Norman86 wrote
Chad Adam Browne wrote
MoJo JoJoe wrote
In most instances that has not been the fault of the local distributors, but rather the manufacturers' ridiculous methods.
Thank you, this whole buying locally vs importing thing is just a nightmare on all sides of the field...The business models really do need revising but there's not much we can do. In some cases what people can get a guitar for online is literally the cost price a local agency pays for the same model direct from the warehouse.
Thats ridiculous...
Instead of trying to make profit on 10 guitars only, dopr the freaking prices, make them more affordable, and make 10 times the profit by selling hundreds more!!!
Why dont the importers understand this?? /end rant...
Read the text you quoted again. In most cases, it's not the importers, but the
manufacturers who are setting the prices. If the item is
retailing at an online store in the US for the same price the local distributor can get it, how on earth do you expect the local store to match the price after even the smallest of wholesale and retail markups (let alone shipping and duties)?
The manufacturer often has other, unreasonable demands too, which makes it even more difficult for the importer to do anything outside the norm. Heavy discounting is not allowed because it devalues the perceived value of the product. Anyway - if you cut profits to the barest minimum, you don't sell many more - there just isn't the market locally.
chris77 wrote
Imagine doing your shopping at Checkers on a Sunday and adding some strings and guitarpolish to your trolley. Or a dedicated section in the big Hypers that stocks guitars and amps as well, like they have for audio and vissual products.
Quite honestly, a pro musician would not buy his gear from a hyper for the same reason an audiophile wouldn't buy his AV system there - it's a specialised business, that needs a lot of specialised knowledge to manage properly and the big stores are geared to selling as many units as possible of the cheapest mass-market consumer products they can find. We moan that staff in music stores don't know everything we expect them to, so why would we be happy buying from a store where no-one can even tune or play the instruments, much less offer advice between models or set them up?
FYI - The Gibson agency once went to a big furniture chain (on the strength of promises of selling thousands of units). The result? Dismal failure - Too expensive for the regular clientele (even with credit) and the pros wouldn't touch them with a bargepole because there was no backup or knowledge (I once heard an extremely irate wholesale customer trying to explain why he wouldn't accept the Epi LP they had sent him -especially as they wanted to charge him the same price as the Gibson he
had ordered).
Anyway...
can we get back on topic instead of sliding into the usual pastime of slagging off local wholesalers and retailers without justification?
