ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
... or not.
First up, I'd like to thank everyone who's replied to my threads lately about credible alternatives, B&O as a brand, marketing - and so on. I've been in quite a strange place over the last 6 months - and I'm not talking about LifeStyle AV HQ, either!
For those who aren't aware, or are new to the site, I own LifeStyle AV. We specialise in pre-owned B&O, and have done for the last 12+ years.
"So, what are you getting at?" I hear you ask... Well, I'll explain.
Back in 2005, when I started LifeStyle AV - with the support of you guys on BeoWorld (you even chose the name!) - pre-owned B&O was a totally new concept. Dealers didn't really like 'second hand' items - they were like an errant family relation who only popped up at weddings and funerals, and you avoided them if you could help it.
I wanted to change that. I wanted to give people the 'B&O Experience' for the same price as the experience you'd get going down to your local electronics megastore. I wanted to get people into the brand - and, honestly, get them to buy new B&O from their local dealer on their next purchase - not from me.
Stupid idea? No.
If they bought new, there'd be more used B&O in the marketplace. More used means more business for me, more people into the brand, more exposure, more people then buying new, more dealers.. and you get the rest. A virtuous circle, I think they call it.
So, I supported the dealers. I gave my all to help them do deals, I turned up on time, I never let them down, I never wrote bad cheques, I never reneged on deals, I was always polite to their customers, I worked with them to help them. I freely admitted, at every turn, I was a flea on a dogs back. Without the dealers, I had no business. I knew my place.
Things went incredibly well. The Official Dealers in the UK had a 'Golden Era' during the early/mid-00's, so products were being sold at a tremendous rate. B&O were on a high, too - and the products were on the whole great looking, reliable - but expensive, although people didn't seem to care much. It was an aspirational purchase - and money was cheap, house prices were flying, bonuses were big, and so on..
With a huge amount of pre-owned B&O around, and a strong demand, we expanded the business and moved into bigger premises. More stock, more staff, but the same ethos. Good times - hard work, but great fun, and I'll never forget our Christmas Parties, nights out and social events where money wasn't really an issue. Every business was the same at the time.
Then, things started to slow. The financial crisis really affected the official dealers at first, but not us. People went from buying new to buying used for less money. Same (ish) result for half the cost. We cleared out many closing-down B&O dealers - the 'first to fall' so to speak, and made good money doing this.
It always saddened us, though, to see a B&O Dealer closing. 'No more part exchanges from them' was the majn cause for concern - but, the first dealers to fall were the worst ones who had no real idea how to run a B&O Dealership on the whole. The 'good' dealers remained, so we were happy at least. The more good dealers, and the less bad dealers, the better.
So, we carried on.. and more dealers closed. Then, surprisingly, some of them were the good ones. Long standing dealers who'd been going since the 1960's and 70's, with loyal customer bases, couldn't make it work.
Worrying.
When we started out, I'd say 90% of our business was in the UK, and 10% went abroad. Now, I'd say 20% of our business is UK, and 80% ships to Europe and beyond.
Why? Well, in the UK, Bang & Olufsen as a brand is dying on its feet. Stores closing, along with people's deposit money, nobody local to honour warranties on products, having to chase B&O Head Office for this, being pushed around from pillar to post for tech support. Not a 'premium experience'. In fact, not an experience you'd get from a budget brand.
As time went on, the actual products got progressively worse. Dealers hanging on by their fingernails were dealt killer blows by B&O with duff software, products failing out of the box, arrogant attitudes from Head Offices and Dealer Support, and so on. There are some great people at B&O, at Head Office and Regional Office level - but not enough of them to make the difference required.
So, less new products hit the UK market place as the dealers closed, one by one, slowly but surely. The dealers who remained saw drastic decreases in sales, but I was still getting hold of 3-7 year old products from their 'good times' which were still perceived as 'modern' to varying degrees.
Fast forward to April 2017, when the penny dropped for me - both on my balance sheet, and in my head. The swell of products sold in the 'good times' are now old looking, outdated - and people are generally bored of them. A normal human reaction, even if some of them are design classics.
"What's LifeStyle AV dealing in these days?" was the question I asked myself...
Big, bulky BeoVision 7's, CD Players, outdated Windows PC's with low-res screens (BeoSound 5), TV's with only Scart connections (what?!!!), Home Telephones (which barely anyone uses any more), Plasma Screens (discontinued) and MasterLink Speakers (old technology).
With a plethora of 'old' products on eBay, and being punted out by other resellers, a 'race to the bottom' was pretty much inevitable. We've seen BeoLab 6000's for under £200 a pair, BeoLab 8000's for £500 a pair, and so on. This always sets a new precedent each time a new low gets hit.. and there's almost always one way prices go.
