Thezeb.com

[FrigginGLI]

Gone ?(poke)

 

[Serjical]

http://www.caraudio.com/vb/showthread.php?t=122376

 

[FrigginGLI]

Hmm, strange.

 

[1sty]

Just the reaility of running a company with illegaly aquired products that get people fired or prosecuted.

Online retailers are not authorized to sell anything but pure crap so anything else they have to wait until some stores employee buying on accomidations can get another unit and ship it to them. This is the same for repaired items which you will likely get a new one that was really B stock to begin with.

Jl and a few other manufacturers have cracked down HARD!
Doing this crap with there product will get someone sued and possibly prosecuted if they are a dealer. So people that work with stores are realizing its not worth it becuase they make almost nothing off of each transaction and they might not also loose their job but they loose the ability to sell anything to a customer as they just go buy it online.

 

[FrigginGLI]

I thought THEZEB was authorized for quite a few products?

 

[1sty]

Diamond, Rockford, Dynaudio, MB Quart, Alpine, JL audio, Boston Acoustics, and most other main audio brands authorize absoluelty NO INTERNET DEALERS!

The only exceptions are dealers that have real stores that just advertise online but they do not sell. The one exception is crutchfield.

The simple answer is that there is something called MAP:
Minimum Advertised Price.
If someone is selling bellow this online without the product being discontinued, then this dealer is not authorised.

MAP is what tweeter, Bestbuy, Circuit city and crutchfield sell there product for.
Specialty shops tend to try to sellit for more.


From what I am reading, it sounds like Kicker is making moves to cutoff online vendors and hence transhippers so companies like the XEb will not even have them to sell as authorized dealers any longer.

 

[FrigginGLI]

Thanks for the info.

 

[bonesmp5]

just an example of who Fosgate allows the internet sales --

http://www.rockfordfosgate.com/dealerlocator/internet.asp?company=RF&submitted=true&country=US&image.x=15&image.y=9

 

[1sty]

just an example of who Fosgate allows the internet sales --

http://www.rockfordfosgate.com/dealerlocator/internet.asp?company=RF&submitted=true&country=US&image.x=15&image.y=9

4 listed:
2 are crutchfield, then you have cardomain and Car Audio Internet. Cardomain sells at MAP and sells B-stock/refurbs aswell.
Car Audio Internet, is really Quality auto sound and they don't do internet sales, they just have a website which is for their stores.

 

[bonesmp5]

(boom07)

Well then -- hehehe

 

[ForceFed]

Ughhhhh.....Ummmm....Ok.....(boom07)

 

[bonesmp5]

i have all ways wondered how to tell if some online stuff was real or not --

 

[1sty]

i have all ways wondered how to tell if some online stuff was real or not --

Simple, go to the manufacturers website and see if that online dealer is authorized. If they are not then you really have no clue what your buying. No matter what your getting a product that as far as the manufacturer is concerned, they never built. Typicly this means the product is a B or A stock accomidations order, its a sell off from a store that couldn't hack it with a certian line, or its a store trying to make back some of the money better audio companies charge as a buy in to carry their product each quarter.


Lets look at an example with JL audio.
To get product really cheap, an online vendor has to buy from someone that got the product ultra cheap. This is from what are called accomidation orders. As an employee of a car audio store, I can a buy directly from the manufacturer at even less then the my store can. So some salesmen makes a few accomidation orders and then ships them out to an online vendor for 10% profit which is still under store cost. So the online store has to wait for someone to come along willing to sell the product to them. In the case of JL audio, they knew this was going on so they starting filling accomidation orders with B-Stock products so that the online guys were never going to get A-stock stuff uber cheap. Then they launch a massive campeign to catch these people and cut them off. So now the online guys have to wait for a JL dealer to sell them stuff for cheap, which is why you only save 20% or less on JL stuff online compared to other product lines. This is also why Jl is much harder to find online. Even if they company lists having it, when you call they will often try and sell you something else as they don't actualy have the JL product you are looking for.

Becuase these products where not purchased from a JL dealer, JL will not service that product at all nor will an authorized Jl service center. So the online vendor must find an unauthorized repair center to fix the amp or whatever, or what for someone else to come along and sell them another product. All the while you are waiting 3 months to get your amp back all to save 20% that you already paid out in shipping cost.

