Online retailers ARE supermarkets! That's the whole point...

The trouble is, people are unrealistically going into brick and mortar stores, and expecting online prices. If you give up ANY expectation of brick and mortar service, knowledgeable sales staff and stock available to demo, sure, a brick and mortar store can compete. But you want him to pay what a knowledgeable salesman costs hourly (they don't JUST make commission! and that adds to the cost, or deducts from the margin, as well - either way the B&M store suffers), you want him to unbox an expensive unit and let you demo it (whereupon, half the time, he has to sell it as a 'demo'ed product - less margin, again).

If the lowest possible price is your main criteria, why on earth do you expect any service? Walk in, pick up the sealed box, and take it to the checkout counter to get scanned. Period.

If you want to talk with a knowledgeable professional, actually hear it played well, play it yourself, don't expect that to cost exactly the same as the online retailer, who provides NONE of that.

I still don't get it... you wouldn't play a gig for free, but you want the B&M store to do that...

Take 5 or 10 music products and show me how much the internet shopping saves vs. walking into a store..

I think, Dan, that one of the problems is that many TOTL arrangers are handled by 'Mom & Pop' music stores that deal real pianos, school brass, 'home' digital pianos (lot's of fancy furniture, little great about the sound) that work on generally higher margins than the stores that handle 'group' music stuff, guitars, amps, synths, WS's, etc..

I know that when Roland introduced the G70, they transfered the dealerships from MI stores over to the CK division, which handles high margin, high price KR-series home pianos and Atelier organs, etc..

Immediately, the MAP jumped nearly a grand... I had to pay quite a LOT more for the G70 than my G1000, even taking the MSRP into account.

It has now been transfered back to MI division, but the damage has been done. Many stores that USED to stock G1000's have now grown distant from that market... But those Mom & Pop stores were MUCH harder to negotiate a deal with, on the whole. They had exclusive rights to their territory, and internet sales weren't allowed for those lines. I was quite vocal at the time that it looked like Roland were shooting themselves in the foot, and I believe this had an awful lot to do with the failure of the G70 to be as popular as the G1000 was.

Now, I don't believe this is necessarily universal, but you DO have to look at the kind of stores that actually STOCK T3's, PA2Xpro's, E80's, SD-1's (and soon, Audya's) and realize that few of them can afford to (or even want to!) go down to the margin that internet retailers can do, because of their lack of overhead.

It is sad (I kind of get your point, I think) that the whole retail MI business is going down the toilet because their customers don't equate paying a bit more (as little as a few hundred dollars on a $3500 product) with getting the kind of service that they moan about when they DON'T get it.

Why anyone expects knowledgeable sales staff and well stocked shelves at a Guitar Center or Best Buy amazes me. They aren't PAYING for those things. Pay less, get less. Pay more, get more...

Diki,
Point well taken..
I happen to know 1st hand what it is like to try and make it on a 20-25-30% profit margin.. After the expense of paying rent, employee's , utilities etc.. it is very difficult to make it owning a MI music store.....

Just the cost of hanging enough instruments on the walls and floor just to make 2500 sq ft look like a music store is expensive.

So I appreciate your point of view..

GC stinks......we went there today they had nothing....no arrangers.....


Sam ash was well stocked with goodies of all kinds...


& even better best Buy surprised us with a very nice array of TOTL gear, assorted guitars, Roland 700gx, juno's, mackie, tapco, fender, etc etc & lots more very impressive for best buy....

GC watch out!!

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 02-09-2009).]

Best Buy's musical instrument infusion opportunity may be GC's eventual undoing actually. Best Buy Co., Inc.is a Fortune 500 company and the largest specialty retailer of consumer electronics in the United States (according to statistics) accounting for 21% of the market. It also operates in several other countries including Canada, Mexico, and China.

Currently they operate over 1,150 stores in the U.S. alone. On January 16, 2009, Best Buy became the "only" Nationwide Electronic Retail Store (online and/or brick and mortar) in the United States, after the announcement from smaller rival, Circuit City that failed to find a buyer and/or receive any credit. Circuit City announced it was filing for Chapter 7 (Going out of business) and would liquidate the company.

OTOH, Guitar Center operates a little over 200 stores nationwide and none internationally that I'm aware of. With Best Buy's huge presence and popularity and with them getting this strong foothold into the music instrument segment, it may be the proverbial final nail in the coffin for GC, and maybe sooner than we think. As I said, I'm not wanting that to happen because it is never good for consumers when the competition disappears. It wouldn't affect me much personally though because there are several Best Buy stores in my area that I could utilize for my music instrument needs. And for the rest i.e. accessories, etc. I could simply use the various online music retailers. Hopefully though Guitar Center will be around for many more years to come. Time will tell..

All the best,
Mike

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 02-09-2009).]

It's going to be interesting to see if Best Buy, now they have outlasted the competition, start to bump their prices upwards a little...

Who's left to compete?

Best buy sells American Strats for $174 more then we do..We still have them at $999!! Fender just increased prices so maybe the ones on order will be $1099. But $1274 for an American Strat is a lot. Even Sam Ash has them for $999.

Everything we sell is at Internet prices. We HAVE to compete. We don't charge nor get a premium because we know the products and can demo them.

The difference is we have to be careful what we stock and stock what the market will buy. no sense in having Signiture Fenders. 6 American Strats and a few American Teles and 12 Mexicans and 12 Squires. Mass market stuff. Ibanez is a good seller and has better MAP pricing. In that case we can beat the Internet advertised prices. Yamaha is what it is. The same all over. We hold the MAP on Yamaha Arrangers and customers don;t seem to mind. Tyros is another Animal.

Independents can compete with the Internet. We fight the tax on the high dollar stuff though. Like Bose. $210 on $3000 is hard to swallow for many and Bose is hardline about selling AT MAP not below. We have to get creative with freebies sometimes but it can be done. Again we can compete. B & M stores HAVE to compete.

But we also have to floor sale able items. Workstations are not sale able for us. Arrangers are not sale able for GC. Yet we both sell every other kind of MI gear. Go figure.

Nice statement but don;t be afraid of shipping. How do you think we get them? LOL

BTW this is not a solicitation. I will not sell anything to anyone on the boards I participate in over the net. Frank is the better choice for that. I bought my Korg PA2x from him (before we got the line).

We don;t even carry the PA2x or PA800. It is difficult to justify and sell a $2400 PA800 vs the $1600 S900 to our market which are primarily retired and part time players.

We carry the Korg PA50 on display and sell the 900 20-1 over the Korg at $700 MORE!!!

The Latinos prefer and buy the Korg product. Don't ask me why. Maybe its the Cumbia Style.