How should the New Heritage Line Be Marketed?

[MarkBK]

Earlier in this thread, the sober reality of todays market was stated - WAF - which plays a huge roll for those with the income to afford the new Heritage. That coupled with the ipod generation, and I'm afraid that the volume of sales for these very large speakers is a diminishing return. Even during the heyday of what is now heritage, there were very few houses being built for the average family that could also accomodate speakers like the Khorn. Then again, at the time PWK invented them - mono was the only choice for average families - back then it probably was easier to have one large speaker in a corner and the Khorn does look more furniture like the others.

The point here is that no matter what means is utlilzed to market them - the market is a very narrow market at best. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is reality for todays market. Even the Reference series is a difficult sell in todays market because of size and appearance.

[WMcD]

One thought is that there are logical and factual contradictions in the marketing which is getting in the way.

It comes down to listen, buy, and get product support from one home town dealer as a business plan by Klipsch. That is not happening. Maybe it can't these days and some work-arounds have to found. The buyers are getting annoyed.

Dealers can't sell outside their area (true?, maybe not). But very few dealers have a demo area for K-Horns and LS-II. So the combination of listen and purchase does not occur very frequently. The same might be true of other high end Klipsch.

Work around?: People get around quite a lot these days on business, particularly people wth money. The airline hubs are natural spots for Heritage dealers with good facilities. It would be nice if someone could listen during a stopover in Denver, Dallas, ORD, Pittsburgh, etc. Let's not forget high rollers in Las Vegas. Hope and Indy are not on the list. Speakers are going to be shipped from the factory anyway.

I'm sure Klipsch has considered this. There is no lack of brains there. There are at least two problems.

- - - -

One is that folks don't always buy where they listen. Someone could go home and dicker down a price at a local dealer who has not made the investment in the demo area. So the guy with the demo area is cut out of the deal. Not good but maybe something could be done. Different prices to dealers with different facilities could cause legal and commercial problems. I don't know.

= = = =

The second is that there is a concept followed by Klipsch that there is a home town relation between the expert local retailer and purchaser of Klipsch products. It is an appealling notion. It might have been true decades ago. Those times have past. It deserves a work around. The buyer might not be worse off then they are now if they buy from a remote seller..

The reality is that retailers who are authorized to sell Heritage within an area seem to know very little about Heritage which they don't demo, in reality.

So, let's think . . . you listen and buy out of state and Hertage gets delivered. You go to a local dealer for product support and they are ignorant. I use the term like some Southerners do: simply uninformed of the big picture, but intelligent. They are ignorant because they don't demo, for the most part. They go hand in hand.

Yet the purchaser through a listen-purchase-and drop-ship remote dealer has the same problem with local support as a purchaser from a can't-listen-purchase-local delivery-ignorant dealer. (That is a complicated concept, sorry.)

Therefore the availability of remote sale of Heritage does not hurt the purchaser; except to the extent he has to tolerate ignorant dealers in both situations. Klipsch may say there are no such ignorant dealers, or they are working on improving it.

Still, the concept that dealers are uniformly in competence (and competent ones are allowed to sell, or make the sales) is contrary to present facts as we know them.

No one can make technical or business plans (sale by Klipsch or purchase by individuals) based upon facts which are wished for, but not valid. The potential buyers are saying that pretty clearly. They can't find demos or compentent dealers. Klipsch should listen and provide a channel for sales from committed dealers.

That is my rant. Sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes.

Smile,

Gil

[Jay481985]

Ok I got to page two and then quit ...... Sorry but my last experience

with a authorized heritage dealer was.... to say cold. Ok it was a mom

and pop shop they were selling coby 8 dollar a pair speakers and low

and behold the best displayed klipsch model was what! a rsx-4 Not a

good quality speaker in the whole place. I asked three sales people how

much the cornwall III were they were like "huh" what are cornwalls. And

then They took like 30 minutes finding the price because they had to

actually call their wholeseller!!! I believe they actually called

Klipsch!!! what they are a heritage dealer and do not have the price

atleast in a book in their store!

oh well......

[dtel]

After reading all of this there seems to be alot of problems in almost any direction you go . There is alot to be said for Indys idea though, Someone who knows what they are selling and likes the product this much is very hard to find .

When was the last time you bought anything where the salesman was really sold on the product and not just the commission and moving on to the next victim.

Most salesman act like they are doing you a favor,and if you were to read about the product for 5 min you would know more than 95% of the salesman out there.

Blose has there own stores.

How about what was said a few post back.

A Klipsch store in airport hubs ,run by people who Know the product.

A lot of people spend/kill time in airports [more now than ever] waiting for flights. Give them a place to sit down and listen to there choice of music in a nice setting, the whole time letting the sound do most of the sales.

If the busiest airports had this, after a few stops by the right people it would create sales.

We do Landscaping, this is not a requirement can be diy, but you would be shocked at how much people spend on this. Ok it does increase the property value but people DO HAVE THE MONEY WHEN THEY REALLY WANT SOMETHING, and i'm not just talking about people who make over x amount of $ , average people average homes i see it all the time.

