Chapter Three: The Way We Were

It wasn’t always like this. Truth be told, there was a time in consumer electronics when integrity was a given in retail. A prospective customer walking into a store was met by a salesman who would show him or her the items on sale and offer to actually sell them. He would qualify the customer to see if that particular item met their needs and when appropriate would recommend either an alternative, or the necessary accessories to allow the item to deliver its maximum goal, or both. There was little need for pressure tactics or bait and switch techniques. The customer was respected and valued, and his repeat business was something not taken for granted.

Those of us who worked in what were commonly referred to as high-end audio salons relied more on a consultative approach to selling. In such establishments, the customer was treated to high performance and, yes, high-priced merchandise. Audio systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars and plasmas that cost as much as fifteen thousand dollars were considered the norm. Rare, indeed, was a substandard system that went out the door. Regardless of price, excellence was expected and delivered.

One of the ways in which salesmen built successful relationships with their clientele was to establish early on a rapport with the customer. One does not merely show off an elaborate and expensive system; one must build up a level of expectation – a wow factor if you will – that instills within the customer a desire to own such a system. Car companies like BMW and Porsche have had a long history of wooing potential customers with seductive ads that sweep them off their feet. Yes, their cars go fast and handle extremely well, but in the end, it is what the cars represent more than what they are that closes the deal. There is an old saying in sales, “You don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle.” The customer is made to feel as though he must have this product. It is not rational; in deed very little about sales is rational. It is called benefit selling. Customers buy benefits not features. At some point in the transaction, if a customer feels the product brings a desired benefit to the table, he buys it; if not, he walks. This is not rocket science. It is the universal law that drives sales.

Picture a room with a love seat in the middle and a projection screen in front. Your customer enters the room and sits down in the seat. You hand him a remote and tell him to press a button on it. Within seconds the lights begin to dim and a movie appears on the screen, followed by the most majestic and enthralling soundtrack yet heard. It is better than any experience he has ever had at a movie theater. After a few minutes of being titillated you pause the movie and inform him that he too can have this same experience in the privacy of his own home. The issue now is no longer cost; it’s how long it will take to accomplish this feat. In the end you did very little selling. The art of the transaction was in your knowledge and preparation, not your tongue and cheek.

So what happened? Well, for one thing as the prices of these products began to fall in the middle of the last decade, they became, in essence less desirable. More and more middle of the road retailers got into the business and price began to drive the market. At some point in the process these items became nothing more than commonplace commodities. And as more retailers were able to afford to carry and display these products the consultative part of the transaction was dropped in favor of a more expedient bottom-line approach. Inexperienced salesmen who lacked the skill set to properly explain the differences between products began to appear in droves. Their only concern was getting you out the door with a box or boxes. The wow factor was supplanted by a cash or charge mindset. The sizzle was replaced by chuck steak. A relationship that took days to cultivate was now reduced to less than an hour. Prostitutes showed more interest in their Johns than most floor salesmen showed in their customers, and the customers knew it.

With little incentive at their disposal consumers became nothing more than shop-hoppers. The lowest bidder got the sale, pure and simple. Few, if any, bothered to remember their salesmen, since few, if any, salesmen remembered their customers. Items that only a few years ago cost almost as much as a new car were now virtually disposable commodities with little value beyond the immediate gratification of an impulse buy. Multi-thousand dollar audio systems were supplanted by home theaters in a box. Performance plummeted and overall customer satisfaction went south. When the same thing happened in the computer industry years ago, the only resellers that survived were the ones who took the time to maintain and strengthen relationships with their customers. The rest fell by the wayside. The same thing is happening to the home theater industry. The specialty shops are going out of business and the fast-food chains have taken over and are going full speed ahead off the cliff into oblivion.

The history of the fast-food electronics chains is an enigma. Some managed to eek out a modest existence and a few even flourished. Originally relegated to selling those products that the specialty shops considered beneath them, they even manage to carve out a niche for themselves. For the consumers who couldn’t afford the BMWs or the Porsches of home entertainment systems, they could still walk in and for a fraction of the price walk out with a pretty respectable system. Life was good for a time. Both the S-class crowd and the Chevy crowd got what they wanted. Consumers in both income brackets trusted that they were being treated fairly and that they had gotten good return on their investment.

Then slowly over the years a number of illegitimate retail chains began to erode that trust and engage in shameless acts that gradually began to take their toll on the market. Consumers began to feel wary of how they were being treated, walls went up and suspicions soared. What should’ve been a mutually beneficial transaction turned into a tug of war and a test of wills. To the winner went the spoils. The most infamous of these chains was an outfit called “Crazy Eddy.”

The bait and switch antics of this outfit were the stuff of legend. Few customers got what they came in for and most ended up being switched into a much more expensive product. The “art” of luring the customer into the slaughter house now became the established norm, for Crazy Eddy forced its competitors to adapt some if not many of its antics, just to stay competitive. While a few maintained their integrity and did their best to rough it out, most succumbed and joined the fray. The result was a growing cancer within the marketplace that to this day has done more damage than any single price plunge could ever have done. While Crazy Eddy has been gone for some time now, it’s legacy remains a testament as to just how low some companies can sink to make a buck.