I wrote this about 5 years ago when I was a member at AoS in reply to Ashley James.
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Nope, wrong yet again. Read the thread through. What you say used to happen and it happened because if anything threatened the status quo it was sat upon and killed. For the mafia the lesson was learned in the 1980's too many small companies with great products were appearing, I could list them but there are too many. Well come the early 90's recession the mafia was so established they just dictated the selling terms to the retailers. "You support us and only sell our products and we will give you extra profit" retailer contracts, strictly illegal and against all the free market laws that came in at the end of retail price maintenance. Setting retail prices, killing competition. The retailers loved it, slurp slurp. The small companies got conned, "yes I will sell your products, give me one to dem" rarely switched on, only used to sell *off*, if demed then cold and used in incompatible cabling electrical supply etc, anything to make it sound worse so he can sell what he *has to* to reach his yearly dictated turn over figures with Linn, Naim, Mission, Meridian, Kef, B & W etc, who could have been part of this
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon/wink.gif)
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Well most of the small guys went bust apart from the ones that jumped on the burgeoning Far Eastern export market, and then that was largely killed by the Far Eastern currency crisis in 1997. British hi-fi industry gems killed by bullshit marketing and illegal selling contracts. Look for them now on ebay they make good money, people are finding them again. It is changing, now-a-days they can't hurt us, we rise or fall on merit, if the very freedom we have acquired is allowed us by the forum trough snufflers.
In the early 90's there was a trade magazine called Inside Hi-Fi run by Stan Curtis's wife. It wanted letters and rep of the state of the industry, so I tried a couple of times. I have lost the first one but this was the follow up after most of the industry had been killed apart from the exporters.
This was 1992 or 3
Write Inside
Dear Angela,
Seeing it is not only you but some of your more prominent!! readers asking for more letters in your mag, I thought I would make another attempt at the bubbly. I would like to follow up on the theme of my letter of last year. That letter enticed two 'phone calls, one from Ivor Tiefenbrun explaining at great length!!! his dealer contracts. After I managed to get a word in edgeways I was told if I won't listen there is no point in trying to educate me. And one from Russ Andrews agreeing with everything I said. What this says of the industry or its view of me I will leave open for your interpretation. Apathy rules OK.
What very few people seem to understand is that the so-called cottage side of our industry is to a large extent thriving and a large number of small to medium size companies are exporting like mad. The fact that the restrictive trading practices and pure mismanagement of the retail side of the British Hi-Fi industry has nearly ruined the industry here has forced these companies to do this and in the process they have become an unrecognised British exporting success story. The following is a breakdown of my last years turnover according to country. Please do not consider our position to be unique it probably applies to 80% of UK Hi-Fi companies.
China/Hong Kong 24%
Singapore 5% Taiwan 21%
UK 4% France 12%
Greece 3% Russia 7%
Italy 2% Indonesia 7%
Holland 2% Malaysia 6%
Norway 2%
The remaining 3% split amongst another 7 countries.
When your home market takes only 4% of your turnover you can guess where my priorities lie, though this does give me the freedom to call a spade a spade as I perceive it.
There seems to have been a decision made by a number of leading manufacturers and retailers dating back to the post boom days of the late 1980's that if they were going to have to put up with a receding market place the thing to do was to get a greater share of that smaller market. Hence the poor customer walks into a major retailer these days to be faced with a choice of 4-6 manufactures and these are boringly the same manufactures shop to shop, apart from the valve propeller heads and thank God for them, they are the only spark of originality in the shops today. Well, I would like to say surely it is time for a change, as the recession is no longer with us shouldn't we try to pursue excellence again instead of short term expedience. The whole industry will benefit and the major manufacturers will have to improve their products instead of relying on lack of competition, which must be for the good. In my opinion the like of Bill Hutchinson and Julian Richer in their own very different ways are addressing this and if more independents sat back and took a good look at their businesses and break out of their complacency and looked at who is controlling them, perhaps they will join the battle of expanding the market instead of griping and complaining and acting as new age Luddites.
Richard Dunn
NVA