I agree with this one, although i'm sure a lot of research was done before making the decision to have dedicated stores only.

I remember as a child our local B&O dealer selling Finlux, Panasonic and a couple of other high end brands alongside B&O.  It only served to make B&O look good against it's competitors and you simply aspired more to owning B&O when seen against what else the world had to offer.  Perhaps it was just me that thought that?

If you've enough confidence in your product, and the product is good - surely placing it near the faceless dross would make it look even more amazing?

As i said though, there must be a strong argument against that or B&O wouldn't have made the decision they did.

Lee

Yes, you're right Lee. My uncle ran a B&O store up North, for a few years. When he decided to leave and set up his own A/V store, with other brands, B&O didn't want to know. He was really keen to include B&O as he thought it would stand up against Arcam and the other brands he stocked and he was confident the product would sell. As a previous B&O store manager, I'm sure he was in a premier position to push the brand.

To this day though, B&O just dismissed this option. My uncle didn't want to setup his own store as he just viewed this as more of a risk than stocking a number of brands. His store has been going strong for years now and organises plenty of custom installs (with non-B&O kit).

Odd though that they've allowed other stores - particularly in the States - to promote B&O up against other brands?

I understand B&O independent franchise stores first get absorbed by B&O UK if they get into difficulties (i.e. don't meet targets), then presumably B&O UK decide on the closure (or not) which will inevitably be linked to numerous factors, including how long a building lease has to run etc.

As to the argument about whether stand alone stores are better than mixed, this will be the usual cyclical business decision that management drifts into. After having stand-alone store statistics for a period, someone will point out some disadvantages and someone will decide that mixed sales might be a better idea. Then in another 10 years, it will swing back again.

Look at Apple. In Liverpool you can buy at the Apple Store, PC World, John Lewis, and the latest is a large stand inside Costco for iPod products. Not to mention O2 phone shops who will presumably be dropping iPhones after the new Orange deal.

If you look at the range of products sold by the non exclusive Apple outlets, then you can imagine staffing costs as an overhead per product to be relatively low. The same for the Apple Store, always packed with customers. ( I don't know whether this Apple store is a franchise operation.)  B&O is never going to turn-over low to mid priced products like Apple so presumably needs a different model (inc whole house installations.)

I can think of another exclusive high-end business (based on family in-studio photography)............ where franchises are reverting to HQ ownership and then closing all over the UK. Franchised high-end product stores may not be straightforward in a recession, even when you expect typical customers to be paying cash rather than buying on credit. For many people an iPhone/iPod/iMac  remains a high priority (witness Apples share price). In a recession the same can't be said of studio photographs or, dare I say, the BV10 (Beoworld members excepted!))

Let's hope a recovering B&O can afford to take a longer-term view of franchise store support and survival!

Graham

Based on B&O's most recent publication there are three (3) B&O stores in Scotland namely:-

B&O of Aberdeen

B&O of Bruntsfield

B&O of Merchants City (Strathclyde) who is also a Beoliving retailer

Apparently, there are currently 12 Beoliving retailers in England and none in Wales or Ireland

The Aberdeen and Bruntsfield (Edinburgh) stores are ran by the same franchisee.  The Edinburgh shop is manned by two fairly inexperienced staff and from local discussion amongst the community (existing and previous customers), they have quiet a bad attitude toward clients and their poor attitude in tough times are not giving the brand a great name.  The boss in the north very rarely wants to have any involvement with customers.

I would expect if there is to be any change to Scotland's B&O representation, it would be served better by having someone to take the business that Edinburgh is driving away.  This is where I understand that potential customers from Scotland are contacting dealers in the north of England for sales and service as the Scottish dealer now has a reputation of taking the money and running with little or no aftercare.

This frustrates me as I like to keep business within the local area but when it comes to high-end purchases, I'd rather travel or contact dealers further away to get a more personal level of attention when investing in such a high-end product.

I just walked past the (ex) B&O shop in Bruntsfield (Edinburgh). Shutters were down and a note in the window saying "This Store Ceased Trading on Friday 1st October 2010. Outstanding business is handled by Bang & Olufsen of Aberdeen". Oh dear... 

Only Glasgow and Aberdeen stores are now shown in Scotland on the store location map on the official B&O site.

The map shows the inevitable preponderance of stores towards London and the South East: it's not particularly user friendly being designed to show you the store nearest your chosen location, but if you search on say 'Scotland' it will give you the whole of the UK.

There's at least one B&O store being offered for sale according to its own linked website.

Graham

Keith Saunders:

Apparently, there are currently 12 Beoliving retailers in England and none in Wales or Ireland

There is definatly one in Dublin and i believe one in Belfast and Cork.

Valve1