How on earth can we buy BeoLab 6000's at £150 to sell at £200? We travel to collect them, with a van and two staff, we bring them back, we strip them, clean them, fully test them, refurbish them, photograph them, wrap them, sell them, pay fees to eBay and PayPal, send them out in original B&O boxes, and out of what remains we pay VAT, Corporation Tax, Electricity, Gas, Water, Internet, Telephone, Business Rates, Staff Wages, Pensions, PAYE, plus more and more... All out of £50?
So, that kind of shows you what a waste of time BeoLab 6000's are. Same goes for BeoLab 2000, 3500 and to some degree the 8000's. Classic speakers are the same now, as are Ouvertures, 3000's and many of the staple products of the 'heyday' like the older BeoVisions (6's, 7's, 8's, 9's...)
With little to zero profit to be made from the 2005-2010 era products, we then have to focus on the 2010 onwards products. Oh, hang on... there are barely any of them around. With so few dealers selling them, and the few dealers left selling less - the numbers of products out there take a huge tumble.
With fewer products around there are more people chasing them - and 'buy-in prices' go up.
So, you pay more..
However, the public decide what something is worth when it's second-hand. No escaping that fact. External factors do come into play, like brand awareness, desirability, reliability, reputation and so on. I can't say B&O is strong on any of those fronts.
So, you've got a product you've fought tooth and nail to buy - and nobody wants to buy it. What does that do? It pushes used prices down. And, when you're paying strong money to buy - and getting weak money to sell, it's that old chestnut of having little to no profit again.
Let's take, for instance, a modern product in our current stock. Our BeoVision 11-40 Mk4. Priced at £3,495. Still with B&O Warranty remaining, new price was almost £2,000 more than this - so a decent saving for a spotless TV.
No interest in it, at all. Not an email, or a phone call, or a metaphorical sideways glance.... We asked some of our customers we know well exactly what price would make them consider buying. The general reply was £2,000. For a 40" TV which wasn't OLED, wasn't 4k, didn't have an inbuilt HDD, and didn't have a great 'Smart' function.
Great picture, great sound - granted, but technologically a bit dated. This was about the right price, they all seemed to agree.
This TV is just two years and seven months old.
My stock reply when closing the deal for a TV was "Well, at the end of the day, it's a Bang & Olufsen!" - with a genuine smile on my face, knowing this carried real gravitas. The customer always smiled, too - and the deal was done. Now, most of the time, I get a reply of "yes, we used to have a local dealer, but they went bust" - or "well, it looks nice, but I can buy the latest technology for a lot less". Hardly inspires confidence, does it.
Anyway, back to the just-over-2-years-old 11-40. So, to sell it for £2,000 and make a proper margin - enough to pay the wages, prepare it properly, and pay the tax man his pound of flesh, I'd have to buy it for £1,200.
So it's back to the poor B&O Dealer - faced with a customer looking to upgrade to the comparable BV14-40 with the lovely Oak grille at just under £7,000. Not a huge upgrade per se, and no bigger on screen size, and not OLED (so therefore not 'absolutely cutting edge') - but, still.
The customer asks what their 2 year old BV11 is worth - and the answer is around £1,200. Two years down the line, and staring at a massive loss - as you would when buying a mass-market TV in percentage terms, but involving a loss of much more hard cash. Does that inspire them to buy the BV14, or does it inspire them to keep it... or just walk away from B&O as it's clearly a money-pit it seems.
People aren't as cavalier with their money these days. They treat TV's as a commodity, they want the latest technology at sensible prices. They will pay a premium for quality, but they won't be taken for a ride. People aren't as stupid as they used to be. They want value for money, in one form, or another. B&O doesn't seem to offer that any more - is the general opinion.
"But B&O don't just do TV's!" I hear you say.. Well, that's true - but the TV's drive speaker sales, and Music System sales, and accessory sales, and as the TV is such a visual (literally) piece, it's the focal point of a B&O system. Dealers need TV's. Proper ones. Ones they can sell, and be happy selling to customers who have, over the years become friends too.
So, B&O give their dealers the Horizon and BV14. Almost like a slap in the face as they're falling over, then the way they treated them was like a kick when they were down. No TV's for a whole Summer, no software fixes, little to no support apart from 'give them an Apple TV and deal with it...' We bought van-loads of B&O from customers who had lost faith in the brand and sold up. They've moved on to other brands, they've taken their money elsewhere.
So there we are.. A combination of closed dealers, lack of brand awareness thanks to absolutely pathetic marketing, technologically outdated products, god-awful software on new products, lack of newer products in the marketplace, and a general malaise thanks to Brexit and the associated unknowns in the UK, has made dealing in only pre-owned B&O a financial suicide mission for me. I have staff to pay, who have children, mortgages - and lives to lead. I too have bills, children and a mortgage.