As JL and alot of other vendors are discovering, if they don't have an aggressive policy toward online vendors, then their core profit centers, actual stores, will either stop carring their product or simply stop selling it. So more and more manufacturers are cracking down on this crap and making it very hard to run an online store. It appears that since Kicker was dropped by tweeter for being an online ***** and now they risk this is Circuit City, they are now starting to come around.

At present, 75% of online vendors either have to sell at exactly the price that a brick and mortar store does or they have to sell pure s*** product like Audiobahn, Sony, Dual, Crunch, Jensen, MA Audio, ect. Basicly s*** thats not worth buying in the first place. Otherwise they will have zero customer service as they have to wait to get the product, wait to repair the product, and wait to replce the product. So all of the advantages of online buying disappear VERY fast.

 

[chuyler1]

I understand how selling the discounted stuff online kills the brick-and-mortar sales. However, every car audio company should be embracing online sales to some extent.

They should continue to prevent discount stores from selling cheap B-stock and employee handouts but at the same time embrace a few online vendors by allowing them to sell the equipment at retail prices online. You can only cover so much ground with brick-and-mortar stores and I for one would like the option of purchasing some of this equipment without first searching for the nearest retailer.

The whole listen-before-you-buy idealogy works great when there are stores that carry many different brands and the various model lines of those brands. However, most audio stores aren't set up for true listening sessions and they rarely have enough speakers to choose from. They usually have one high-end brand, one mid-level brand, and one bargain brand...and one or two models of each. If you have narrowed your search down to 3 sets of high-end speakers the chances of you finding a store with all three so you can compare them side by side is pretty unlikely.

I guess I look at online sales as the opportunity for a wider selection. I don't need to get a huge discount but I expect the prices to reflect shipping costs and the lack of a storefront overhead. An overall 5-10% off the retail MSRP would be fine. Online sales also gives companies the opportunity to unload refurbished and B-stock items that retail sellers will not be willing to sell.

 

[tsunami]

I understand how selling the discounted stuff online kills the brick-and-mortar sales. However, every car audio company should be embracing online sales to some extent.

They should continue to prevent discount stores from selling cheap B-stock and employee handouts but at the same time embrace a few online vendors by allowing them to sell the equipment at retail prices online. You can only cover so much ground with brick-and-mortar stores and I for one would like the option of purchasing some of this equipment without first searching for the nearest retailer.

The whole listen-before-you-buy idealogy works great when there are stores that carry many different brands and the various model lines of those brands. However, most audio stores aren't set up for true listening sessions and they rarely have enough speakers to choose from. They usually have one high-end brand, one mid-level brand, and one bargain brand...and one or two models of each. If you have narrowed your search down to 3 sets of high-end speakers the chances of you finding a store with all three so you can compare them side by side is pretty unlikely.

I guess I look at online sales as the opportunity for a wider selection. I don't need to get a huge discount but I expect the prices to reflect shipping costs and the lack of a storefront overhead. An overall 5-10% off the retail MSRP would be fine. Online sales also gives companies the opportunity to unload refurbished and B-stock items that retail sellers will not be willing to sell.

i think crutchfield does an excellent job of this, they tell right in the description if its new, or refurb and thier customer service is better then some brick and mortor shops.... boston sells some stuff through cructhfield, not sure if its the whole line or not... jl should look to sell stuff through one or two online dealers such as crutchfield or cardomain... it would make life a bit easier some times....

 

[FrigginGLI]

Yea, boston acoustics did this recently. As well as Eclipse.

 

[bonesmp5]

nice example 1sty -- and does A and B stand for New vs. Re-furbished

and chuyler1, i agree about stores have limited listening area -- when i went shopping for my door speakers --- i found myself drivng back and forth because not one store had both types i wanted to listen too --- and most of the time you cant hear a big difference between them unless they are both in the same room to compare --

 

[chuyler1]

Plus they will be powered by a different head unit, different amplifier, in a different room, in a different enclosure. And to top that off...their characteristics change drastically when they are installed in your car so it is all moot.

The true listening session is going to a car meet or audio competition and listening to other people's completed installs. Granted you might not buy all the equipment they have but at least you can hear the true potential of the speakers in a real environment.