But it does come down to you would never buy something in this price range without seeing and hearing, i wouldn't and i love Klipsch?

[IndyKlipschFan]

One is that folks don't always buy where they listen. Someone could go home and dicker down a price at a local dealer who has not made the investment in the demo area.

==============================================================

Even if it was just in Indy and Hope... Well, take Indy for instance..

I think by carrying Klipsch speakers most retailers.. (not the big box ones) maybe not even the Heritage Line, they have made an investment into "Klipsch" the company. And how many of us after buying our first Klipsch, also bought more too?

In my plan here... wherever you live... That dealer gets some kind of compensation as well. (Again, fair to all.) If you advertised by appointment only, kinda like say the first Friday of the month from noon till 4 pm I would be available in Indy at Klipsch Headquarters... I bet some people travelling through Indy would come.

[Jay481985]

I for one sure as hell like the idea of selling the speakers for

dealer's price and I would audition them to potential buyers. I think

that is a fair deal! hell I am in college and I wonder how many people

would actually come here to listen to speakers.... People on my floor

are impressed just with my iFi and promedia ultra. Next few weeks rf-83

[IndyKlipschFan]

LOL While in college, in my little dorm room imagine this... I had 2 Cornwall's and 2 Heresies.

Insane yes... Fun? OMG yes!!!!!

If I was to do it today though?? I would just have a killer computer setup sound wise. The old days of big ole speakers in a small dorm room are over. Now follow the Klipsch logic here.... If I enjoy the Computer speakers... and I like them.... Where will I go when I move to my apartment either in or after school to look for great Stereo / Home Theater Audio... Yes, Klipsch again!!!!

That's where the Best Buys come in..

Later in life, I may crave more.. So better "Reference Series"or "Heritage" depending on my tastes... Seems like Klipsch just went from Chevrolet to Cadillacs. Smart too.

[Jay481985]

I was going to get cornwalls but the universe never lined up and they

don't make cars as big as they used to so they will not fit in......

Right now I have the iFi and Klipsch Ultra and they sound better than any other system. And nooooo the "The old days of big ole speakers in a small dorm room are over." are not over! I am getting rf-83 []

[IndyKlipschFan]

Congrats Jay.. I have heard them, and you will be very pleased.

[Jay481985]

impressions?

[m00n]

here is a smart marketing ploy. Not saying I agree with it, just smart advertising. And they are small, and they are cute... WAF = VERY GOOD I would assume. Not saying I would own them... Just saying is all.

"Small Speakers For Smart People"

http://www.orbaudio.com/

[jwc]

I am the one who posted the dealer in Georgia with the La scala 2's. Let me say that the dealer realizes the room problem...however, there is no good fix because the location is cookie cut with small rooms. Their premeire room is an HT setup with B & W. They sell a ton of B & W.

I can't remember the las time I went to an audio place that had a decent size room for audition. People are more interesed in very small speaker playing mp3's.

I think no matter how klipsch does it, the heritage will be very hard to sell. It is sad because people come to my house and will drop their jaw at the sound.

[j-malotky]

Here is another idea - it is from a software company I use to sell.....We would show customers the software, they liked it, then shopped it out to online stores that we could not compete with for price. Since it was not fair as we did the work and developed the interest, the software company came up with this plan.

When we showed the software, we would register the customer in there database. No matter who sold them the software, we made (I think it was 15points) instead of the 20 points we normally got. A simular plan would work nicely here.

JM

[DrWho]

If you can not set the speakers up so they will

perform at their best then they will not sound all that great and

dealer never sells them.

Well who wants to purchase a new car the doesn't work well without a

lot of tweaking? Sounds to me like a good argument that the heritage

line isn't all that great... []

Let's face it, the majority of the market is filled with deaf people

with wives that want the smallest cutest thing out there. And klipsch

is a company, which means they are first and foremost concerned

about making money. Heritage is simply not condusive to the current

market which means klipsch would be foolish to invest a lot of money in

this direction.

And even though klipsch has cornered the cinema market, cinemas

themselves aren't doing too well - and that is no doubt going to affect

klipsch in the future.

Btw, Klipsch isn't too concerned about customers directly. They

probably make most of their profit off the interest paid from mass

dealer purchases. In other words, Klipsch is marketing to the dealers,

not the customers. Of course it comes back around to the customers

because the dealers won't purchase as much product from klipsch if

their customers aren't buying it. The point here is that klipsch makes

money off the interest of "loaning" speakers to the dealers rather than

from the sale itself...the sale just barely covers the cost of building

that speaker (and if the dealer is lucky, he will come out ahead after

all the interest is taken into account).

So despite how cool I think it would be to sell klipsch out of our

homes, I simply don't see how it fits into their current business

model. In fact, the only possible option I see would be for us to group

together and look like a single big dealer to klipsch, and then it'd be

up to us to worry about shipping speakers around and selling them...and

selling them quick enough to make it profitable for us. I don't think

everyone on this forum combined would be able to push enough product to

make it profitable....heck, the majority of us on the forum simply

revert to the much cheaper used market! If Klipsch was looking to make

money with the heritage lineup, they would be buying out the used

market already...