In the 1990's almost anyone could have started an AV dealership and been successful. In fact, many did and were. Why? Well, with the advent of the LCD projector and then the development of the DLP projector, all of a sudden projectors went from weighing 40 pounds to 10 pounds. Then, all of a sudden, corporations and educational institutions realized that they needed projectors to connect their PCs and laptops to.

So, ProAV dealers have made a killing selling projectors with reasonably comfortable and fair margins.

Then came the Box House and the Internet.

One day, someone who was selling hundreds of VCRs and thousands of videotapes a day decided they could make a killing selling projectors (without service) for the same margins that they make selling tape. And, customers bought them.

And now, we've got the Internet. Now, you don't even need to stock the stuff (or even have a building for that matter) to make a killing selling projectors through the ultimate "equalizer" (the Web site) that makes a former shoe salesman look like IBM on the Internet.

Some Internet resellers in the USA are even selling projectors BELOW (yes, below) dealer cost. How? Well, they are doing it by selling everything below cost (vacuum cleaners, CDs, pants and carpet - right along side projectors, monitors and PCs) and making up the difference in advertising revenue. Then they plan an IPO and make a killing of stock (hey, the stock market wont be down on Internet companies forever).

So, what's the point?

The point is, what's next? What does the dealer do next and, what can the customer do to protect him or herself?

Continue to Page 2

For more news and feature articles, return to PresentationMaster home page.

Keep up on the news with our weekly Pro AV newsletter!