Audio46: a Headphone Emporium in Midtown Manhattan

 


Situated in the heart of New York City, on a Midtown block on 46th St. off Fifth Ave. that is normally populated by a constant pedestrian stream of office workers and tourists, is Audio46, a Dealerscope 2021 Retail Excellence Award honoree. But while the pandemic has somewhat affected in-store retail foot traffic these past 18 months, Tony Aama, Audio46’s vice president, says business is healthy and booming. That, he says, is due to both his many loyal, longstanding customers who appreciate the huge selection of pro and consumer headphones and other audio gear he carries, and to the store’s formidable online domestic and international presence.

Audio46 started out primarily as a B-to-B brick-and-mortar store focused on cameras, and then took a different turn in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, when Aama added online sales capability in 2009. And in 2013, he continues, “we noticed another shift — we were getting customers walking in asking for more audio brands. So we started adding them, and began to carry a lot more high-end audio brands.” The boom in consumer usage of smartphones as cameras also helped Aama in reaching his decision to train Audio46’s category focus more acutely, and in the direction of solely catering to a different set of loyal hobbyists: audio-lovers.

Aama says that prior to the pandemic, over 80 percent of sales were transacted in-store — something that dramatically changed when COVID hit full force. This shift, however, enabled him to leverage his unique advantages as an audio/headphone retailer. “What happened was, Amazon during that time [March and April of 2020] was busy fulfilling essential items. So a lot of audio customers were looking for where to get their products. That’s when they found Audio46. They wanted beyond just the essential products — they needed headphones and audio equipment, and to buy from Amazon, they had to wait 15, 20, or 25 days. They started looking somewhere else, and that was how they found us. And that’s when our online business went crazy, because we could do two-day and three-day delivery times… It boosted our online platform.”

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