Salespeople at major retail electronics stores are recommending Samsung LCD television sets over competing brands, according to J.D. Power and Associates. Over the first six months of 2009, 1500 mystery shoppers traversed 1200 major electronics retail stores -- including Best Buy and Sears -- and discovered that Samsung LCDs were touted 58 percent of the time, up from 45 percent from the first three months of 2009.

"Salespeople's perceptions of Samsung LCD TVs are beginning to change from that of a value brand to a premium brand," said Chris Denove, vice president of operational research at J.D. Power and Associates. "In addition to recommending Samsung more frequently, salespeople focused recommendations of the brand on its core attributes such as processor speed, picture quality and recent third-party awards it received, rather than on price."

Recommendations of plasma televisions have stayed flat, but when positioned side-by-side, LCDs aren't always the winner. "Despite the shift in brand recommendation rates, the likelihood that salespeople will recommend LCD instead of plasma as the preferred technology platform has decreased notably from the first quarter of 2009." Panasonic is among the preferred vendors for plasma televisions, while recommendations of Samsung plasma sets have remained flat.

The J.D. Power and Associates has it that salespeople recommend televisions based on personal opinion and not on store policy, but the report does not examine how this information was determined. Mystery shoppers also reported "far too often" that salespeople cannot distinguish between brand attributes and differences.

Paired with the news that Samsung has experienced its highest sales in two years -- partially due to LCD sales -- the company should be popping champagne corks all across the US. Meanwhile, Sony's recommendation rate suffered a decline of 18 percent over the past 18 months. Sony also reported at least a $1 billion loss for its last fiscal year.

Recommendation rates are highly valuable. Many times customers enter the television department of massive, bustling stores and are intimidated by the plethora of lookalike TV sets. It's difficult to ascertain what's good and what's just cheap; that's where salespeople come in. Fewer recommendations mean fewer sales -- a point that Sony took right on the nose.