Car Audio Central - Ultimate Car Audio Forum and Community

added to above; avoid brands a local chain to you like CC and BB may carry. customers love to play you against these huge chains for price breaks, and I guarantee you, you'll get undercut for prices by the chains, because they buy in bigger quantities, and they'll just about sell below cost to make a sale, figuring they'll make it up on the backside with cables, kits, install labor, etc.

Don't get suckered into price wars with best buy and circuit city or that ilk.

awesome, thanks for all that and i would love the help!!!
youll have email :)
Mike

Oh - the big "final comment" with respect to my post:

Offering your customers the absolute best "bang for the buck" is great.

However, you HAVE to recognize that 99% of your customers (at least) in a retail shop aren't even going to know what "technical aspects" of a product they should be looking for, and therefore won't understand why an XXX is worth a lot of money.
They also will be on-guard, due to experiences with other salespeople (car audio and otherwise -but I gaurantee your local shops haven't helped the stereotype any), and won't just believe anything you tell them - and trying to discuss and explain technical product aspects is very likely to sound like greek to them - and interpreted by them as your actually being DIShonest (ironic as that may sound)...
...rather like the old mechanic story "Uh yeah... I need to charge you $150 to replace your blinker fluid reservoir, and your muffler bearings are looking pretty bad too, might take a couple hours of labor to grease those - but you know, no other shop would even try to tackle these tough jobs!"

Sad - but true. ;)

I'd love to help you out, offer some suggestions, and have some leads to some lines as well (business partners of mine actually). :cool:
And I have some connections to different distributors (including one dealing Bravox in fact).
More on those specifically privately, but I have some more "general suggestions" from my years in retail, in management:
[quote="nikosbuddy"]
Wiring:
knu konceptz
audio pipe
[/quote]
Think strategically:
I see a problem right off the bat.
These two brands aim solidly at the same customer.
...and there's no alternative for the "non-value" customer (oh, they exist).

It may seem silly, but the brands you pick is just one of many "messages" that you subconsciously send to any prospective customers that walk into your shop.
You HAVE to be aware of the "body language" you send...

Do a little reading on the marketing concept of "branding".
IMO, nothing - particularly in car audio - will make you or break you faster.
My personal favorite - scan Amazon for "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding" if you are serious about starting this shop. You may also check out "Your Marketing Sucks" by Mark Stevens.

Anyway- enough generals.

What I'm seeing are TWO brands oriented to the "Value shopper".
...the "value shopper" isn't the one you want to offer a selection to - it's the guy that's dropping the big coin that you want to offer the selection to. ]All around companys:
ELevation audio - 315-853-5831
Bravox
Atomic
RE
DD
power accoustic
[/quote]
Same here - I see too much already... and too much of the "same customer" again.

What are you going to sell the kid who comes in, asking "Uh.. do you guys sell JL? Uh... do you guys sell Rockford? Uh...do you guys sell Kicker?"
What's he REALLY asking?
Uh... do you sell anything I recognize because I don't know anything really and I don't want to buy something my friends are going to pick on me for.."

Brand recognition is an important thing, and it's probably good to pick up one staple "token" - if you can, given your area, given your finances for investment, etc.

As far as the others - you've got a selection of products that realistically customers aren't going to recognize.
Do they offer anything TANGIBLE that APPARANTLY (key words highlighted) differentiates them from other products you wish to carry?
If not - don't.
Or, if you can't demo it to make it CLEARLY APPARANT, don't bother.

I could trim this list down and save you expense and heartache. ;)

[quote]Decks:
ALpine
Jvc
Kenwood[/quote]
Personally I like this mix...
...but for a new shop, I think you are also one brand too many. ;)

I like JVC for an entry level brand - but I probably would stock up in that area, and not stock up much (if at all, truthfully) on the "higher end" JVC. I'd "position" them (read up on that marketing concept also ;) your sales floor communicates, remember that always!) as the entry level brand, as it's likely to reenforce what the customer already thinks about JVC [i]compared to[/i] the other brand of the two (or both) that you carry.

Personally, of the two "high end" brands you have for decks listed, I like Alpine - but Alpine is tough to get as an authorized dealer - good luck. Plus, they have more difficult minimums, and becoming an F#1 status dealer (something people may ask you about, if you carry Alpine!) is absolutely terribly difficult to accomplish - requires tenure and huge investment, plus the huge cost of product. :help:
Your distributors are going to be pushing you harder to buy larger quantities of Alpine, that's typical.

Personally, I'm not a big Kenwood fan, but I did sell Kenwood - solid product, and it's sold through many distributors that can cut you a break on minimum volumes for annual accounts. ;)

Feel free to Email me at [email][email protected][/email], I absolutely love business strategy (I'm a sick human being :p ), and I'm a car audio nut of course.
And I have some good industry ties...
Where are you located at?

i have only had 2 decks that have had problems out of a ton that i have sold. and one was in a golf cart. panasonic as been a great company for decks. their new ones look really nice.

we have no...nada....none whatsoever....reliability problems with panasonic......imo they are at least as good as the pioneer products we sell but i think they look nicer....they dont stick out as far from the dash.......

kicker, lots of returns.
batcap.. gimmick product. waste of money.
panasonic.. reliability issues.. but nice looks.

I'd suggest sticking with companies that offer internet sales, and running concurrent website or ebay authorized dealer sales to help support the quarterly keepup quotas.
That'll help you a lot with a single store front.

mike i got some numbers on some companys i have to look up some of them. and for decks go through a wholesaler you wont have to make huge orders.

Where else can you get all this for under $500

BLX5000
2 Channel HIGH CURRENT MOSFET Bridgeable Power Amplifier
with Remote Subwoofer Level Control


Max power
5000w

RMS power, [email protected]% THD
700w x 2

RMS power, 2ohm
1200w x 2

RMS power, 1 ohm
1800w x 2

1/2 ohm Stable stereo Power
2500w x 2

Frequency response (+/- 3dB)
9Hz-50kHz

Signal-to-noise ratio
>105dB

Channel separation
>90dB

Low pass Crossover
45Hz-100Hz

High pass Crossover
120Hz-720Hz

Bass boost
0-+18dB

Bass boost Frequency
40Hz-100Hz

Dimensions, LxWxH
27" x 11 5/16" x 2 3/8"

That's very true. As much as we tried to educate people and get them to spend their money on real equipment, the most sold namebrand in town was Boss. And that stuff is crap. But it's cheap, profitable and had no problems taking back blown equipment. It was painful to install that crap, but I did it. I think it's a matter of biting your pride and taking care of business. Cheap and mid level is where the money is at.