Message from Julian Richer

StingRay

Legend Wammer
Wammer
Apr 27, 2016
13,040
8,522
163
Suffolk coast, UK
AKA
Ray
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
@StingRay Could you have tested it before leaving the store? When I lived abroad, all electrical items your carry away from the shop are checked to see if they switch on.
I got them to test them, they were not keen to do it, saying too busy, you did not book a dem. room, they could not get either one to work, so a wasted journey. They said it does not matter as has warranty, then I could drive another load of miles to collect it when it was repaired. They should have checked all items prior to selling, if not working they should get them fixed and then sell as such. I did not have any Richer Sounds shops near me.
 
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StingRay

Legend Wammer
Wammer
Apr 27, 2016
13,040
8,522
163
Suffolk coast, UK
AKA
Ray
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
As for Black Friday, price, I find that statement BS, of course you can match prior and afterwards prices.

If they can't do it at the same or lower price then don't put it in a sale, I thought there were laws against that sort of thing?
 
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Lawrence001

Mega Wammer
Wammer
Jul 21, 2015
5,956
3,537
168
London
AKA
Lawrence
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Latest from Julian some really good stuff in here:


Julian Richer,
Richer Sounds Ltd.
Dear Lawrence,

Writing this is, admittedly, a bit of self-indulgent therapy for me after the toughest 12 months I can remember since I started Richer Sounds in 1978.

Last April my colleague-owners felt the business needed my supposed knowledge / expertise and, combined with the serious problems in the economy, gave me a call to lend them a hand. After a sustained period of extremely hard work and long hours from all of us, I am pleased to say that the business is in better shape than ever, with a team that I hope will continue to build and prepare us for years to come… an important consideration seeing as my mortality is a given.

So that’s good news for us and, hopefully, for you, our dear customers, to know that Richer Sounds will keep going strong, but the economy is another thing… Adam Smith rightly said all those years ago that you cannot have a happy society if the greater part is poor and miserable… so where did it all go wrong?! The very rich are getting richer, some deservedly but many less so, with everything from Porsche cars, Hermes ties and private jets ‘flying off the shelves’… with a huge gap until we see only Greggs, Primark and charity shops booming on the high street, along with record sales of baked beans (I am simplifying a bit here). But, as citizens, we are experiencing the greatest inequality in our lifetime, which makes me very concerned. Surely we all care about the many, many people struggling?

In my opinion, for what it’s worth, and many of you may well suggest I should stick to selling stereos, we must first urgently plug the tax gap to stop the enormous amount of unpaid tax leaking out of the system to ensure that everyone pays their fair share and which HM Treasury could definitely do with.

I really am non-party-political (even though Nick Ferrari loves publicly teasing me about my long-distant-past donations to the Tory party). I am just hoping that whoever runs the country has integrity, is good at balancing the books and has a genuine social conscience - someone who acknowledges the unfairness of growing inequality as well as the danger this poses to social cohesion and happiness.

I would also love our leader/s to please sort the disgraceful state of housing for far too many non-homeowners, as well as the NHS’s and the criminal justice system’s problems while they are at it… And when I say ’sort’ I obviously mean ‘invest as necessary’, including paying the real living wage as a minimum to allow working people to live decently, and banning evil zero-hour contracts when imposed on workers against their will. And don’t get me started on the water monopolies…

Anyway… sorry to rant, apologies, I get carried away… I can hear our marketing team shouting in my ear to ‘get on with it!’ I wanted to mention just a few things, whilst writing, about our VIP Club benefits (which, as you all know, are available free of charge to all who are willing to let us send them these emails). We had this great idea recently that if we wanted customers to visit our stores, we should try to entice them down (who knew?). So we now have many prices cheaper in-store (and some very expensive free soundbars with tellies) than we do online, for our club members. And our range of ‘inflation-busting megadeals’, that we sell at close to cost price or even at a loss, to help those having a tough time, goes from strength to strength.

In the meantime, we will keep our chin up attempting to deal with rampant rising costs and doing our best to advise and help our long-suffering customers afford the very best electronics they can with their hard-earned cash. And as for customers who are less financially constrained and are considering a home install, we absolutely love you too... and have an amazing custom installation team on hand who can help with all manner of projects, from the design and build of custom home cinemas to kitting out anything from boardrooms to submarines (we really have done several).

To our great relief we are managing to keep our heads above water, but it has taken every tool in the toolbox to keep us there, not least the efforts of the wonderful team I am lucky to work with. And thank God we own our freeholds and have no debt.

Finally, I would like to thank the consumer organisation Which?, who voted us the UK’s best retailer, for the fifth year running last month, and, most importantly, I’d like to thank you for your much appreciated loyalty and support which we will never take for granted.

Yours,
Julian Richer

Founder of;
Acts 435 - www.acts435.org.uk
ASB Help - www.asbhelp.co.uk
Fairness Foundation - www.fairnessfoundation.com
Good Business Charter - www.goodbusinesscharter.com
Richer Sounds - www.richersounds.com
Richer Unsigned - www.richerunsigned.com
Tax Watch - www.taxwatchuk.org
Zero Hours Justice - www.zerohoursjustice.org

julianoffice@richersounds.com
(Please feel free to contact my office email above if we haven’t lived up to your expectations in any way. I will oversee your correspondence and arrange for one of our senior team to help, if needed.)
 

Volley24

Newbie
Wammer
Oct 11, 2018
144
172
48
Bedfordshire
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
If you think about it Hi-Fi shops are a fairly unique environment. They are a specialised retail outlet staffed, almost exclusively, by people who are passionate (or at least really enthusiastic) about what they sell. This is not always the case with other areas of retail.

In comparison with a good many other HiFi shops RS also has the added complication of "civilian punters" walking in off the street to buy a wireless or a music centre as well as those looking for something a bit more esoteric.

I have been into various RS shops over the last 30 years or so and have always found their staff to be friendly, knowledgeable and, most importantly, non-judgemental. That is certainly not my experience in some of the more "boutique" hi-fi shops I've been in.

I don't think that sort of environment happens by accident and, reading the responses on here from JR and others in his team it would appear that, as with all good businesses, the culture feeds down from the top, not just in theory, but in the actions of those leading the business.

For my part, as I suspect with others on the forum, I would probably have bought more from them if they'd sold more "high-end" or niche kit and yes the Black Friday nonsense exists across the retail world (thanks again US of A!) which is disappointing.

But I am really glad that they exist and even more so that they are on High Streets in physical shops.

I have been working from home for the last three years but if I ever leave the house again I will be sure to drop into one of their shops not only to have a browse but also because I need a new needle!
 

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