Nearly 40 percent of consumers with a moderate interest in audio are willing to pay for better quality electronics equipment, a study by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) found.
Few other details were released as the trade organization plans to fully disclose the results on August 10 in a webinar from 3:00 to 4:00 pm EST, which costs $99 to non-members.
CEA plans to answer the question, “As consumers move to smartphones, tablets, and cloud services to access audio content, how important is the quality of that content?”
Anyone interested may email [email protected] or click here.
Source: CEA
I have found in MANY conversations throughout the supply chain that there is a morbid fixation on what used to work. All about BOOM. Even though we have watched the market shrink and profitability going steadily down, everyone still fixates on bass; The old quick and easy. I and many others have preached selling sound quality. Many have taught how to sell it. Yet it forever drifts back to BOOM. As our business continues to drift away. This isn’t about banging the drum anymore. It is time for a 2 x 4 upside the head! Same ole same ole doesn’t work anymore! Bass needs to be an important component in what we sell. But NOT the core.
They are willing to pay also for software products that improve audio quality especially in VoIP.
It is important for all specialty retailers to “bang this drum” for their consumers. Specialty retailers have already experienced the “access to music” technological revolution. Access is a commodity that will ultimately wind up in the cloud. Play back audio quality (based of course on file quality) can be significantly enhanced by introducing (selling) consumers to high audio quality products. It takes a skilled sales person to introduce, explain, and close the deal on such products. Specialty retailers by definition SHOULD possess these skills.
Ray Windsor
German Maestro