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“Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

audiosciencereview.com

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Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#41

Post by rascul »

m463 wrote: post #18

What I'd like as a consumer is the antidote to this. I saw something like this trying to get a replacement plumbing fitting at my parent's house a few years back. The local hardware store with the high-quality stuff had been closed down by the big-box stores. Perusing the possibilities at lowes and home depot showed plastic and fake chrome when I would have paid extra for high quality brass or even metal. It was just…

I've found that the local hardware store usually has the same or similar stuff as Lowe's or Home Depot, except with a higher price tag.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#42

Post by fruit2020 »

lmm wrote: post #15
crims0n wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% COGS surprised me… I always estimated it would have been around 50%. Learned something new.

I already knew the rule of thumb that a retail store needs 50% markup, so 30% seems reasonable in that context (indeed I'd've guessed 25%).

So when I buy an Oled tv, does the store procure it for half the price from the distributor? Sounds like a huge margin. How about from an ecommerce store, which a lot of times have slightly less but close prices to regular stores, can the distributor force them to keep prices up not to upset the other resellers?

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#43

Post by LeoPanthera »

m463 wrote: post #18

What I'd like as a consumer is the antidote to this. I saw something like this trying to get a replacement plumbing fitting at my parent's house a few years back. The local hardware store with the high-quality stuff had been closed down by the big-box stores. Perusing the possibilities at lowes and home depot showed plastic and fake chrome when I would have paid extra for high quality brass or even metal. It was just…

If you like Schiit and are willing to trade "Made in America" for "Best audio at any price", but for about the same price, you'd probably like Topping, too. https://www.tpdz.net

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#44

Post by lvl102 »

I sold a very limited run electronics once. Less than 1,000. Most of this is true. The key is to make something niche enough that you can justify that fat margin. Pre-pandemic, it was quite cheap to produce even proof of concept products in Shenzhen IF you knew where to go for quality. Not anymore. 2016-19 was a special period for hobbyists.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#45

Post by sidpatil »

abcc8 wrote: post #32
sidpatil wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perusing the possibilities at lowes and home depot showed plastic and fake chrome when I would have paid extra for high quality brass or even metal. It was just gone. Both Lowe's and Home Depot sell metal faucets, taps, knobs, etc., in a variety of styles.

They could be referring to a toilet paper roller. Just had to replace one of mine and realized while shopping that I haven't seen a proper metal one of those in in years.

The toilet paper holders we got for our bathroom renovations are metal, and from The Home Depot if I recall correctly.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#46

Post by Spooky23 »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #25
yewenjie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some online course I can take to learn the crux of a business degree?

I'm not joking when I say this, I have no idea how business works. I get it in theory, hell I even sold one. But I still don't know. One of my space-cadet day dreams is trying to figure out just what someone could possibly learn in business school and I can't come up with anything.

Mostly how to make certain types of spreadsheets, some finance stuff and how to talk business crap with other business people.

It’s not rocket science.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#47

Post by distantsounds »

yalogin wrote: post #14

This post answered the one question that I couldn’t find answer for many years, that is why he did Dr.Dre get into the beats business or the other way why would the founders include Dr.Dre Now I understand that the equipment manufacturing is already commoditized and so the onus is fully on marketing and so he provides a great value.

Watch the documentary "The Defiant Ones" it goes into great detail about the story between Dre and Apple.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#48

Post by Firmwarrior »

NoPicklez wrote: post #35
twobitshifter wrote: post #30

I recently purchased a bluetooth speaker from “ultimate ears” which is a logitech brand. It’s great and seems to sound better than what you can get from marshall or beats.

Logitech make good products, their speakers have always been quite good IMO. I'll never forget in high school a buddy and I had two of the same Logitech X-540 speakers. We plugged the speakers together and pumped it through effectively a 10.2 setup.

I've been having terrible luck with Logitech, and decided to never buy from them again. An $80 speaker set's audio input jack broke, and Logitech absolutely refused to fix it or help me in any way since it was a month or so past the one year warranty. I live right down the street from Logitech and could have just driven out to their HQ, but they completely stonewalled me.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#49

Post by vt240 »

I work for an old, but small pro-audio manufacturer, and I just started watching AudioScienceReview's YouTube videos. Amazing stuff. I love his commitment to the consumer end, audiophile products, actually testing out many of these, with industry standard test-equipment and test procedures that we use.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#50

Post by Spooky23 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #24
crims0n wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% COGS surprised me… I always estimated it would have been around 50%. Learned something new.

Just look at the prices on AliExpress. They are a fraction of the prices at retail stores, and it includes the sellers margins. And AliExpress products are not always counterfeits and can be acceptable in quality. A COGS of 30% is, as they say, on the upper end. For brands that have to offer a certain amount of quality in order to sell instead of going purely for ads and brand recognition. 50% is the retail store mar…

For consumer electronics? More like 15%. Less for competitive SKUs.

Retailers make more money on cables and mounting brackets than a TV, for example.

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