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Ian Harrison

Ptah

Ptah

pfm Member
This dealer has advertised in the back of magazines for many years. How is it possible he can sell at discounted prices when high street dealers need to maintain the manufacturer's price? I have no axe to grind here - just genuinely interested.
 
Ptah said:
This dealer has advertised in the back of magazines for many years. How is it possible he can sell at discounted prices when high street dealers need to maintain the manufacturer's price? I have no axe to grind here - just genuinely interested.
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They probably have a 50% margin to work with.
 
I don’t think he has a brick and mortar store, works from home. I’ve bought Harbeth and various stands off him, great prices and a nice chap to deal with.
 
Yes he does not have demo facilities etc , great guy , I have bought from in the past and had great service
 
Bought from him a few times including this year. Great to deal with, reliable, honest and has some very funny stories. Stuff is direct from official UK distributors not grey imports.
 
I have brought things from him were a demo is not needed or like cartridges where it proves almost impossible to get a proper demo anyway. He is an interesting and honest guy who likes to chat. He can usually manage a discount on most things, but because he works from home a few distributors will no longer deal with him direct. He usually can then arrange a bit of a further discount through another dealer for you.
 
No he doesn't have a website. I have suggested to him in the past it would be worth taking out a dealer account here. He always has an ad. (sometimes two) In the back pages of HiFi News. He doesn't often update the ads. So often the special offers there are gone. His contact details are always correct and he is more than happy to chat on the phone.
 
tuga said:
They probably have a 50% margin to work with.
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Probably not. According to my dealer friends, over here, in independent French brick and mortar hi-fi shops, any discount on new, current, properly distributed and advertised products of 10% (or more) generally involves an effort from both distributor and dealer.

High margins and huge discounts do exist... in clothing
 
I bought an AT ART1 from Ian 27 years ago, lots of advice & literature supplied.
RRP was £900, trade in price from Ian was £500.
Good to hear he's still in business!

I remember being in a hi fi shop about 40 years ago when the owner received a delivery of goods (mostly cartridges as I recall) and proceeded to stick prices on them before placing them on display. I don't remember how I saw the prices he paid, but I did, and he simply doubled whatever he'd paid and put that as the sticker price.
Maybe things are different today?
 
Ptah said:
This dealer has advertised in the back of magazines for many years. How is it possible he can sell at discounted prices when high street dealers need to maintain the manufacturer's price? I have no axe to grind here - just genuinely interested.
Click to expand...

It's possible he can sell at discounted prices as there is a fair margin to work within after all if the margin didn't exist neither could the discount.
Although I never asked Ian I guess his reasons would be that he doesn't have a shop strictly speaking and works from home, doesn't have a website with an attached webshop, so you have to either call or email him to request a price for a particular item, so he is only really a mail order box shifter, though he is nice enough to have a chat with and good to deal with unlike a few other mail order box shifters who will advertise products available but have no stock and want full retail prices, at least Ian is a little more realistic.
 
When I was a bit younger, I once bought a cassette dolby calibration tape from him for my Aurex PCX-60AD so he´s not exactly the here today, gone tomorrow type.
 
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