used gear prices

[itanever]

I knew I should've bought this synth from a local retailer back in 2008. Mea culpa, everybody.

[vurt]

I knew I should've bought this synth from a local retailer back in 2008. Mea culpa, everybody.

closest retailer for me would be 2 buses and a train away.
i dont drive, so forget that if im lugging something heavier than a guitar pedal.
and if you can save between a 1/5 and a 1/3 by going online, well im sorry, my personal economic situation says get the cheapest!!!

[itanever]

I knew I should've bought this synth from a local retailer back in 2008. Mea culpa, everybody.

closest retailer for me would be 2 buses and a train away.
i dont drive, so forget that if im lugging something heavier than a guitar pedal.
and if you can save between a 1/5 and a 1/3 by going online, well im sorry, my personal economic situation says get the cheapest!!!

Same here and this is probably the case with most people. I feel lucky enough to be able to afford anything. 10 years ago even a $30 vst would've been not an insignificant expense for me.

Anyhow, I here, most retailers are probably serving a different kind of clientele. The performing musician who simply can't wait, the person who needs to try out their instrument or the newbie, who wants some professional consultation before buying etc. That's what they're paying for. But this is going off topic.

[miloszz]

So... You'd rather deprive your government and fellow citizens of income. Must be a great economy over there.

I try to shop local when possible and online from smaller shops when that's not feasible but it's not like the savings takes the money out of circulation, the savings is just being spent on something else. The government and fellow citizens are getting it somewhere along the way - just maybe not the local business.

[skipscada]

So... You'd rather deprive your government and fellow citizens of income. Must be a great economy over there.

There's actually this pretty great economic project called the EU, which makes citizens in different EU countries "fellow citizens" in economic terms. In my (non-German) city the story has gone more or less like this: local musicians got access to international online retail >>> badly run local small shops died, better local shops updated their practices and prices, and have become thriving online retailers themselves.

[cptgone]

As to buying local:

My country (Belgium) is conservative, there are hardly any webshops here. We do have a chain of brick&mortar shops, who pushed a horrible 'deal' on me back in the 90s, it took me years before I was able to record audio in my 'DAW'. I feel much safer buying from a webshop.

My gov uses tax money to persecute people who use cannabis, I'd rather not be an accomplice to that.
The stuff I buy isn't produced locally, anyway, so any ecological advantages are doubtful.
Also, I cannot afford to pay top price.

I usually buy from EU shops; Europe is my home.
Buying from China has been troubling me, given the handling of Uighurs, Tibetans, Hong Kong... and cause of the fact products are shipped by air (whereas some shops, I suspect, still have stuff slowboated?)
Of course buying from Amazon isn't very ethical either, given their treatment of workers.

If I trusted my gov, and had enough money, I'd buy from local brick&mortar stores.
Then again, define local: does it include the nearby city with rampant racism and fascism, which considers itself the only city in Belgium ("the rest of the country is just our parking lot")?

[tapper mike]

Yeah I can agree with a lot of what both are you are saying.

Here's the thing about brick and mortar shops. Sure there have been quite a few in my area and do to online shopping many have disappeared. That being said many that were great little stores have also disappeared.

Large companies like Gibson (not just Gibson or guitars) don't want to deal with them. The price that shops have to pay is based on a sliding scale of how much they are willing to buy. Lets say Sweetwater wants to purchase for the year. They buy 3000 LP's out of those 200 are a high priced signature model. Sweetwater gets a massive deal on those guitars but they are locked in by price fixing from Gibson. If another store buys... 100 LP's they don't get the per LP pricing that Sweetwater gets because they aren't moving enough. Now you have the small brick and mortar. Customer has the money and wants to by that very expensive signature LP. Small store can't do it. Minimum order for Gibson is 10. The store won't be able to sell ten LP signature guitars in a year and the margin that Gibson offers them is a pitance. Even if the store could only order one they wouldn't be able to meet margins on the sale. Because yes; rent, staffing, utlilities(gas, electric,phone) and operational taxes need to be added into the price for a store to survive.

They can't get the deals so you can't get the deals. Some items are not sold direct from manufacturer to retailer. They go through jobbers (distributors) which buy in bulk and then sell to the retailer.


more to come....

[vurt]

price fixing is illegal here.

fender and i think gibson, both recently got fines here for it,along with several electronics manufacturers.

[vurt]

and also, perhaps if the economy was doing better, wed have more available to not have to worry about looking for deals

you cant expect the bottom rungs to fix that shit.

[tapper mike]

All to true.

Recently Social Security sent me a letter and it had my gross income for every year that I've reported income since I first started working. It's startling to me how stagnant my income has been with respects to the economy.

[tapper mike]

Tariffs, Currency markets.

Governments don't pay tariffs, Manufacturers don't pay tariffs, Consumers pay tariffs in the long run

https://www.wired.com/story/listen-valu ... y-matters/

Though Trump routinely claims that “China is paying for the tariffs,” that’s simply not true. Tariffs are assessed when an imported good enters the country imposing them, paid by the importer, be that a carmaker, a clothes retailer, or Apple. To date, the Trump administration has placed 25 percent tariffs on about $250 billion of Chinese imports. That means a company importing $1 million of goods from China pays an additional $250,000 to US Customs, making the total cost $1.25 million. The Chinese exporter still gets the same $1 million.

Those price increases are tacked on to the final sale of the product.

[vurt]

yes, the idea is to make local purchasing more economic. basically, to get money out of you. after not giving you enough to live on.
then you go in to debt, debt fuels economies.

consume. obey.