Klipsch Kracks Down on Unathorized Resellers (1 Viewer)

[alan halvorson]

Stereophile posted this Klipsch vs Resellers article this week.

In short, despite recognizing that they will lose sales, Klipsch has come down hard on unauthorized online and Ebay resellers.

Don't know how this affects anyone who had purchased Klipsch products through these unauthorized sources.

 

[DanaA]

Klipsch probably has every legal right to do this. On the other hand, the consumer has every right not to purchase Klipsch if they see this as a means by the company to regulate the prices upward.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

Interesting. Klipsch has really taken a hard stand against the "trans-shipping" of their items. I guess many other manufacturers just turn the other cheek and ignore what they see in an effort to keep sales up.

I was looking into Klipsch speakers about a month back. I couldn't believe how hard they were to find through Internet e-tailers. Now, I know why - the crackdown had them all scared. Also, for the vendors who would provide me with price quotes, their prices were not much less than a price my local authorized vendor was offering. Plus, the shipping charges of approximately $90 for two tower speakers closed the gap even more.

 

[Chuck Schilling]

I'm curious. Just how on earth is it illegal for a reseller to buy product from an authorized dealer and then sell it themselves? What law is broken by that? I realize that defacing the serial number might constitute fraud against the buyer, not against Klipsch. But I do not see how it could possibly be considered illegal for someone like Crazy Eddie to buy Klipsch product cheaply and then resell it. Why on EARTH would the federal government waste our tax dollars propping up Klipsch?

 

[Ernest Yee]

Yeah - it's because they're worried about how these internet company fronts - which are actually just a group of resellers providing the product - will hurt in store sales. Manufacturers also do not like being on the line for warranty replacements for those not bought in store.

 

[Jason Kolczak]

I would imagine Klipsch has an a binding agreement with dealers not to sell to resellers. In doing so, dealers would face some kind of penalty, such as losing the right to buy/sell Klipsch products.

 

[Jason Kolczak]

Personally, I have no problem with Klipsch doing this. They're trying to protect their name and product quality from resellers that may be selling Klipsch products that are inferior to what a b&m would be selling. Does that mean higher prices??? Yes. But it also means buying a product that is backed by the manufacturer. If something goes wrong with a product, the product manufacturer is often held liable by the purchaser regardless of where it was bought. If Klipsch has a reseller selling products that are of inferior quality, they get hurt. The purchaser will bad mouth them to others, etc. How often do people ask for advice on this board? If you've got a few people who bought speakers through an non-authorized reseller and had quality issues, they bad mouth Klipsch and steer that potential people to other brands.

 

[Dave Man]

I too, have no problem with Klipsch regulating the unauthorized dealers. There is certainly a contractual agreement between Klipsch and any authorized dealer. That contract would prevent them from acting as a distributor of their products to another reseller. Klipsch is able to maintain a certain degree of quality control with this sort of arrangement.

I just purchased a Klipsch Reference 7 system last fall and put in hours of research on pricing. I contacted both unauthorized and authorized dealers and found that the closest dealer to me would do the best deal for me. I wound up buying from them and paying very close to internet pricing.