whats with fender amp pricing in this country? are we being ripped off

Keira-WitherKay

sure you all read my post looking for a Fender princeton reverb reissue amp

.here in sa the retail is 20 K and after discount it seems 13K is about the best price give or take a hundred or so from dealers ..

.BUT i see they $900 - $1000 depending on the dealer in USA thats converted to R6.100 - R7000 or there abouts so why is the local price double (discounted) and more than tripled for retail.........

we are being ripped off..by the Fender importers in SA ...btw who is the importer or is it a branch of Fender themselves or some other company .....cos i don't believe shipping will add that much to the amp ..........

this is shocking ..cos most time i buy anything here i ussually check the international price and sure if in SA the price increases here by 10- to 20% sure i understand...and i know here the discounting off the "marked retail price" is also almost 30 % ..........but this is still doubling the price and thats after my "huge discounted price" ...........

this should be investigated ...... cos i can't believe this is true or even legal , is this price fixing?

AND WITH THE NEW CONSUMER LAWS CAN WE QUESTION THIS......

since right now i am quite willing to pay my 13K for this amp but shocked to discover if i was in states it would cost half of that... i'm feeling exploited ..and particularly angry enough to want to shake the tree and see what falls out ........

unless someone can explain this doubling of the discounted prices logically , maybe cos i'm missing something

Jack-Flash-Jr

Possibly they have not re-adjusted for the stronger rand? It's very deflating to have a new purchase coloured like this - did you take it up with your guys at the store?

Dinosaur-Snr

Keira, I can honestly say I have been thinking about this for a very long time! It just doesn't make sense!! I got told that the majority of music shops don't get their Fender stock from the USA, but instead from the UK agent. Which may lead to more extensive layers of cost involved in the price of the goods due to the fact that it is not directly supplied?

Someone enlighten us! ☹

MIKA-the-better-one

I think there is a import tax that increases the price of amplifiers....
Guitars also suffer alot of inflation, I went to buy a Thurston moore Jazzmaster which is $1400, they wanted at best cash price R23 000 :- ?

And pedal related a certain store has a EHX nano chorus at R2500 ?
Prices are greatly inflated here, my suggestion buy second hand.....

[deleted]

Have you ever tried to ship an amp in? have you seen the costs? to bring such a large, heavy item in?
Trust me... Its almost as much as the amp costs..

Dont blame Fender. Blame the shipping companies ?

I have two amps on the way...

I know 6 Swart amps to bring in is a shipping cost of $3200... ?

See where it starts getting expensive

StephenG

this has been covered many times, with all the applicable reasoning being mentioned before attempting to explain the price diffs between here and overseas.

to name one reason - economies of scale... ie :the number of units that are sold effecting the number of units being imported by the agent which directly relates to the bulk buying discount the local agent can negotiate from their suppliers.. its simple business practise = the more you order the cheaper the price..

so to put it in perspective - there is ONE guitar shop in the USA that buys more guitars from fender each year, than what gets sold in the entire south Africa in a year..

so south African fender agents may order in 1000 strats and 50 amps per year for resale in the entire south africa.. whilst in the states just ONE shop will order about 3000 fenders each year.. allowing them to get much bigger discounts...

(please note - numbers mentioned above are for illustrative purposes only, Actual milage may vary)

Tonedef

After reading your princeton thread, I also wanted to post a thread about this. If you ask me, we are being totally ripped off, and that is even at R7k. There is no way that it costs that much to manufacture a valve amp especially considering the economy of scale that an OEM can leverage. The extra charge levied by the local sellers is a slap in the face! Import duties arent even close to 100% so it is pure greed.

Keira, why dont you try and import it yourself?

IceCreamMan

Keira , that sounds out of line. Fender ZA gave me the official line that their pricing is higher due to being "shipped" via europe. Guitars are priced around 10 rand to the dollar locally which appears to be the norm in ZA. There is no way it should be +- R13 to the dollar. ORange comes in at about +-12-50 rand to the pound as does Vox (based on street price)

13 rand is excessive , well and trully excessive. Somehting is out of kilter here

[deleted]

Really guys? Really????

We going to start this all over again!

I dont see the owners of the importers of Fender driving around in Porsches living the high life. ?
Something tells me they don't make as much as you thinj they are.

Margins are margins, and I promise you they not excessive... I dont even know, but I am willing to bet on it!

vic

We have debated this topic over and over here...from pedals to guitars to amps to strings...
My view is simple...buy 2nd hand if at all possible.
And for the more brave amongst us, buy online from overseas.... for example, get a quote for shipping on an item you're looking for from one of the reputable sellers on EBay...there are many of them.
Other than that, one must be prepared to pay high prices here if you buy new.

Tonedef

I am willing to bet that none of the shops/importers have done anything even remotely resembling a market-based profitability analysis. Why do you think such massive discounts are par for the course? Instead of commoditizing the products the are simply slapping on huge margins, and its no wonder the spiffy porsches are so thin on the ground, while the 2nd hand market is THRIVING.

guitarboy2828

Brentcgp wrote: Really guys? Really????

