Joey the selling price has been increasing. The asking price you see is based on Wilson Audio adding a MAP to the product when we discontinued it. What that means is that a dealer cannot advertise an Alexia online, new or used, below MAP where Wilson offers a factory warranty. What the Wilson dealer sells the speaker for as you stated is completely up to them.
What you may not know is that Wilson dealers offer
Certified Authentic loudspeakers. This is not a limited sales program, but an ongoing and permanent aspect of the way we do business. The simple goal is to offer the used buyer a new Wilson buying experience, from the time they cross the dealer threshold up to and including installation, owner experience, and real trade in toward other Wilson speakers (if and when they move up). Like a new buyer, the used buyer just wants to be treated fairly.
There are 3 main categories
Certified Authentic Untitled - A speaker that has never been sold. Full Warranty
Certified Authentic Factory Tested - A used speaker taken on trade by a dealer and in turn traded in to Wilson. It goes through a 100+ point process including the test battery done when new, refresh of critical parts where needed, resistors replaced, final factory polishing, and refrisking. The warranty is either the remainder of the 5 year warranty or 3 years, whichever is longer unless the speaker is over 10 years old. Then the warranty is two years..
Certified Authentic Pre-Owned - A used speaker taken on trade by a dealer. It goes through a 100+ point process including a basic test process, refresh of critical parts where needed, resistors replaced, dealer polishing, and refrisking. The warranty is either the remainder of the 5 year warranty or 3 years, whichever is longer unless the speaker is over 10 years old. Then the warranty is two years.
Certified Authentic piggybacks on Wilson's Trade-In Program, again ongoing and permanent. There are more Wilson Loudspeakers in the field that are used than are new. Why not insure that those speakers and their current and future owners have an opportunity to benefit from and become a part of the Wilson family? The key to making all this work is that the values we offer to dealers and the values they offer to their customers are based on real world values, not wishful thinking.
Lastly, since the announcement of Alexia 2, many people have traded in their Alexia 1. We have also retrieved reviewer and show samples from around the world. The number of
Certified Authentic Alexias sold in the last quarter exceeds our best Alexia 1 sales in years. Right now we have a large backorder for speakers we may never get on trade. Dealers who will be taking Alexia 1s on trade are advertising and selling them before they have them in hand to sell. If the price was actually falling, we would see pressure from dealers to alter trade in values (most trades are kept by dealers and sold as
Certified Authentic Pre-Owned). We have seen no such pressure. In fact one dealer sold an
Certified Authentic Untitled pair yesterday well above MAP.
Now if you want to buy a used Wilson from someone other than a Wilson dealer, the price will likely be lower and as you can see from above, with good reason.
Ask Marc about his
Certified Authentic experience.
