And stores closing in Australia.. B&O (David Jones) Melbourne, gone... more being considered.....

:(

David Coyne

Stores will close while B&O will have this realy stupid and stratospheric price list.

Your right, there IS Harrogate but all the staff left earlier in the year! I guess trouble is a foot, given the staff left York and then that shut up shop. Finding a dealer that knows about the kit I have, and sales staff or owner that actually works in his business is proving hard in Yorkshire. I had forgotton about the dealer in Skipton. From what I remember he sells other brands alongside B&O...... might just have to pay him a visit!

From what I can gather, B&O pushed franchisees into opening more and more stores over the last few years. But, the problem is you tend to support your local store because of the service, independant nature, knowledge by staff and typically because the owner actually sells you the stuff he was passionate to invest his own money into. The whole brand is a personal service, and a high staff turnover isnt good! Didnt the Manchester/Liverpool franchisee grow too big too quickly? He had 4 stores a few years ago before they all collapsed and B&O took over shutting 2 of them down.

A trip to Skipton and King Street is on the cards for me. Less chance of collapse as they only have 1 store :-)

What about Sheffield on Ecclesall Road? Most of my kit is ancient, but I've been in there once or twice and service was certainly friendlier than I received in Leeds when I enquired about some packaging for my Avant and Pentas :P

Once B&O take over a franchise do they then have a policy of not wanting to deal with anyone else in an area? Does anyone happen to know what the current dealer/area policy is?

The Liverpool dealership (now B&O owned) is in Castle Street, just on the boundary between the Liverpool 1 shopping district and the business district. Although it has a good shop front and is on a main street I would guess that most customers go there for a specific purpose rather than being casual/passing visitors.

Years ago there were two specialists selling B&O equipment in Liverpool- Beaver Radio in Whitechapel (now gone) and George Henry Lee (John Lewis Partnership). Both the radio shop and the department store had large B&O displays and B&O listening rooms. G H Lee gave up its dealership long after Beaver Radio but in doing so left Liverpool without a B&O dealer for a period. I'm not sure whether the exclusive B&O store is necessarily better than a dealer selling a range of brands. Certainly with a large department store department the staff will be constantly busy selling a range of products so overheads will be much lower. There was also an opportunity for customers to  compare different manufacturers products in the store and draw their own conclusions on how good B&O was (and, maybe, how expensive!)

Graham

BeoTunes wrote:

A trip to Skipton and King Street is on the cards for me. Less chance of collapse as they only have 1 store :-)

Let me know how you get on with Skipton - they are just up the road from my traditional 'home town', so if I ever moved back up there, then that would be my local store!