close
Don't Remember 'Lost in Space'?
...You must not be as old as us!
Danger, Danger, Warning Warning!

Price rises imminent!

When the world's financial markets went into meltdown in Autumn 2008, Hi-Fi manufacturers faced a period of extreme uncertainty. Many of them had European warehouses, crammed full of stock, ready for Christmas. However, there could be no absolute guarantee that consumers would buy at 'normal' levels, in the new credit-crunch world. On top of that, UK distributors didn't know what their European counterparts would do.What if one European distributor panicked, took all the stock from the central European warehouse and sold it off dirt cheap, just to do some business? There would then be nothing left for the UK distributor to sell over Christmas and into the New Year.

Faced with that dilemma, most UK distributors decided to slash their prices on the run up to Christmas, in an effort to try to completely sell out of all their allocation of warehouse stock. They knew that this would be their best chance of doing good Christmas business, but they also realised that it would lead to stock shortages in the New Year.

And that's where we are now! Many Hi-Fi shops have had virtually no free stock throughout January.

What's more, things are set to get even worse, because when the manufacturers do finally get their 2009 deliveries, many of them will be at much higher prices, because they will have been bought against the Euro, Dollar or Yen, all of which are now significantly stronger than the Pound. There is no escaping this, because as surely as night follows day, if UK distributors buy their goods from abroad, they're going to have to pay more for them. It doesn't matter whether there is a credit crunch or not, it's a simple matter of economics.

Already we have seen price increases from the likes of Arcam, Cyrus, Yamaha, Infocus, Tannoy, Themescene and SpeakerCraft, with another raft of increases in RRP due on 1st February from Q Acoustics and Denon. The Denon increases are particularly worthy of note, because they will range from 3% to a massive 40%. Yes, that's Forty (Four, Zero) percent. That would be bad enough in itself, but when you bear in mind that the last prices remembered by customers are the pre-Christmas Sale prices, then you realise that in real terms, some products will appear to be as much as 60% more than they were just a month ago.

So, if you're a Hi-Fi retailer, what can you do about it?

Well if the name at the bottom of your cheque book reads 'Creative Audio', then the answer to that question is simple - you use your buying power to purchase a vast amount of stock at pre-increase prices. You then keep your Hot Deals at Christmas levels and offer customers who are quick off the mark, the opportunity to beat the New Year price increases. That is exactly what we're doing, and that is why, having already had an amazing Christmas, we are currently enjoying one of the strongest Januarys in our 20 year retail History.

It's great, but a word of caution - even we will run out of pre-price increase stock soon - and when we have to re-order, there is only one way the prices are going - UP.

You have been warned - in only a few week's time, we fully expect most of our Hot Deals to have to go up by hundreds of pounds. So if you want something, the sensible thing to do is to GET IT NOW !!