BBE Sonic Stomp

[GilkyBear]

OK, so I went to the local music store and they had one sitting there. It had a $179 price tag on it. So I recalled seeing them much lower than that, when I got home I looked them up on the bay, saw tons of them going for $99. So the next time I was in the music store I asked the guy if he price matches the internet. He said sure, no problem. So I told him there were a ton of them on the bay for $99. He said he won't match the bay, only a reputable store like, say, *******. Fair enough, I get home, look on ******* and it is $65!! So I go back, he looks it up and I get the pedal for $65. If he would have said okay to the bay he would have gotten $99 for it haha! Oh well. I don't feel sorry for the brick and mortar guys when they tag everything in the store at list price and then wonder why they can't compete. There aren't nearly as many uninformed suckers anymore. If his price was listed even anywhere near the $99 I saw on the bay I probably would have paid it. No sympathy whatsoever when he has no problem going from $179 to $65.

Same thing happened at a different local music store. I was trying a fender amp with a price tag of $1300. The guy asked how I liked it and I said I love it, but they are all over the internet for $800. So the guy says I know, I'll do it for $800. Screw you buddy, you are basically admitting to me that you are out to screw people, why on Earth should I do business with you? And again, if it was at say $900 or even $1000, I would have been tempted just for the convenience of it being right here right now in my hands.

Maybe someone can shed some light on this, do the companies require them to tag them at list price unless the customer says they can get it cheaper or are they just legitimately hoping for a sucker? If this is the case then it is bad news for all of us because there are going to be far fewer brick and mortar stores in which to try gear that I will buy on line.

BTW, the sonic stomp pedal sounds fantastic, one of the best things you can do to dramatically improve your tone on the very cheap.

[wilch]

BBE sonic maximizer's rock my socks.

[Petie]

In my experience here in Australia, not all customers even think to ask if they can get a better price on something. For instance if you walk into a department store (there are a few exceptions) and ask for a better price, they'll probably call their manager to say "There's a crazy person in hi-fi, talking gibberish. Get the taser."

I worked at a family-run music store which would label instruments with the recommended retail price, but if a customer wanted to buy something the owner would usually take out the calculator and say "Lemmie see if I can do you a better price on that." Other stores might already advertise at the lower price to start with, but this store goes out of its way to make the customer feel special, and it brings in a lot of repeat business, as well as just new buddies to drop into the store for a social chat about music and guitars. The customer feels like they're getting preferential treatment, the store makes a sale, and the owner gets a real kick out of matching the right guitar to the customer and knowing they're going to enjoy it. Everyone wins.

In other stores here it seems pretty common to see a guitar labelled with the retail price, then a 'lower' price with about 5% knocked off. Nothing to get particularly excited about.

And then there are the stores that label everything at retail, and a surprisingly high percentage of customers don't even think to question it. There are far fewer people here and far less competition, so they can get away with it.

[wilch]

Originally Posted by Petie

In my experience here in Australia, not all customers even think to ask if they can get a better price on something. For instance if you walk into a department store (there are a few exceptions) and ask for a better price, they'll probably call their manager to say "There's a crazy person in hi-fi, talking gibberish. Get the taser."

I worked at a music store which would label instruments with the recommended retail price, but if a customer wanted to buy something the owner would usually take out the calculator and say "Lemmie see if I can do you a better price on that." Other stores might already advertise at the lower price to start with, but this store goes out of its way to make the customer feel special, and it brings in a lot of repeat business. The customer feels like they're getting preferential treatment, the store makes a sale, and the owner gets a real kick out of matching the right guitar to the customer and knowing they're going to enjoy it. Everyone wins.

In other stores here it seems pretty common to see a guitar labelled with the retail price, then a 'lower' price with about 5% knocked off. Nothing to get particularly excited about.

And then there are the stores that label everything at retail, and a surprisingly high percentage of customers don't even think to question it. There are far fewer people here and far less competition, so they can get away with it.

This is true. It's amazing what some stores do though.

A mate of mine and I actually keep finding a guy that we use to deal with when we were very young. John Ryan is his name. We first met him when he owned a little store in West Ryde. Both of us ended up buying our first Ibanez guitars from him (Jem 7v, and 570FM). He went out of his way to accomodate us "kids" and knocked a shed load off the price.

He sold that store, but then later, I found him again. This time in another suburb. But this time, I was older, no longer a child, with a well paying job. He did everything in his power to get me the guitar I wanted, and surprised the hell out of me with the price.

I think I dropped $10k on gear within a few months over there. Got to the point where I'd walk in, be greeted and told if I wanted to play anything to just grab it.

His store's would always list RRP on their goods. But you would always be greeted by a worker, and they would always say, "I'll see what I can do with the price."