[redshifter]

the new sonystyle store opened today in u-village shopping center in seattle today. i of course was there to check out the headphone collection. what a disappointment. the best cans they had were the v900. no higher end cans in sight. i chatted with the manager and she told me they are focussed on mass-market consumers who are just looking for headphones for their dap's. i mentioned sony seems to save the good stuff for japan, and she said they had some folks from japan in earlier who were also disappointed in their selection. also, they had no high end pcdp or md, and just entry level dap's. what a waste of time and space.

 

[AndyRx7]

Every single Sony store I've ever been to (meaning in Canada) has been like that. If I ask them where the good stuff is, they look at me like I'm an alien.

 

[iSleipnir]

The title made me so happy until I saw the frowning face. Once again, there are no hifi stores in the northwest! Gah!

 

[socrates63]

Mark, you had me excited for about three seconds. I should have seen the frowning face.

I visited that new outlet mall in Marysville (Premium Outlets?) a couple of weeks ago. A Sony store was there but it was the same story.

 

[imported_Echo_]

Quote:

Originally Posted by redshifter the new sonystyle store opened today in u-village shopping center in seattle today. i of course was there to check out the headphone collection. what a disappointment. the best cans they had were the v900. no higher end cans in sight. i chatted with the manager and she told me they are focussed on mass-market consumers who are just looking for headphones for their dap's. i mentioned sony seems to save the good stuff for japan, and she said they had some folks from japan in earlier who were also disappointed in their selection. also, they had no high end pcdp or md, and just entry level dap's. what a waste of time and space.

well it should really be a big disapointment

i mean its for the mass consumers who dont care about those things

they have some nice t.v.s tho

 

[redshifter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by socrates63 Mark, you had me excited for about three seconds. I should have seen the frowning face. I visited that new outlet mall in Marysville (Premium Outlets?) a couple of weeks ago. A Sony store was there but it was the same story.

young, sorry to get your hopes up, man.

i guess in my excitement i forgot sonystyle<>qualia store. even so, the selection was pathetic (excpet for the tv's and vaios).

 

[dvallere]

Yeah, you fooled me too, redshifter. Had nothing to do today and when I saw the title of the thread immediately started planning a trip...until I read your post. Thanks for saving me the bother!

 

[gshan]

Wow, I thought the SF sonystyle store was bad...

 

[eric343]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iSleipnir The title made me so happy until I saw the frowning face. Once again, there are no hifi stores in the northwest! Gah!

There are plenty of hi-fi shops in Seattle... Experience Audio ( http://www.experienceaudio.com/ ) is a particularly headphone-friendly one.

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

also, they had no high end pcdp or md, and just entry level dap's. what a waste of time and space.

actually the opposite.they made a business decision to stock what they know will move fast rather than worry about serving a select clientel with "adult" taste.

audio salons are taking a pounding while Circuit city thrives

 

[SennFan]

Sony sees the marketplace 2-dimensionally:

Concentrate mainly on the needs of niche high-end customers: sink
Accomodate the masses: swim

Instead of perpetuating this business-as-usual approach I think it would benefit them greatly to have higher end stuff in their stores. They already have a loyal and established following for their mass produced products and have built up consumer confidence, so why not slowly roll out the more expensive ES products and so forth to accomodate this segment of the market to?

I was watching an interview with Howard Stringer, the new CEO of Sony a few months ago on 'Dateline', I believe. He is different from the norm in Japanese elctronics execs off the bat b/c he isn't Japanese, he's British. They brought him in to get a unique and different (Western)perspective on the marketplace and deal with competition from Apple's Ipod and the like.

Basically Sony has screwed up, badly. They pioneered portable music with the Walkman, yet they allowed Apple to be first in the marketplace for digital music and dominate that segment's market share with the Ipod and its related proprietary software.

Judging from what you guys are saying about their stores, I can't help but think that they have dropped the ball again. Instead of trying to imitate the marketplace, why not innovate? Innovation is what drove this firm through the latter part of the 20th century, now they have simply laid down and died and failed to create a new business plan for Today.

Essentially they're currently using a business playbook that's 10+ years old (conservatively) and this is a sure way to fail in today's marketplace.

 

[redshifter]

especially when you can walk into circuit city and buy BETTER sony products than they have in the ss store. for crying out loud, have a display case with a few high end products to go with the mass consumer crap. even the apple store sells boutique headphones like b&o.

 

[SennFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by redshifter especially when you can walk into circuit city and buy BETTER sony products than they have in the ss store. for crying out loud, have a display case with a few high end products to go with the mass consumer crap. even the apple store sells boutique headphones like b&o.

Don't even get me started on B&O...there right down there with Bose IMO.