Falling HDTV Prices Hurt Independent Retailers.

[Smokey]

The advantages of lower-priced, higher-performance videos such as Flat panel HDTV are many, but they come with their downsides – some of which are truly hurting the most skilled, well-informed AV retailers and installers in the home theater marketplace.

As prices have dropped on HDTVs, so have the profit margins. It is not uncommon to see the margin on a plasma HDTV offer the dealer between two and five percent profit, so a $2,000 sale might yield $100 in profit for the deal.

A commissioned salesman who makes 10 to 15 percent of the sale walks away with barely enough money to pay for lunch and the guy who owns the store is left wondering how he can sell 12 HDTVs per hour so he can pay his overhead.

So to stay afloat, independent retailors exploring other avenues. Noel Lee, the founder of Monster Cable, is best known as the King of the Attachment sale, as attachments to the sale are a key to solving the profit problems on many HDTVs currently in the marketplace. If dealers are smart, they will work hard to sell a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, complete with an HDMI switcher, HDMI cables and perhaps a few other accessory goodies (such as audio) . This could improve the profit of the sale nicely.

http://www.avrev.com/news/0107/25.hdtv.shtml