Retail Shopping

As you might have noticed more and more people are using the internet for shopping. The convenience of this is a great thing and I don't have anything against internet shopping per se. However, where I do have a problem (with the consumer and not the retailer) is when people walk into a retailer, they take up a salesman's time and effort leading the store to think they might make a sale, they poke and prod the product. Then they go online and buy it at a price that is £10 cheaper than the store. Is it just me who can see the immorality of this. Folks this is going to come back and bite you in the ass. Online shopping provides no further customer service. I have heard stories of people buying products online and then calling their local store on the telephone for free tech support as it were. All this is going to do is knock retailers, the bricks and mortar ones. They will close down. People will get made redundant and as a knock on effect so might you. So think about it the next time you walk in someplace where you do not intend to buy the product but you intend to find out all there is to know about the product.
I for one am certainly old skool when it comes to buying stuff, especially hifi. I want to listen to the product and decide for myself if I want to buy it. I don't want to read 3 reviews by guys who start off their review with the statement "I am a audiofile" (the grammatical and spelling error is intentional) closely followed by the statement "only a dog can hear the difference" in their review. Get over yourselves people.
This leads me on to Grahams Hifi (see link attached). I have been buying hifi from them since 1982. The customer service is excellent. Nothing is a problem for these guys and demonstrating hifi is what these guys do to make a sale and they do it very well. A bunch of friendly guys whom I cannot stop praising enough. They are also constantly having customer evenings where one gets to sit and listen and hear the latest equipment and technology. Not a hard sell in sight. Try getting this kind of service at empiredirect. ooops they have gone into administration!!!!
A couple of weeks ago, Grahams Hifi had a customer evening to demonstrate Linn digital streamers. The evening was topped off by a performance by Maeve O'Boyle (http://www.maeveoboyle.com/) who is a recent signing on the Linn records label. Picture this, you are one of about 40 people sitting in a small room and this wonderful singer is performing for you. She obviously loves singing and showcasing her work and is delighted to be there performing for us and we get to hear this fantastic performer. Cannot see that happening on ebay...can you?
Anyway what can I say about Maeve O'Boyle. She deserves to succeed. She is a talented singer, songwriter and performer, but the last time I checked you don't have to be talented to succeed. If you can get yourself onto a reality TV show...... nuff said.
Coming back to Maeve, I was lucky enough to get a 5 track sampler cd of her new forthcoming cd "All my sins" due out in June i believe. Buy this album. If you have got this far into my post I suspect you like good music and singers. You will not be disappointed. Check out her website where you can find samples of her songs
happy listening.