RF Going under?

First off, leave use Canadians alone. You need us for our clean water, wood, natural gas, power and whatever else you guys don't have enough of, so be nice or I'll turn off the light switch.

I agree with Michael. I am one of the small indipendents and have been for 9 years, sales has been in a steady decline and a even quicker decline with the arrival of the big box butcher Future Shop (owned by BB). People do not care about service anymore, they only want a better price. If they get the price they want that is all that matters. In the larger centers there will always be indipendents to do the job that the big box butchers do not do or will not do, but the population can support it. Here in the smaller cities, the population does not want custom install, they want a deck and two.

Alot of it depends on the local market for the store to surive or not. Our local market is now a retirement home, c'mon gramps let's do a custom glass job in that Caddy trunk. There is no local economy to keep the young people here.

Now as far as Rockford goes, they became greedy is all that there is to it. They used to have a stellar product and the line was built on the backs of indipendent dealers like us. Now instead of being happy with their good numbers they wanted more. As they had fully saturated the indipendent market, they went to the big box and the numbers went through the roof. The deals offered to the big box for sheer volume a small indipendent could not match.

Enter BB guy. Lets say that BB controlled 80% of Rockfords volume in one year. The retailer now has control over the manufacturer. Build it for us to hit this price point or we take our business to your competition, say Kicker for example. Rockford dude, says "yes sir, anything you say sir, would you like me to swallow as well sir". When the retailer controls the manufacturer, bad things happen. Rockford should have left the big box alone and continued being the line it once was.

Next with their corporate greed, they wanted to control more of the market, how, ny buying up their competition. Lines like MB Quart, Lightning Audio, Q-Logic and others. All were great lines and all have fallen prey to Rockfords corporate greed. What happens will all come out in the wash. As it sits right now, all a indipendent can do is give his support to the manufacturer that choose to support them and not the big box. The smart ones however while they are building their lines on the backs of dealers like me, will not get greedy and go big box, but be happy and continue to find ways to have growth with the existing dealers. It is simple business here, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

 

you can say that again, it is is not just with electronics, I see it everyday at the Big Retailer I work in ........ everyday........


Quality sacrficed for a Lower Price

 

this is Kind of on the same topic

Go to Middle America March and Read the Second Post Today.

It is about todays Economy, Very Interesting.


(while yor there Read the rest but......)