Ah didn’t know this.
Was? They have still been opening new ones they’ve promoted on social media. Not that I’ve ever seen how such a sales model would have any chance of being feasible.
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Neither did the local customer base, until it happened…! 
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This has nothing to do with Audio, but here in Canada it was - 20 degrees a couple of days ago.
My Mercedes diesel would not start, so I got a jump and brought it to the dealer the next day.
With labour and taxes a new battery cost me
$610 dollars 
I miss the days of running to the Canadian tire store, dropping $80 dollars on a brand new battery.
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You mean A2A or the official Focal stores in the US…?
Focal powered by Naim posh shops.
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I’d just like to add to my point that for nearly every company that isn’t making diamond bracelets, staff salaries are by far and way the largest chunk of costs. Very few people have had salaries rise in line anywhere close to inflation. Mine even went down. So a lot of the costs increases in terms of parts and shipping is not the bulk of the cost for most companies anyway. Which further fuels the cynical eye with which all price increases are viewed these days.
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Nobody yet knows the scale of any price increases so perhaps we are letting our imaginations run riot. People do like to get overexcited. While greedflation is undoubtedly a thing, do remember that staff need pay rises, at Naim, at Focal, in dealers. How is that paid for? Price increases.
The idea that Covid support payments are recouped through price increases is just silly. Covid support - or would people rather countless businesses and sole traders had collapsed? - are funded by the state through extra borrowing and must be repaid over time through tax. It’s nothing whatsoever to do with prices of consumer goods, unless states decide to increase sales tax, which isn’t the case here.
There is no need for conspiracy theories here. Input prices increase. Wages (hopefully) increase. Hence prices increase. It’s been like that for hundreds of years. Nothing is new here. And as been said above, if people don’t like the prices of Naim, don’t buy it. It’s not bread.
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I didn’t say that Covid Support was being paid back for by manufacturer price increases….I was simply referring to the overall trend in the last couple of years of increasing world costs and above inflation grabs that seems to now prevail….those years are being paid back, one way or the other. Regardless of whether companies or sole traders were supported or relied upon their own coffers to get through, there’s no doubting a lot of pain and financial damage ensued – again, this will be made up.
I am Self-Employed. Have been most of my life except a few years in a practice in London back in the ‘90’s. I didn’t take a penny of any state handout – the one small thing we did was my wife accessed a small amount of her superannuation early (as incentivised by the federal government), which was her money. I wasn’t personally in the UK during the eye of the storm (as I was locked in here!) but most of my family is back there – I can’t 100% comment on the UK situation at the time, but I know for sure here a lot of people sat on their ass and took the weekly payments instead of working and during all the extended time that social restrictions were a lot less in Australia – In their short-sightedness they saw it as free money and with no implications for the future. Companies were crying out for staff and faced huge shortages because of which….
Anyway, back to HiFi costs…I guess we’ll see what the Naim/Focal rises are in due course. Interesting that it seems to be happening in Feb and not the usual April….
SC
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The letter to UK dealers was from Naim’s UK Sales Manager to let them know that Naim are facing some unavoidable big hikes in costs - shipping (cost has recently doubled) and the cost of certain components in particular - which means that a price rise for certain products (Uniti range and Mu-So range should remain unaffected) will be necessary. Obviously Naim will be trying to limit it as best they can - we’ll know more when the revised UK pricing is published.
As for overseas pricing that’s down to the local distribution.
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Can we have some…?! 
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There will always be some who take advantage of the system and, but that doesn’t mean the support schemes were a bad idea. It certainly kept a lot of Britain afloat and the vast majority used it as intended.
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UK retail sales released this morning inc fuel fell 3.2% on the month (forecast was -0.5%) and over the year -2.4% (forecast -1.1%) clearly showing the UK consumer is not in the best of heatlh. (these are lowest figures since outbreak of Covid)
I don’t believe any of these increases and think we’ve all been taken for mugs.
During and post covid most large corporations have made record profits. They’ve use every excuse but imo it’s just greed.
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What a very sad outlook on life!
And you wonder why conspiracy theories are so popular. Everything is against us. They - whoever they might be - are out to get us.
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Really. You enjoy paying more each time you shop for basic supplies.
You may think it’s said but you only have to look at the their profit and loss statements to confirm.
The rich are getting richer and poor and getting poorer. Also like you I’m entitled to my opinions.
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Why has shipping cost doubled? Fuel prices went up for a while but are pretty much back to normal now.
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A conspiracy is a theory my opinion is based on fact.
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I don’t know why things have to be wrapped as ‘conspiracy’ and I certainly don’t see it as sad – which is pretty condescending. Could things now actually be or have a base of truth at times, as much as we’d like it not to be….?
I’m no financial or economic expert, far from it….But you’d have to have been off planet the past few years to not see the world has had an effective financial reset…and I do believe there was motivation behind powers that be, IMO.
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