Tweeter stores streamlining stores/operations
By Matt Burns 
posted Mar 23rd 2007 8:46AM
posted Mar 23rd 2007 8:46AM
Life can be hard for upper-end electronic relaters these days. Well with Walmart poking fun at 'em in commercials and Home Depot contemplating getting into flat screen sales but we strongly feel that stores like Tweeters will find that niche they need to survive. They will not, and shouldn't, compete with big box pushers like Best Buy and Circuit City's but rather focus in on custom installations and competent salesmen. Their restructuring plan includes shutting the doors of 49 stores, two regional locations and exiting certain regions of the country. The company is closing all the stores in California, Tennessee, Alabama, New York, and most of Georgia within two to three months. While we don't understand how some of those states are not preforming for Tweeter, they know their company a whole lot better than we do. The rest of the plan includes retooling other stores into their Digital Playground layout and "significant reinvestment in its people." Hopefully Tweeter can survive these low price/low revenue days cause as nice as it is to get a low price, it's almost as nice as shopping in a professional, knowledgeable atmosphere.
[via CE Pro]
That's too bad. I bought my HDTV at Tweeter and I would again. It was nice to talk to a sales person who really knew HD unlike ... [ahem] ... some other **larger** chains.
By the way, its good to see you posting regularly again, Matt.
Workinf for CC, i have to say that we do have compotent salespeople, it just depends on which store you shop at. We here in Valley Forge do have a great staff so lets not generalize too much.
I have to beg to differ with you. Everytime I go into that store it makes me want to gouge out my eyes with a spoon. I get the cold shoulder from EVERYONE that works there. If I dare ask a question I get nothing but bewildered looks as if I am asking for the location of the holy grail of something. It's a shame too since when I go in there I am usually on the war path to find something specific. Oh well that CC won't get my money, that's for damn sure.
"we do have compotent salespeople"
One of the things I like about Google's toolbar is that it has the ability to check spelling inside of web-forms. Aside from this, the CC nearest me is a delight in how the highschool youth employ themselves to earn some weekend cash.
No, not a single adult and no educated individual was at the CC a month ago when I looked to inspect a 50" plasma. I, unfortunately, neglected to evaluate some of the teenagers to see if they could do more than spell ATSC, but my lack in confidence of the store's so called sales staff just had me leave.
In today's world consumers can be much more prepared in doing pre-sales research on the Internet, and then leave the brick and mortar stores for price-comparisons. And that 50" plasma I had an eye on was a few dollars less at Sam's Club than CC.
Now, this isn't to say that Tweeter, and the HiFi Buys in certain parts of the country, did not have a purpose. If you had a lot of money to spend and felt BB and CC just wasn't worth your money then go take an ignorant look. I did this and spent $4K some 6-7 years ago. Would I do this again? No.
Since Cookin' Audio/Video went out of business in Nh back in 1999 or so I've been a loyal Tweeter customer. They have a good price match policy and if you want something other than HTiB from CC or BB than Tweeter is a great place to go. Now my HT consists of at least $15k worth of equipment not all purchased at Tweeter but most of the newer stuff was purchased there.
I hope Tweeter can come out of this restructure. Otherwise there will be much less choice when it comes to QUALITY home audio and video products.