Territorial disputes!

I wanted to take a second to follow up about the dealer buy in.  We already discussed in prior posts that the dealers have to do a large purchase up front and sign a dealer agreement to become dealers for some of the better premium products.  Part of that agreement is to warranty the product a certain way, maintain a minimum margin on the sale of certain products etc.  Part of that dealer agreement is also a territorial agreement, that they will not sell the product to another retailer in your backyard. It helps to prevent a bidding war and show the dealer that the manufacture cares.

    In the last year we have had two dealers violate the dealer agreement.  This leaves the retailer with a bad taste in there mouth and a difficult position to be in.  A retail has the responsibility of not just selling themselves as a reputable place to do business, but also to build the industry and the consumers interest in the industry.  Last, but not least they need to buy the product that will work the best for the customer and help create excitement for that product.  When a deal asks you to do a big buy in and then saturates the market with dealers it hurts the shop, and ultimately the customer.  If the store can not provide them with the product they need, then they eventually will not be able to afford the best and most knowledgeable staff, and the industry with good marketing.  

    I am talking to you viper, Matts and Kenwood Excelon

Dropping a line

    We, at electronics depot have decided to drop a line.  It almost feels like breaking up with someone or ending a long friendship. I have been in car audio for 20 plus years and I have me a kicker dealer the whole time so this is a little hard.  We have a few thousand dollars of inventory and that will last us a while, heck if things pick up we may even consider buying back in to the line, but we decided against the 5 thousand dollar buy in for 2014.
    With the line being in Walmart, and other dealers selling it cheap its not easy to sell.  They have done a lot for price protection in the last few years but its just too little too late.  I hope they turn the reputation of the company around in the US (they are doing very well overseas now).
    Kicker (Stillwater Desings), still has great product, and they still do an ok job with marketing, but they like many other company's have stopped promoting the industry of car audio. Promoting the industry (or lifestyle if you prefer) you will shrink the market share.  The issue is no one really wants to spend time and money promoting the industry because it does not have a direct return for that company, in fact it allows others to sponge off you what you do.  Countless company's took advantage of this in the early 90's with overseas manufacturing, and inferior product, little to no advertising or customer support. I am not sure the best way
to handle this from a manufactures perspective but it is a problem for sure.
    This lack of industry promotion is evident from the shrink size and amount of car audio shows. Some car audio shops like Ultimate Auto and electronics depot attempted to pick up the slack, and tried to "Go big" at shows but that can only last for so long, the drain on resources (physical, mental, and monetary) is too large for the little guy.
    I can recall, doing many shows with Bart Deal (now in international sales at kicker) at spring break nationals. We would work all day at a shop, then drive to the show, work untill 4 am, then work 12 to 14 hours at the show the next day, go out to dinner with the reps or the boss then work the show all day get all the show stuff broken down and packed up often getting to bed around 3 or 4 am, and then going back to work the next day at 7 am.  Did I mention we (ultimate audio employees) would not get paid to do this. Again, I don't know what the solution is to this but as an industry its gotta be fixed.

  

Tuff Customers: How to fix the issues The 2005 toyota Avalon double din install

    It is important to remember that every  person is different and has very different needs. Some customers will want you to know exactly what you are doing and want you to take the keys to his or her car and put some good tunes in it. This represents about 20% of the customers that I have met in the last 22 years. about another 30% know what outcome they want to achieve but the budget is the most important issue.  You have to try to work with these people. they really want to but the best gear on the planet but only want to spend the lease amount of money. Sometime because its just not in the budget sometimes they have other motivations.
    Some will come in with accurate preconceptions and some will come in with in accurate preconceptions. Some will want you to take charge and teach them and some will want you to let them teach you (even if they are wrong, you must let them discover the truths for themselves and you will have to sit by and not say I told you so).
    The most important thing is to talk to people and do your best to give them what they want with in reason. A lot of people want something that is dangerous, not fruitful, or just plain impossible, you of course do not want to give them what they are asking for but instead find out what they truly want. You will have to find out what they want, not what you/they think they want and then find a way to tell them in a way that will not compromise his or her ego. This means going the extra mile.
    A good salesmen will spend as much time as he or she can to give you what you want. After all, they want you as happy with your purchase as you can possibly be, they want to make their company money but they want you to get what you paid for.
    I spent the last three paragraphs as a preamble to the short story I am about to tell you. The 2005 Toyota Avalon has an lcd display that is above the radio and the radio itself is larger then a normal sized (or double din) radio.  A custom dash kit has to be fabricated and the factory radio has to be retained and mounted someplace else in the car. This is not an easy or quick install so don't try to make it a quick install.
    If you have a very particular customer or are a very particular customer make sure what you have in mind for a custom dash is what they expect. In my years at ultimate audio we would make a dash piece and send it to a paint shop to get painted and it was usually a pretty good job.  These dash kits would cost the customer between 500 and 700 dollars (not including relocating the radio. When ultimate got the paint shop in house the price went up considerably (about $400) but the piece was absolutely perfect.
    Now that I am in the real world we are back to sending the pieces to a paint shop and can really only charge about $350 for this work (including paying the painter). The issue with this is that building this kit will take between 6 and 20 hours depending on the quality, and then the paint shop gets its hands on it and you are stuck with whatever quality they deliver, you can have them re-paint if you are not happy with the results or have your guys wet sand the project but the bottom line is if you quality control needs to be very high then the price needs to be very high as well.
    A side note to this story is some customers will tell you all you need to do is place s resistor across two wires behind the radio to activate the climate control display.  From the hours of research I have done on this MOST people can not get it to work this way (in fact I only saw one person whom did get it to work this way).  PUT THE RADIO IN THE TRUNK.  There is a great place in the passenger side of the trunk to hide the radio.  This is how metra wants it done, and before they made a harness for it, its how we got it done.  It's safe, it works and saves time!
    The customer wanted dual USB inputs but specifically requested a radio that did not have them, (something that got lost in the details of the final design).  They wanted a perfect dash install and it was not perfect. The only thing to do at this point was to make it perfect we spent 8 more hours of sanding and repainting, and did the radio upgrade for a loss. to make the customer happy, after all was said and done we had a very happy customer and after paying for product and the actual pay to the installer we profited about 10% Net, which goes towards the rent, power, insurance, salesmen's pay, licensing, etc.
    It's not always roses sometime its a lot of late nights working for free but you need happy customers, otherwise you will have no customers.
   In summary, the customer is not always right, but you have to make them right. Car Audio shops have a right to make a living, and some jobs are not worth doing, but with great communication, and hard work you can make every customer a happy customer or let them be unhappy at someone else's car audio shop.