Another perspective:

It is hard to find and hold on to truly knowledgeable salespeople considering the relatively low pay and long hours that comes with working at a music store. Why the low pay? Well one reason is the relatively low profit made in selling keyboard products made even lower by the potential to shop over the internet and pit stores against each other from all over the country. This makes it impossible for a store to pay a reasonable wage based on the qualifications of an individual. I am not saying that a store should gouge a customer with exorbitant prices, but if you want/expect to have the proper service from local stores that I feel you deserve, then the store and salespeople deserve to be compensated fairly for providing that service.

So what happens is stores hire the cheapest labor they can find, I.e. young kids who think it is cool to work in a music store because they get to hang out all day with other musicians and play on all the guitars and buy stuff cheap; not because they are looking for a profession. I find that a lot of music store salespeople don’t have a sense of pride in what they are doing. There is a huge difference in working at a music store and being a professional salesperson.

When I was in music retail, I made it a point to read every manual, go to every factory product training session, etc. to make sure that I knew everything there was to know about the products I sold. I would also get the manuals for the products that I was competing against and learn them as well so I could be as informed as possible. I know there are still salespeople around who take pride in what they do, but they are getting harder and harder to find.

Dave


[This message has been edited by WDMcM (edited 05-29-2005).]