On the B and O web page there is now a place for pre-owned items at dealers. While some are marked as demo, other items are identified as "pre owned" with no warranties. Are some dealers accepting trade ins on new items?

I don't think they are accepting trade ins.  There might be a few cases but I don't think so.  What I believe it to mean is product placement.  In some cases B&O dealers lend products to interior design stores, hotels, or other such places for product placement.  When that place returns it to the B&O store because they don't want it anymore, or they want to get something different, or whatever, the store then sells it off as used because it wasn't just a demo item in the store. Sometimes these items can be a little older then just demo items

B&O do accept trade ins and I have bought a number o items from dealers over the years.  Usually serviced and a good price. 

ds719:

lend products to interior design stores, hotels

yes, finding a specialised hotel Beo4 in my "demo" BV8's box was a dead giveaway

Maybe dealers are more amicable to trade-ins in Europe than in the USA. However, my Boston dealer seems open to the idea. When I bought a BV 8-32 in Oct. 2008 and discovered soon afterwards that the BV 8-40 was coming out, they said they could consider a trade-in since the BV 8-32 was a big seller. As it happened, the BV 8-40 wasn't imported to the USA and the BV 10 is still a few months off. At this stage I'm not sure if they would accept an 18-month-old TV, but not to worry - the BV 8-32 would look pretty good in the bedroom.

Leo

We had a long conversation about this subject sometime back.  Here is the link.

http://forum.beoworld.org/forums/t/20656.aspx

Because of the recession, I believe dealers have been taking more trade-ins and giving discounts.  However over the years, discounts were rare and trade-ins generally not available.

For some B&O buyers, it is difficult to go to multiple dealers to look for deals and to compare prices.  The next nearest dealer might be in another city a 1000 miles away.

Of course the biggest problem for Bang & Olufsen in the United States is they are almost unknown by most people.  I hope this changes as the recession ends whenever that is.  There are about 50 dealers in the country with a population of about 310 million.  I think there are a lot of potential customers in the US.

William