warrenpridgeon
Right ... I know they say we should support our local music shops... but man... I REALLY REALLY battle to do that...
I understand we pay hectic import duties and taxes and stuff... but REALLY?!?!
Now... music doesn't earn me money... and I am frugal with my cash as a general rule.
Couple years back I had invested in a tube amp and had a Epiphone Les Paul that I was running through a GT8 into the DSL 401... Yes I know... cardinal sin of note (I am wiser now).
So I thought... mmm I need a delay pedal as all I REALLY used on the GT8 was delay and MAYBE chorus... so I shopped around and researched... came down to the boss giga delay vs tc electronic nova delay... Checked prices online... I could get them off ebay for almost the same price...
So I went to the one store to enquire about pricing and stock... they didn't have and the guy tried to convince my to by the G-System or something like that which has a "similar" delay in... but also includes distortions etc. So... being the spendthrift I am I left (not wanting to spend multiple times more than I had budgeted).
I then headed to another music store... Asking the price I was quite shocked at the answer I received... R4500 before discount... I later bought it for +-R1800 (Inlcuding shipping) off ebay... New...sealed... Had to pay R120+- duties when it arrived.
A couple years later a buddy asked me the difference between the nova delay and the DD20 and was shocked at the price I paid as the same music shop had quoted R4495 with no discount nad
including discount R3390.
Next story... The footswitch in my Radial Trimode tonebone started failing. So I got hold of the shop and asked if they had any or could get... It just so happened that they had a fried pedal that they could "harvest" the switches for me... R120 each... and they would not charge me labour... I asked them why it was so pricey when the official distributor of Radial pedals and they had quoted me R100 ex vat for a NEW one... The guy from the shop obviously misunderstood me or something and told me fine he will order one off allparts, but then it will cost me closer to R200...
I told him to keep it as I was not paying more for a salvaged spare than a brand new one from the supplier...
I ordered 2 switches off ebay for R65 together... Even if I replace them once a year it's not the end of the world as the Radial ones are (according to the internet so it must be true ? ) not very reliable.
That's my rant for the day.
Shibbibilybob
You seem to have it down dude.
When it comes to retail, there is no such thing as loyalty. Buy the product where it is cheapest, although take care to notice that after sale service and support is also a part of the product.
I find it useful to have a "guy" at each big store. You know, a dude you're friends with and try to give your repeat business.
If you do your homework, it is very hard to get ripped off by a shop, but you may have to wait a while for that deal to show up too.
At the end of the day, simply make sure you understand the intentions (as well as incentives offered to) the people you buy from, and you cant go too far wrong.
warrenpridgeon
As my grandpappie said "Don't never trust no one tryna sell something to ya or buy something from ya"....
Lol
Mixerboy
For me, as a general rule, it usually works out to half the price if you import (with shipping and post office fee's), the only thing I buy from music stores these days are picks..........maybe some strings or a cable if it's desperate.
Chocklit_Thunda
Well we don't really pay duties on musical instruments so I don't get the massive markup we get... sometimes its triple... I've worked at my dads clearing agency and I've seen what some of the stuff actually comes in for and then how much they sell it for.... Unfortunately because of that, Choc Sr. refuses to buy local....
sharonzaz
eventually it will happen here as it did in israel, and after most guys
will start buying most things on the net then the importers will have to drop their prices.
when a $500 unit costs here about R11k then its a big problem.
I am lucky, i do get endorsement prices everywhere i go just about, but imagine how little I would actually pay if the prices were lower...?!
scotty
My 2c... the whole fact that they have to "announce" discount when you enter the store tells me something is not right.
Maybe can explain the mystery discount to me... Super-inflate the price, provide discount and then you as the buyer have already received discount so you can't argue the price anymore....
I guess online stores will probably get rid of this anomaly over time.
Sean
flatfourfan
^^^^
yup, been discussed many many MANY times before.