We going to start this all over again!

I dont see the owners of the importers of Fender driving around in Porsches living the high life. ?
Something tells me they don't make as much as you thinj they are.

Margins are margins, and I promise you they not excessive... I dont even know, but I am willing to bet on it!

+1 Brent. Guys, this has been discussed AT LENGTH many times before, let's not start a new topic and go through it all over again!

I also must agree with Brent, sure it's expensive, however, that's life in SA. Everything is more here, not just musical instruments. Complaining about it on the forum ain't going to change too much.

Keira-WitherKay

anyone have a 2nd hand princeton reverb or deluxe reverb they wanna sell ?

MIKA-the-better-one

I had some experience recently..... with a recording console device... thing......

Shops quoted me R4500 for the older model....... and said it would take 3 months to get in....
I ordered online for about half the price (The NEW Model) and it came to the door in....... 3 days.

AMps are yes very heavy so will be a little more expensive.... but there are some prices that cannot be justified......

IceCreamMan

Amps are not flown into ZA so weight is really negligible ...harping on the weight is a red herring ...

They are shipped over the ocean at a snails pace and shipping in this manner is relatively cheap so shipping is not the culprit either.

While the local importer may not be driving a porsche nor the store owners someone is doing well out of this ..... i suspect this particular fender is prolly landed here for around 5000 rand .....the rest is middle men.

I dont think i am far off with these figures by the way.

Jack-Flash-Jr

guitarboy2828 wrote:
Brentcgp wrote: Really guys? Really????

We going to start this all over again!

I dont see the owners of the importers of Fender driving around in Porsches living the high life. ?
Something tells me they don't make as much as you thinj they are.

Margins are margins, and I promise you they not excessive... I dont even know, but I am willing to bet on it!
+1 Brent. Guys, this has been discussed AT LENGTH many times before, let's not start a new topic and go through it all over again!

I also must agree with Brent, sure it's expensive, however, that's life in SA. Everything is more here, not just musical instruments. Complaining about it on the forum ain't going to change too much.

This is slightly different in that the complaint is not about hiked prices in general but a specific brand in comparison to similar products... Perhaps one of the music store employees monitoring the forum (I see you there buddy!) would care to weigh in on the Fender specific issue?

[deleted]

Keira WitherKay wrote: anyone have a 2nd hand princeton reverb or deluxe reverb they wanna sell ?

haha

I doubt you going to find one of those! Guys who have them usually hang on to them for dear life not?

IceCreamMan wrote: They are shipped over the ocean at a snails pace and shipping in this manner is relatively cheap so shipping is not the culprit either.

Um.... In my business... We ship in a few containers a month less than 4 on average say... 3 months from China to here yes..
Snails pace and costs the business nothing less than R1million a month...
Maybe its not on the same scale, But I would never say 'cheap'..

Amps take up huge amounts of space in a container. So weight is irrelevant. maybe I agree. volumetrics? ? not so lucky there

Either way, I dont think they excessive... I will chat to a friend that was in the music retail business... If it is in the forums best interest I will make it known if Fender has something up their sleeves ?

IceCreamMan

Brentcgp wrote:
Keira WitherKay wrote: anyone have a 2nd hand princeton reverb or deluxe reverb they wanna sell ?
haha

I doubt you going to find one of those! Guys who have them usually hang on to them for dear life not?

IceCreamMan wrote: They are shipped over the ocean at a snails pace and shipping in this manner is relatively cheap so shipping is not the culprit either.
Um.... In my business... We ship in a few containers a month less than 4 on average say... 3 months from China to here yes..
Snails pace and costs the business nothing less than R1million a month...
Maybe its not on the same scale, But I would never say 'cheap'..

Amps take up huge amounts of space in a container. So weight is irrelevant. maybe I agree. volumetrics? ? not so lucky there

Either way, I dont think they excessive... I will chat to a friend that was in the music retail business... If it is in the forums best interest I will make it known if Fender has something up their sleeves ?

4 containers for a bar a month ...u are being ripped or there are additional charges being added like import duties and the like onto that.

I shipped a mates entire household to NZ, including all his furniture , 2 motobikes etc etc for 40k (this is for a full sioze container which i suspect you could fit a minimum of 100 amps into it ..)

StephenG

Brentcgp wrote: Um.... In my business... We ship in a few containers a month less than 4 on average say... 3 months from China to here yes..
Snails pace and costs the business nothing less than R1million a month...
Maybe its not on the same scale, But I would never say 'cheap'..

average sailing times china to cape town is between 22 - 29 days...... you seriously need to change your shipping line.

nick_D01

guitarboy2828 wrote: I also must agree with Brent, sure it's expensive, however, that's life in SA. Everything is more here, not just musical instruments. Complaining about it on the forum ain't going to change too much.

hey guys
just my 2c, but yeah, +1 for the above, thats just the prices of things here in our neck of the woods. i mean just look at the prices of the guitar mags here compared to the uk. heck, for guitar world you're not even getting the accompanying cd-rom.