You are not alone !!

B&O Chester has closed down.  It won't be the first this year and it won't be the last, sadly..

Lee

9 LEE wrote:

B&O Chester has closed down.  It won't be the first this year and it won't be the last, sadly..

Lee

Good lord, if you can't make a store work in the historic town of Chester, it doesn't bode well for the future. Chester, Bath, Tunbridge Wells, Leamington Spa should be four towns/areas which are ripe for existing B&O's customer base.

9-LEE wrote:

B&O Chester has closed down. It won't be the first this year and it won't be the last, sadly..

Lee

Lee you have a great business brain and love the brand.

What would you do if you were in charge?

9 LEE wrote:

B&O Chester has closed down.  It won't be the first this year and it won't be the last, sadly..

Lee

That might explain the very long list of ex demo products on the hidden local store webpage.

Lee, is there a hit list known only to the trade?

Graham

vikinguk wrote:

Lee, is there a hit list known only to the trade?

Graham

AFAIK Chester closed voluntarily paying all their creditors and bills and were not CLOSED down.

I know Tony personally and he is a very hard working, honorable man.

I'm convinced some of this has to do with peoples impressions or prejudices about the brand. I work with a large group of folk(about 400) all of whom earn well over £50,000 pa. Apart from Chris Harrison and i, to a man they look upon B&O as just for millionaires, and tarted up Phillips. They think we are mugs.

Nobody would ever contemplate entering a store as they think everything will be too expensive, and not for them. But they will happily buy B&W/Sonos/Bose etc in their droves. I read an old review about speakers, one of which was the Beolab 8000 and the others at least included a B&W model. Even though they were all about the same price, only the Beolab was described as "predictably eye wateringly expensive". But it was the same price as the B&W.

There is a prejudice built into a lot of audiophiles, who believe their speakers that are made by some tin pot company in Norfolk are bound to be better than a Beolab. Of course the little company doesn't have a Geoff, or an audio chamber like the one in Struer and even though they cost twice that of a Beolab, B&O are for rich people! Where has this logic come from, and more importantly how do B&O negate it.

An aquantance from work recently spent £2,500 on a Bose system surround, and didn't contemplate my Beolab 14 system that i showed him because he couldn't afford it. Even though i explained it would only be a couple of hundreds of pounds more, he was convinced down to his very DNA, that Bang and Olufsen would be unaffordable! 

This is partly why people are not even opening the door of a store, let alone spend £8,000 on a TV. You can build all the great new stuff you like and it is, but if there simply isn't the footfall..............

StUrrock wrote:

AFAIK Chester closed voluntarily paying all their creditors and bills and were not CLOSED down.

I know Tony personally and he is a very hard working, honorable man.

Correct on both counts. Chester were not closed down - Tony (like many other dealers) couldn't see a future with the brand so paid his bills and closed the doors for good.

With such a small number of dealers there won't be as much used kit around in future, which means many more people will be leaving the brand altogether..  I personally bought used before I bought new - and I'm sure this is the case with many people.

As far as the B&O website being updated - I don't think it's priority number one for them!

Lee

Chris Townsend wrote:

I'm convinced some of this has to do with peoples impressions or prejudices about the brand. I work with a large group of folk(about 400) all of whom earn well over £50,000 pa. Apart from Chris Harrison and i, to a man they look upon B&O as just for millionaires, and tarted up Phillips. They think we are mugs.

My landlords think that....and they were strong advocates of the B&O brand. They still own an Avant and BV6-22. However, they've moved on, not bought a B&O product since 2003. They have plenty of cash - a £2 million property portfolio - but can't get their heads around spending £5K+ on a B&O TV. They stopped going in to the store a couple of years ago. Sadly, they do not care about the brand at all.