I say hang around till the sales come about and then buy buy buy.
el-guapo
You're comparing apples and oranges. You simply cannot take an online price, do the conversion, slap on import duty and then expect a shop (ie somewhere you can walk into, speak to a real person, play/listen to the item, etc) to give you a comparable price. Online stores often don't even carry their own stock, but certainly don't have to carry a huge array of other costs that a retail store has, including rent (presumably of premises that are attractive, spacious, etc, in an area that's convenient and not scary) and staff salaries. Almost everyone here has had a fat bitch at some point about useless sales staff, but who is going to pay an appropriate salary to attract well-informed, helpful sales staff when they're being expected to compete with an entity that isn't expected to give you any of that? Also, if you decided you were going to open a music store, plough money into the business and take the risk that it might fail, wouldn't you think you were entitled to make at least a decent living out of it? Take 8 or 10 staff (for a relatively small store), give them each a decent salary, throw in rent other charges and you're talking overheads of several hundred thousand rand a month. Where is that meant to come from?
While I understand the frustration, and am not suggesting that every store here (or anywhere in the world) gets the balance right, I sometimes find it a bit astonishing that people don't take these obvious factors into account. Maybe I'm being naive but I don't think many music store owners are laughing their way to the bank with their obscene profits. I also think that the more people expect them to compete unreasonably, the fewer stores there will be and we'll all end up having to buy things online we've never heard other than on a youtube clip.
warrenpridgeon
The problem at the end of the day is the same in any industry... money sonny...
There are shops close to where I live that sell strings for R100 for ernie balls... which is 30% more than another shop in the same area.
I just find it hard to understand an increase from roughly R2000 to get to a floor price of around R4500 and then they'll discount it to R3390... it's still R1390 more than the online store that's a 69.5% mark up. Which is pretty large. Take into consideration that the shops should be buying from distributors/suppliers (that I as a man on the street don't have access to), meaning they should be paying even less for the product.
I understand they need to pay for rent and staff etc etc... maar dit "ruk die hoender se p03ph0l"...
Mixerboy
I guess it's a price you pay (get it?) for those "services". For me it doesn't sit well paying at least double for something I already know I want, it's pretty difficult to test out recording gear in these shops anyway, speakers as well, drums, most guitar amps......etc etc etc, you kind of have to already know you want something before you even go to most of the music stores, and the likelihood that they'll have it is slim, they'll most likely have to import you one specifically anyway in which case you'll be waiting.
There was a big study done last year on why the USA's health care is so expensive compared to other developed countries, and after dismissing pretty much all the theories such as the "economy", or there are more sick americans visiting the doctor more often, prices of equipment and importing equipment, prices of medical tuition etc etc etc they found that american medical prices are so high because........they're so high. Plain and simple. They can get away with charging too much so they DO.
Other developed countries are charging WAY less for health care and still making a large profit. An MRI in the USA costs $1080 and the exact same thing in France is $280 and there's no real justification for it other than in America they can.
So South Afri-can music stores most likely charge so much because they "can". And a shops overheads really aren't the customers problem.
StefStoep
I think there is a major problem in the music instrument industry. In contrast to el guapo i don't believe the massive overheads, salaries, etc. Is the problem
In other industries the shops can compete with the virtual shops. If you buy a book at Kalahari, Take2, Amazon or at Exclusive books or CNA, all of their prices are in the same ball park. So, i don't think the "overheads" argument is a valid one.
It might be that the Instrument shops aren't the culprits but that the local distributors (Except for Tokia ?) might be part of the problem.
In the end, every body needs to make a living and that adds up.
studmissile
Have you seen it appears marshal music has adopted bid or buy as it's e-shop front?
AlanRatcliffe
It's worth noting that the biggest US store, which operates in the way some would have local stores operate - is in deep, deep, sh** at the moment. They also owe so much to Fender, that if they go down, they could conceivably bring Fender down with them (who are also struggling ATM) - or at least cause a major restructure. In fact, you can probably blame the whole Japanese Jackson closing thing on them.
