Shop in Shop or B1 Store?

I've always been a supporter of Bang & Olufsen being next to 'other brands'..  It's what I grew up with, and it allowed me to directly compare other brands side by side - to actually see and understand the price difference, which you can then turn into justification for a purchase.

Although the B1's looked smart and corporate I feel they alienated a lot of people - and lost a lot of customers through this.  

If you were CEO, would you start looking at shop-in-shops again, or would you press on with company owned B1 stores and develop them as best you can?

I'm sure there are arguments for and against both, but what do you think is best - both for you as a buying customer, and also the brand?

 

I would not mind seeing B&O next to other brands. But it needs to be pushed by the stores that range it. I know David Jones in Australia, had a couple B&O items, including the Beosound 8. But they never pushed it. I went in once and asked if its a good dock to buy(I already bought one from the Richmond store) the salesman suggested spending my money on something else, a Bose I think it was. I told him I was prepared to spend the $1490, but kept pushing the Bose sound dock.

The store in store concept is great, as long as its completely supported, but I doubt it's financially viable to have a B&o staff member to sell the products

On Sunday I was in Myers ( a limitless down. Market from David Jones ) and I was impressed by the Bose point of sale that was in the PC/TV/lo-fi area. It was a wall of product - seemingly connected, well displayed, annotated with function and price. And a couple of units had red buttons that started automatic demonstrations. And not a sales assistant in site ... a very low cost marketing operation.

The main point was mentioned by Berger and I just can agree. The most important is sales persons and with a single brand shop it is much more likely to have a sales person that is really deep into the B&O business. 

I do not want to spend several thousand Euros in a shop where I am not 100% confident they are very well educated in sales AND technical tasks. I want to get the feeling they like B&O as much as I do and not just sell either B&O or any other brand. 

My store is a B1. The same owner has a shop in shop with other brands in another town. So he is a full service provider for all A/V related tasks and I still have a 100% B&O sales men and service team.

Heribert:

I do not want to spend several thousand Euros in a shop where I am not 100% confident they are very well educated in sales AND technical tasks. I want to get the feeling they like B&O as much as I do and not just sell either B&O or any other brand.

Very true, but there's no reason why a store in store concept couldn't outsource the installation requirements/technical tasks. Our local B&O store used to have two in-house engineers ten years ago, when times were good. These days they don't have any in-house engineers. All the technical and installation tasks are outsourced to an external team (Hygge Living).

I was very wary of this approach, as I believed you needed synergy between the store and the installers. However, I was very pleased with my BV11 and BV10-32 installation by Hygge, both in the last 6 months, proving the guys don't need to be part the store to do the technical work for the store.

elephant:

On Sunday I was in Myers ( a limitless down. Market from David Jones ) and I was impressed by the Bose point of sale that was in the PC/TV/lo-fi area. It was a wall of product - seemingly connected, well displayed, annotated with function and price. And a couple of units had red buttons that started automatic demonstrations. And not a sales assistant in site ... a very low cost marketing operation. First addi(c)tion was a Beogram 1500; most recent has been the A3; still hoping to climb Everest, win the Lottery, and own a BeoLab 5 surround sound system (rather than the BeoLab 4s I have at the moment )

I've seen this and it's excellent isn't it.

I prefer shop in shops, frankly for all items I buy. 

@chris towsend ...

Which bit is not excellent ?

The Bose products ? I agree

Or

The attempt at low pressure low cost self educating selling ?

SWMBO's reaction was positive to that concept and she suggested B&O should try something similar

"Isn't it" was not a negative, but a question. Lost in translation i believe

I am not sure about the full shop in shop solution.  I still think people want to feel they are walking into somewhere a bit special, and agree with the points about staff training etc.

I would have the store still primarily B&O, but dedicate some space to other solutions and make it clear that the store can help customers with a carefully selected range of other products.  I don't want or need B&O TVs for my kids rooms but I want to deal with the same person who looks after the rest of my house.  Most dealers can supply other brand panels if asked, and they now need to supply other brand relievers to work a BeoLab 14 so let them show it in the stores.

I have some sonance invisible speakers at home supplied by a B&O dealer.  He doesn't have them on display in the showroom though as they are not part of the B&O shop fit.

