Dealer Data: Salespeople Push LCD Over Plasma

Consumer electronics sales people are more likely to recommend LCD TVs over plasma models by a more than three-to-one margin. That’s according to a survey released jointly this week by J.D. Power and Associates and Market Force Information.

According to the survey, titled the 2008 Television Retail Insights Report, salespeople are also less knowledgeable than they should be about the technologies, both telling customers about “burn in” and other problems with plasma that have largely been resolved, and also failing to disclose positive developments about LCD technology. The survey was based on a “mystery shopper” investigation with more than 2,000 participants.

“ While we see that salespeople are aggressively pushing shoppers to LCD sets, it is important for consumers to understand that plasma technology also offers a number of unique advantages, not the least of which is that inch for inch, plasma sets cost less than LCD sets,” J.D. Power senior director Larry Wu said as part of the announcement of the survey. “In addition, compared with most LCD sets, plasma TVs also display deeper blacks and show fast-moving objects better.”