The other day, as I was driving through a small suburban town, I caught a glimpse of a building that had cracked concrete, four foot tall overgrown grass in front of it, and obviously hadn't been occupied in a number of years. The sign on the front read "Ed's Radio & Magnavox Television". As I drove past, I thought about this post and thought it pretty scary that at one time, people like Ed was so deeply partnered with companies like Magnavox that they saw fit to include it into their business names. I wondered how long it took Ed to see the writing on the wall that his products were heading to Kmart.

I've found this thread to be actually very entertaining, particularly the last page or so. I can see both sides of this debate, and it's made for a good read particularly Cresnut's and QQQ's last few posts. While both sides are ideologically different, you're both 100% correct.

A couple of statements seem particularly poignant:

Impaqt: "Go ahead and build a Tweater across the street from my shop, Hell, throw a Frys up down the street, and pop up a Best buy in my back yard. All thats going to do is drive market awareness"

I Agree that it drives up market awareness, but it also slices up the pie into more pieces.

Cresnut: "No matter how good you are or how good your service is or even how well planned your business is. I will guarantee you that if all the products that you currently sell are suddenly all available from mail order, online, and the local BB It WILL change how you run your business."

I agree 100%. Great post.

QQQ: "CresNut, the issue isn’t that I don’t see what’s happening, it’s that I do see it and prefer to deal with it rather than stick my head in the sand and long for the “good old days”.

Come to think of it, the good old days weren't all that great were they? LOL, I don't really miss the grumpy old lady who handed me my Beta rental tapes.

I can't speak for Cresnut, but my reference to days gone by wasn't a harkening for the way that things used to be, but rather a warning of what the future holds. Remember the past or be certain to repeat it right?

and from Trunk Slammer: "The bottom line on this argument seems to be along the lines of if we in the custom industry band together and refuse to sell a particular product line, the manufacturer will somehow "see the light". Sorry, I don't see this working."

It won't work, but with all due respect, that's like saying "why should I vote. My vote doesn't count"

My bottom line is that whenever possible, I'm going to side with companies who don't have their products on every street corner. QQQ will argue that eventually all of them will, and he's right, but for now, why support them if there's more deserving companies out there?

There was a time when nobody ever heard of Directv, home theater or in-wall speakers. Now they're household names. All of those products were originally sold and brought to market by specialty retailers. The manufacturers do need people like us and they need us in a big way.