I travel a lot with work, and probably visit dealers in towns I visit when far more than my own dealer who only gets a phone call when I need something as there is no chance of there being anything in the store I haven't seen before.  General response when travelling and asking dealers is that they all supply other brand kit when required anyway, but aren't allowed to have it in store.  Seems stupid to me, even if B&O organised a group buy through a reseller for them so they could limit the models and keep them high(ish) end and give the dealers a decent margin with some group buying power.

There should be more SIS in the Uk. In Germany there are almost an equal amount of SIS to B1. For much of what a B&O customer wants an SIS is more than capable of giving a great service. Where the whole experience is desired then customers will always be happy to travel - they don’t need that once in every one or two year thrill in their local town.

B1 shops were massively let down by Bang & Olufsen. Since the early 2000’s dealers were shouting loudly to the company about what the market was looking for but B&O in their traditional arrogant manner thought they knew best.

More B&O dealerships will close & some will be taken over by B&O. Currently on the B&O website Swiss Cottage don’t have a website, Harrogate is listed twice, Cardiff goes back to the B&O.com front page & 9 other dealers still have a promotion on their front page that ended April 31st. What a shambles!

The Uk could survive with 35 B1’s and a similar amount of SIS. B&O have committed the cardinal business error. You should always cut hard & fast. That way you take the pain & get the company rebuilding again. Instead what we have 6 years on is a very painful, slow death.

Chris Townsend:

"Isn't it" was not a negative, but a question. Lost in translation i believe

true ! I read it as "excellent is not" !! silly old me !!!

MichaelMiles:

There should be more SIS in the Uk. In Germany there are almost an equal amount of SIS to B1. For much of what a B&O customer wants an SIS is more than capable of giving a great service. Where the whole experience is desired then customers will always be happy to travel - they don’t need that once in every one or two year thrill in their local town.

 

 

B1 shops were massively let down by Bang & Olufsen. Since the early 2000’s dealers were shouting loudly to the company about what the market was looking for but B&O in their traditional arrogant manner thought they knew best.

 

 

More B&O dealerships will close & some will be taken over by B&O. Currently on the B&O website Swiss Cottage don’t have a website, Harrogate is listed twice, Cardiff goes back to the B&O.com front page & 9 other dealers still have a promotion on their front page that ended April 31st. What a shambles!

 

 

The Uk could survive with 35 B1’s and a similar amount of SIS. B&O have committed the cardinal business error. You should always cut hard & fast. That way you take the pain & get the company rebuilding again. Instead what we have 6 years on is a very painful, slow death.

I agree a lot with you, most of the successful B&O stores even though they look like B1s are in fact SIS, albeit behind the scenes. Working with other quality products from other manufacturers is not only good for the soul, it increases technical knowledge, awareness of other AV & IT trends, gives extra profitability and enables in our case ultimately to give the B&O customer the best system for their needs.

This following is using Sonos as an example of  why being a B1 sometimes can be so hard  and illustrates that some of B&O business practises have to be questioned;

Some shops have been threatened with losing bonus payments if they sell/demonstrate Sonos. Why disregard one the biggest selling digital music systems in this way, it seems to beggar belief? B&O shops should be able to use Sonos freely then we can contrast and compare in store to other, IMHO superior sounding products. What  the worse case scenario, sell a pair of B&O speakers with a Sonos component or sell no B&O speakers at all?

 

 

 

StUrrock:

 What  the worse case scenario, sell a pair of B&O speakers with a Sonos component or sell no B&O speakers at all?

 

I've often wondered why this has been an issue with B&O...Surely a sale is better than someone walking away!

The stores in Australia are all owned by B&O, so they obviously completely tow the B&O line. They don't compete for business, they don't discount, and they don't trade in. I must admit that I also find I'm done in about 5 minutes because they essentially look the same as they did 15 years ago (except of cours for the fresh coats of paint and the Beoplay stones),

I think B&O would do a lot better in Australia if they had the SIS model rather than one or two stores per city. I really feel that B&O needs more of a 'presence', I know a lot of people who have only heard of them because of me blabbing on about it!

I'm more than happy to buy on line - it certainly hasn't harmed Apple or Amazon

Shame they haven't got much worth buying