Things must change.. and they are.
Thanks for reading. Part 2 to follow...
Lee
Edit : Part 2 is now posted and can be found by clicking HERE ...
tobeyone:Hi Lee Looking forward to part 2......
Looking forward to part 2......
Posted.
9 LEE:People aren't as cavalier with their money these days. They treat TV's as a commodity, they want the latest technology at sensible prices. They will pay a premium for quality, but they won't be taken for a ride. People aren't as stupid as they used to be. They want value for money, in one form, or another. B&O doesn't seem to offer that any more - is the general opinion.
I'd like to comment on this part of your thread Lee as I think you nail it in one. It's not for me to call anyone 'stupid' although I understand your point in context of course.
I have (very fortunately) always been able to afford to buy whatever I want , generally speaking at whatever price it is (within reason) but for me personally, it absolutely is a question of value for money. Could I have paid £16,000 for a BV7-55 Mk2 for example? Yes. Would I and did I? No, absolutely not! A television can never be worth that amount of money to me. I waited for it to come down to the £3,500 price range and bought it then; that's what its true value was to me personally. Even then I didn't keep it for very long because it was, as you suggest in your opening words, 'too big and bulky.' Certainly for me.
There are of course people in this world who wouldn't bat an eyelid at spending £16,000 on a television and I wonder if that is the customer B&O is aiming at? If they are, then I think that will be their eventual demise as this is pure greed and something I will never be part of or support, regardless of my own financial situation; t's just not the spiritual life journey I am on but that's just me.
As a business, surely you need to look at the larger picture - the bigger chunk of the pie if you will - and I am fairly certain that's not the relatively small community of people who throw away that kind of money because they have nothing else constructive to do with it, or there ego is out of control. It is throwing it away in my opinion and that's why I have always, and will only ever, pay a price that a product is worth to me. It's not about how much money a person has access to and I think this is where so many businesses completely miss the point.
Car sales, which is the industry I hate the most, have never successfully sold me a new car but they could of so many times. What did they do wrong? That hard sales approach; those 'stupid' (and that's a real definition of stupidity if you ask me) private chats they have with their business manager with the door shut about a potential deal while leaving you sat their in the showroom; it's like a couple of teenage school boys having a girlie chat in the toilet! Honestly, the whole 'approach' is so pathetic that all I want to do is get out of there as quickly as possible. It's the same in every dealer I visit. Where do they get this bizarre training from? High pressure sales NEVER works. If instead, a sensible mature adult just offered me a coffee, was polite, listened to any questions I had and simply answered them without trying to force any kind of sale on me, be it a car or a finance deal, then I would have gone for it. Instead, I walk out every single time and just think, "Oh sod it, I'll keep what I've got." It's just too much aggravation and stress dealing with these people and who wants that?
So there was go, in a nutshell, value for money is what I want with an authentic person to talk to about the product I am already interested in. That's it! No rocket science, just the genuine human touch.
Simon.
B&O products are V1-32, BS2, H95, E8 and an Essence remote.11-46 now replaced with Sony A90J 65”, Sony HT-A9, Sony UBP-X800M2 and Sony SRS-NS7.
BeoNut since '75
elephant:Lee ... part 1 should printed in large font on A3 (and even framed) and sent to Struer and the B&O board. You have captured the stark reality of the ecosystem now! BeoNut since '75
And the people at the very top of B&O will have got great salaries and bonuses for getting everything wrong before moving on.
Funny how a share price can start climbing as the company actually goes into decline. It might be the phenomenon known as 'The dead cat bounce'.
Graham
we tend to forget there is more to design than designing.
BAND'OH!:those private chats they have with their business manager with the door shut about a potential deal while leaving you sat their in the showroom;
vikinger: And the people at the very top of B&O will have got great salaries and bonuses for getting everything wrong before moving on.
Like most companies. I remember Commodore in the late 80s/early 90s. Huge and with some key new technologies coming out. But a huge amount of top mismanagement (and even then they were paid huge salaries) resulted in the company going under and it never recovered, despite being bought by the likes of Escom (remember them?), then Gateway (remember them?!), who both in turn went under.
Sometimes, when a company is riding on a wave, it's hard to get to grips with future planning. Even companies such as Apple are, as a rule, still riding on the wave generated by Jobs. Most of the new products are variations of years-old design (look at the new iMac Pro or Pro iPad).
elephant:And this article highlights another problem with B&O making television the centrepiece of their strategy https://www.recode.net/2017/7/30/16035706/tv-sets-american-home-decline https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30132&src=%E2%80%B9%20Consumption%20%20%20%20%20%20Residential%20Energy%20Consumption%20Survey%20(RECS)-f2
https://www.recode.net/2017/7/30/16035706/tv-sets-american-home-decline
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30132&src=%E2%80%B9%20Consumption%20%20%20%20%20%20Residential%20Energy%20Consumption%20Survey%20(RECS)-f2
You can find other articles stating the opposite (more or less).