Just sayin'...
warrenpridgeon
I understand the points you guys bring forth... but it doesn't mean I need to like or agree with them... :?
Time will tell in which direction the industry goes... I will still try to support the stores where I can if something does not have a CRAZY mark up I will still purchase at the store...
but I can't pay double for something, that just doesn't sit right with me.
Maybe one day I will find out checkers charges double for everything too...
but then if I can find an import alternative I will just order online also as we do monthly shopping ...
aubs1
chris77
Tell you what, I am glad I'm not an instument retailer in our country.
Many moons ago a business model was established whereby stores began giving discounts to loyal and/or high profile customers and even once off customers like churches, groups, schools etc. buying high value items and systems. Now this was way before my time, but I imagine it worked well back then. It would have been a great incentive and honour and something to feel proud about, knowing that you are getting better prices than the average Joes, and you would have cherished and developed your relationship with "your" store. The stores realised this and pretty soon the loyalty discount was not so rare anymore. Loyalty means repeat business, which is a must if you are competing in a specialised sector. Offering discount became a great way of attaining that loyalty.
Because they were however now selling some items for less, they had to compensate their loss of profit by inflating prices just a tad more to make up for it. This worked well enough for a while, and as the practise of negotiating a better than marked price became more and more common, the sticker prices crept further and further up to compensate the increase in discounts given to customers. This would have worked out as well if it wasn't for two things:
1 - Sticker price vs Discount price became a bit of an open secret, known to everybody except the new players starting out. This meant that new players - mostly youngsters and their folks - were for all intents and purposes now subsidising the discount system at a stage of their lives when most of them weren't able to afford it. Instead of buying better gear for less, they were paying top dollar sticker prices for gear that wasn't really worth it. Some of them persevered however and one day they too became privy to the glory and mystery which is the discount system. They rejoiced at this great revelation, but it kept nagging at them in the back of their heads that they could have saved so, so much money and had way better gear than they had a lot earlier if they were informed straight up of the system and not kept in the dark for so long. This lead to a lot of them feeling kinda resentful and the perception that music stores rip of their customers by charging too much started to take hold. Which is brings us to the next point.
2 - Players no longer trusted the pricing of stores and because it bore fruit for them, had become used to the concept of bartering and negotiationg for the best price possible, always. No longer were they bound by loyalty, but by where can I get my gear for the cheapest price possible, hopping from one store to the next looking for the best price available. And then, like a gift from the angels, the internet made that cheapest price even cheaper. The players no longer had to work hard for their discounts, they no longer had to earn it by loyalty or by spending extravagant amounts to qualify. It was all there, at the click of a button and requiring just a little bit of tech savvy and a passable comprehension of economics. The industry's system of flexible pricing had now bred a section of it's market to whom loyalty meant nothing and the only criteria is the bottom line. And worst of all is that the uninformed could now directly compare prices as well. Just look it up on the internet, go to your local store and see how much it costs there and leave in silence - amazed by how much more the sticker price is than the price on the net.
So yeah. I'm glad I'm not an instrument retailer. You have to fight the ussual battles like inflation, import costs, staff issues, high overheads etc, but you are also part of an industry which is following a business model that has morphed into a self devouring monster. Somewhere, sooner or later, something has to give.
DonovanB
There's an interesting study that can help alleviate this.
Van Westendorp's Price sensitivity meter looks at what people are willing to pay and you end up with a price range that the majority of your market are willing to pay.
I'm curious to see what we would consider a fair price for any guitar related item. I can set up a quick survey for any piece of gear we like and you chaps answer the 4 questions and I'll tabulate the results. I'm sure the distributors and stores would be keen to see the result?
Let's pick an American Standard Stratocaster.
You fella's keen? I could use the practice.
DonovanB
As a side note, from a marketing perspective it doesn't matter if some of you import your own gear. It WILL matter if the majority start to import because that would mean the store no longer understands what value it adds to the process of buying gear.
