy from them the sum would be deducted from the purchase price.
Once you've heard the equipment and handled it however, most of us would probably pay a little more for the security of not having the equipment shipped to us and not having to wait or arrange for someone to be in when the parcel arrived.
Main room is all empty space, like an overpriced clothing boutique, with blaring TV walls.The sound room setup is a joke. While they had REL most of their stuff I saw is not of interest to me. Maybe they're picking up better stuff...but it will still be arranged like a Circuit City audio room....
- This signature is two channel only -
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there's a Woofers downstairs.
<:-)
mark
No, hOOters could not close an odd # of stores. LOL
I never considered Tweeter an "audiophile" store however some consider Best Buy, ABT Circuit City "audiophile" stores, lol The best stores are real "audiophile" stores that really care for GOOD sounding music and not your wallet!
I've found better help and less arrogance in Tweeter than in many boutique shops. On top of that, all the boutique shops I visit are having the same problem as Tweeter. First they had to switch to high end TVs to survive, now, even those aren't selling, and they've either closed, or survive on doing custom home installations.Several places I've visited recently have not added a new piece of audio equipment in years, and the only high end stereo stuff they have is used or slightly damaged demos they couldn't get rid of.
...was TVs everywhere, and only TVs. I asked the friendly salesman where the tweeters had gone. He replied, "These days it's all etc."TE is a Boston area phenom and I've followed its fortunes for well over thirty years, both in-shop and from reading The Globe. Several friends have worked there. The non-company-owned stores once maintained a fair high-end presence, or many of them did. Then came Home Theatre.
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Sounds like they're going to focus more on real audiophile stuff. A nationwide chain carrying interesting boutique brands could be interesting. I saw a Krell amp at my local Tweeter a few weeks ago. Sounds like mine will survive.
Any audio store closure should be an occasion for sadness in the audiophile community, not for schadenfreude. Tweeter may not be the perfect audio store but I can think of several famous high end "salons" with much more obnoxious staffs. Tweeter did a "stealth" installation of a Sirius sat radio in my new Outback a few months ago and did a very nice job of it.
Funny I was in a Tweeter a few months ago and it certainly did not look like an audio store to me.It was focused on home theater and home automation which is where the money is these days.
Had me running to dictionary.com! Can you imagine laying that one out on a Scarbble board!?!?!
marc g. - audiophile by day, music lover by night
You can use the one word adopted from German to express a concept that requires at least five words to say in English ("shameful pleasure at another's misfortune").
"That's funny, because it's other people."
last week. The store was pretty lame. They had one theater room. Speakers were JBL and the electronics were hidden. The system performance did not make me want to investigate further. They did have some nice speakers, but they were poorly displayed so I did not listen. They did have a Krell integrated and some Arcam units.
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