Dear manufacturers: “Please contact your dealer for pricing”

[SAM992]

Originally Posted by metaphacts

While an interesting idea, I'm not sure what listing prices in 50+ countries does for a person who will be buying a speaker in only one of those 50+ countries.

My God people, in this day of modern tech, and data management systems where you can put up an amazing website and even point of sale for peanuts in terms of dollars and hours, it's TOTALLY inexcusable not to have prices on the site for ANY country (or region) you want..

I just ordered a Porsche 992 (as Ivan did) and the first thing when you go to the build your car site is it asks where you live? After entering the proper region, you then get the prices that correlate to your currency and geographic area.

Small companies, I can understand might not have the man power to do this, but McIntosh, Accuphase, and dCS are all companies I have product from and they all have the money to spend literally not more than a dozen hours of web developer time to add this feature.

If they don't want to do it on their direct website then make their distributors do it on theirs.. it's not rocket science.

Stop making excuses for it... there is NO reason to exclude pricing, period.

[Kal Rubinson]

Originally Posted by bart

I can imagine that a manufacturer has other fish to fry than always be looking at retail prices in sometimes more than 100 countries.
I prefer that they invest in product quality rather than in a website with price lists of their products in all those countries.

A price list in one country is essential and good enough for me. I can extrapolate if I want to.

[SAM992]

Originally Posted by Kal Rubinson

A price list in one country is essential and good enough for me. I can extrapolate if I want to.

Unless it's Accuphase where there are orders of magnitude in difference between some of them

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by SAM992

Unless it's Accuphase where there are orders of magnitude in difference between some of them

That would be the importer... A very enthusiastic importer for Accuphase. Shame because it would allow for many more enthusiasts to enjoy Accuphase at the world prices instead of the US crazy markup. Then again Accuphase is a small company and perhaps they have all the business they can handle and exclusivity is just fine by them and the US importer.

[bart]

Originally Posted by SAM992

My God people, in this day of modern tech, and data management systems where you can put up an amazing website and even point of sale for peanuts in terms of dollars and hours, it's TOTALLY inexcusable not to have prices on the site for ANY country (or region) you want..

I just ordered a Porsche 992 (as Ivan did) and the first thing when you go to the build your car site is it asks where you live? After entering the proper region, you then get the prices that correlate to your currency and geographic area.

Small companies, I can understand might not have the man power to do this, but McIntosh, Accuphase, and dCS are all companies I have product from and they all have the money to spend literally not more than a dozen hours of web developer time to add this feature.

If they don't want to do it on their direct website then make their distributors do it on theirs.. it's not rocket science.

Stop making excuses for it... there is NO reason to exclude pricing, period.

I think you underestimate the work that goes into a decent website.
My wife is a website designer and a simple adjustment on a site can take hours.

When I want to know the price of a product I usually go to the website of the manufacturer, there go to the page of the distributors, click on the distributor for my country where I find the price list of the brand.

[SAM992]

Originally Posted by PHC1

Then again Accuphase is a small company and perhaps they have all the business they can handle and exclusivity is just fine by them and the US importer.

They have been very clear that they don't want more than 30% of their total production to leave Japan ... they also have no desire to grow just for the sake of growth, a rare company and I wish more operated like them, but none of this excuses the lack of a price list by their importer..

The discussion isn't about high mark ups, and different prices in different regions... that's a different topic and I frankly think let the free market work, supply = demand.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by SAM992

They have been very clear that they don't want more than 30% of their total production to leave Japan ... they also have no desire to grow just for the sake of growth, a rare company and I wish more operated like them, but none of this excuses the lack of a price list by their importer..

The discussion isn't about high mark ups, and different prices in different regions... that's a different topic and I frankly think let the free market work, supply = demand.

Accuphase is not a small company by "audio standards". Not like the boutique Shindo or Kondo for example. The Accuphase and Luxman are priced fairly and accordingly in their home markets. Something different happens when they get here to the US though as their prices diverge greatly. Luxman also used to have a high markup at one time, that changed with the import situation.

But I digress, you pay to play and if Accuphase is it, then the heart wants what it wants and the wallet buys what it can.

[metaphacts]

Originally Posted by SAM992

..

Stop making excuses for it... there is NO reason to exclude pricing, period.

No excuses at all.

Horses for courses.

As always, ymmv.

[Antonmb]

The company I retired from a couple of years ago sells, through distributors or direct, to many countries in Asia and Europe. With constantly shifting exchange rates, international and in-country shipping costs, customs classifications, and import duties, maintaining and publishing prices in multiple countries is no small challenge. There is also a financial and goodwill risk: you can either change prices regularly as exchange rates change and drive customers (and your staff) crazy, or lock your prices at a specific rate for a year and hope the exchange rate doesn’t change too much the wrong way - if it goes in your favor, customers think you’re gouging them; if it goes against you, you lose money. Our company had 300 employees, which, although not big in the grand scheme of things, is probably considerably larger than most high-end brands, and yet we realized it wasn’t worth the resources or risk to maintain multi-country pricing.

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by metaphacts

While an interesting idea, I'm not sure what listing prices in 50+ countries does for a person who will be buying a speaker in only one of those 50+ countries.

Then as another poster has pointed out, provide a price list based upon the web session origination location/country of the person looking. Easy code to do this, basic web programming, and standard approach for airlines and so many other ecommerce sites.

This response is with respect, avoiding the consumer needs, wants and market realities.

Audio manufacturers sell products.

They are no different than any other manufacturer.

Consumers buy products and that process and manufacturer affinity is made easier if the process is clear an unambiguous.

Not all of my favorite brands do this either and I wish they would also get the hint.