Alan Ratcliffe wrote
Sorry, but you obviously don't know how importing works. This topic has been discussed many times before, do a search if you want more info, but in a nutshell:
When an importer is involved, it is an extra middleman (necessary to get the product here, store it and distribute it to retailers). Plus there are many more expenses to running an import business than simply shipping to SA and VAT (import duties, clearance fees, warehousing, staff, electricity, fixed assets, rent, rates, advertising, telephones local shipping to stores, warrantee repairs - i.e. all the usual overheads of any business plus a few more). And if you are going to invest millions of rand in a product line, you do deserve to make some profit yourself, n'est ce pas? Otherwise you might as well stick your money in the bank and retire, living on the interest.
Now you might decide to retail the product yourself and sell it directly to the consumer, which cuts out the usual retail markup and brings the prices much closer into line with their US counterparts. But but to do that, you have to have a direct distribution network of your own (i.e. stores all around the country) and it also means the product will not be available in most of the usual stores. It's also well worth noting that many manufacturers insist that you wholesale and distribute to other stores - you don't do that, you don't keep the agency, simple as that.
Now, the selling direct to consumers scenario is a possibility in the future (it already happens that some brands are treated as "in-house" brands and not wholesaled). But it also means that the products will only be available in the importers own stores, so you will have to go to Marshall for Gibson, Bothner's for Fender. Still sounds cool, right? But that only works where the companies have stores in all the major towns. What happens when you want a Marshall amp or a Yamaha guitar, but you live in Cape Town and the distributor/retailer is in JHB or vice versa? Then you have to buy unheard, unseen and unplayed, plus pay for local shipping. Now what about the poor guy living in Kimberly, Nelspruit or Pofadder - his local store has no access to any of these brands. Not so cool anymore...
BTW - The local importers usually pay more for the products than the big US retailers (who also buy directly from the manufacturer and can move a lot more units). In the case of Fender (and apparently also soon with Gibson), the local distributor can only buy from the European distributor - which adds yet another markup on. This is not the doing of the local guys, but at the dictate of the manufacturer.
[OK - as "nutshells" go, this turned out to be one damn jolly big nut. ? Wholesalers - anything major I forgot to mention?]
Sentiment rarely pays the bills unless you a dinosaur band from way back then u pay a premium,,,,
I have no qualms paying a normal profit ( in the economics 101 sense )
if fender/gibson price themselves out of the competitive market with all their markups then astute ppl will buy direct .,, simple
before buying anything local i check what it would cost me buying via the net ...any more than 15 % i buy online ...the world is a small place these days
Singemonkey - brand new bikes can be bought from parralel importers who offer a 2 year in store guarentee on their sales ...in some cases this hs proven to be more effective than buying thru official channels ...