Just read this today:
http://www.flatpanels.dk/nyhed.php?subaction=showfull&id=1501578131
And I highly agree - I would not want to miss my big tv screen....relying only on small pc screens or tablets.
How do you feel about it?
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
As long as you have Movies and TV Programmes - you'll have Televisions. I cannot see that changing. How can it?
We live in the and/or world, not the either/or.
Example : Kindle's, e-readers and tablets arrived. "Books are dead!" they said. No they're not. People read books, and they read their Kindles.
Example : Phones with 'Notes' sections and Electronic notepads arrived. "Writing on paper is dead!" they said. No it's not. People use both.
These days, people watch content on their phones, tablets and laptops. "TV's are dead!" I'm sure they'll say, soon. No they're not - people will use both.
Personally, I get sick of watching programmes on my 12.4" iPad - and I love it when I then sit down to watch my 'big' TV. (Mines an Avant 75, so maybe it's a bit excessive..) - but you get the point. I watch both.
TV will not disappear. It may become less important - and therefore perhaps not seen as a purchase to spend big money on, but it'll be there - now, and for many years to come.
And that's where the uncertainty lays. Almost every home will have one, but how much value will they place on it. I mean in hard cash.
StUrrock: ....it would not surprise me if this company took over the UK market as the master dealer with the u.k. office closing.
....it would not surprise me if this company took over the UK market as the master dealer with the u.k. office closing.
Well, the person in charge of this company is a lot more knowledgable, and extremely proactive - so it can't get any worse....
As for the 'Appointed engineers for B&O UK' who went bust - I visited their offices last year. Very pleasant people - but in a chaotic, disorganised and scruffy looking workshop, with beleaguered (but still smiling) office staff appearing to be groaning under the weight of things to sort out, and clearly running the show on a shoestring as the fixtures and fittings looked like they hadn't been touched since about 1997.
I can only assume that because they needed cash, they quoted cheap to get the job. If so, this clearly backfired. Once again, B&O choose the wrong people to do a "Premium Job" for a Premium Company. I see a pattern emerging here. It's almost masochistic in it's approach!
I think there will always be a market for big screen viewing and that in some ways it will draw people together sharing the watching of a film or an event. Agree with Lee that there will be a market for both - I can see more likely than TVs, Projectors as they get more advanced and cheaper taking over - I have one in a flat in London - it only cost £250 but produces a fantastic 120" picture from Apple TV and allows the room to be moved around without being dominated by a large TV - the rest of the time the iPad is fine.
Andrew:I think there will always be a market for big screen viewing and that in some ways it will draw people together sharing the watching of a film or an event. Agree with Lee that there will be a market for both - I can see more likely than TVs, Projectors as they get more advanced and cheaper taking over - I have one in a flat in London - it only cost £250 but produces a fantastic 120" picture from Apple TV and allows the room to be moved around without being dominated by a large TV - the rest of the time the iPad is fine.
I agree that projectors (holographic probably) will replace the TV 'set' as we know it. The trend towards wallpaper thin OLED technology shows this I think. The tv set/box as we know it won't be around much longer I don't think, which is a good thing! It's all about space saving and tidy set ups for me - i.e minimalism. Simon.
Hmmm..... Welll...
It is your job to sell them on the benefits of B&O and the experience new or old regardless if it's Beocords, Beolab or Beovox or Beovision something.
well, it looks nice, but I can buy the latest technology for a lot less.
How far do you get the to the real reason when getting that response? Truth is you did not sell them enough on the benefits and experience to win the deal. Going into price war is never good and you should stick to your price and why and what your customers get from buying from you instead anyone else.
Do you explain to customers what goes behind an lifestyleAV product from pickup to showroom and ads as that is not something I even see on your website just the listed products. That does not make it stand out why I should buy from you.
In Denmark we have one similar dealer in Odense and while the competition of Ebay is absent we got tons of B&O old and new. Second hand dealers here stick with their prices and advertise where people look like dba.dk a Danish answer to gumtree.
They win on 2 points which is buying up certain B&O making them the only ones to have it and having some sort of service and guarantee behind them,
What used to work has obliviously changed and you got to change with the times to market and the areas where you need to go from an other angel as sure Beovisions goes quickly down in value.
You can address if people really need the technology. Once scart was fine. Really address the needs and other reasons people needs to back out. Smart tv? The same? What is the attraction?
Why do you need the latest smart phone or Apple product any way?
B&O like it was meant to be! See the difference? Refurbished, tested etc. Now that is a different view on the situation.