One thing I have noticed in old newspapers and magazines was the number of references to appliances being sold at specific dealers, as in stores calling themselves “exclusive dealers of Magnavox TVs in City X” or “visit your local Westinghouse dealer to find out more about this refrigerator”. In the past was it common for appliance retailers to sell one or just a few brands? Did manufacturers ever own their own retail outlets where they only sold their own brands? And if they did, why did they abandon this practice?
The same thing happens in the cycling industry - I couldn’t buy certain brands of bikes when I owned a shop because of my proximity to other dealers who sold the same brand. There are all sorts of good reasons for this business model.
In just in the last couple of years the remaining locally owned Main Street-type appliance dealers around here have gone out of business. They really did only sell one or two of the major brands, and they could special order maybe one premium or “designer” line. If you wanted to price shop between, say a Whirlpool and a GE, you pretty much had to go to different dealers.
On the other hand, I can also remember Sears specifically advertising that they sold all the major appliance brands, so it must have been unusual, if not unique.
Many large retail stores have their own brands, such as Kenmore being owned by Sears, or Insignia being owned by Best Buy.
It wasn’t uncommon for the manufacturers of high-end goods, particularly the premium brands, to appoint “exclusive agents” in particular localities. They’d invest in their agents by training them to provide, e.g. the necessary installation, after-sales service, etc that lots of appliances required. Consumers could be assured that there was a local business committed to providing the necessary service, supply spare parts, etc. And the agents had an incentive to promote the brand.
Nowadays, where a lot of products are basically disposable, either because they are much cheaper in real terms than the used to be or because we expect them to be superseded technologically, the case for exclusive agency is not nearly so strong.
Apple and Samsung both run their own stores that sell only their own devices.
There are lots and lots of appliance manufacturers. (There used to be many more but as with everything else, they are consolidating like crazy.) There are very high-end brands, and very cheap bare-bones brands. There are America brands, and German brands, and Japanese brands, and Korean brands, and probably twenty other countries. Nobody ever sells them all. High end brands are especially careful to keep the numbers of dealers low, more because that gives them prestige than their being insanely expensive.
Most people don’t remember that your local electric utility used to be a major local dealer of appliances. Appliances were heavy users of electricity, so selling them made sense to drive up usage for the power company, and they were considered to be knowledgeable about this new-fangled electric stuff. This lasted past WWII.
Even then there were always private appliance dealerships, and department stores had huge appliance sections. They wouldn’t like the competition from manufacturers selling directly to the public. In addition, only a very few of the largest companies - GE and Westinghouse, maybe - had large enough lines to stock a whole store. It made sense for them to stay out of the retail business; manufacturing is normally a different world.
If you did see a store affiliated with a manufacturer, it was likely to be a luxury or specialized product, for which exclusivity was part of the sales pitch. Apple is only sort of an exception - its aura is a marketing miracle.
Often times those are just rebadged. If you’re looking for, say, a fridge, you can probably find a Kenmore, Whirlpool and LG that are identical save the brandname and maybe a few pieces of cosmetics (for example, the water/ice dispenser might look different). But if you want a Honda, you’ll have to your local Honda dealer or probably drive at least 10 or 15 miles to get to the next one.
But that’s the opposite of what the OP wants. A store selling only one brand isn’t the same as having to go to a specific place to get a specific brand. I can pick up Apple or Samsung items just about anywhere.
However, if I want a new Honda, I’ll have to go to a Honda Dealership.
The OP asked “Did manufacturers ever own their own retail outlets where they only sold their own brands?”. Yes - and still do.
I don’t think it was ‘common’ in the UK. We certainly had shops that sold a limited selection and I guess that manufacturers would try to limit the competition geographically. The biggest retailer of electrical products in most towns was the local ‘Electricity Board’; Gas appliances would be sold by the ‘Gas board’. These boards were state owned monopolies who primarily sold electricity and gas - the shops were a profitable sideline and you could buy goods on HP or rent them with the cost being added to the bill.
Mary Berry, the ‘Queen’ of cakes, first job was demonstrating electric cookers for the South Western Electricity Board in customers’ own kitchens – whipping up a quiche or Victoria sponge to show how easy the oven was to use. That was in the 50s when electricity was a fairly new thing in many houses.
The privatisation of the energy boards and the ending of Retail Price Maintenance (where the manufacturer set the price) meant the end of these outlets, but for most people it was them, a small shop with a limited selection or a big department store.
And the context of that sentences is defined by all the other sentences in the OP that ask specifically about appliances. Please do not yank sentences out of context.
The proper answer therefore is the one we’ve already given: Probably not - and not that I’m aware of.
Now that you mention it bob+ I’ve read that most people in the UK rented their TVs rather than bought until the 1970s. Is that true and what other appliances were commonly rented?
My father and grandfather were exclusive GE dealers back in the day. That meant they only sold GE appliances (and occasionally Hotpoint/Coldspot, which was owned by GE). They also provided repair service for any GE appliance, even if it was sold somewhere else. We were the only GE dealer within a certain radius.