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No Prices On New Guitars in PMT


Shambo

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Maybe it would be easier if manufacturers like Fender didn't produce about 7,000 different options for buying a Strat shaped guitar. Does the market really dictate a need for all these different options what with USA, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, Mexican and Chinese models? No wonder pricing is a nightmare, there's too much unnecessary choice.

Back in the good old days, you either bought a Strat, or you didn't. The only options were colours. I get the "cheaper version" idea in order to appeal to a less affluent buyer but now it's got ridiculous. It's hardly surprising that retailers can't keep up.

Edited by leschirons
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More choice means more sales - there are people out there who will cheerfully buy one of each, as they cannot stay the thought of their 'collection' being incomplete.

I have met a few such people. They are inevitably very poor players.  But Fender (and all other guitar makers) don't care how often or how well you play, so long as you keep chucking money at them!

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I noticed this last week in the Leeds store. 

The Musicman range and also the Sandbergs had prices on but there was nothing on the Fender or Ibanez basses (I didn't check the guitars or other products). I tried out (and eventually bought) an Ibanez SR655. I already knew the price from looking on their website so I wasn't deterred by the lack of a price tag on the bass in the store. It would definitely make me less likely to try out a product in the future though if it wasn't labelled up.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if I drove passed PMT Leeds in 6 months and it has closed down.

 

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I've told the story on here before, but back in the late '80's I went with a mate who was buying a drum machine and he found one in a shop that would only tell him "cheapest in Denmark St - we'll beat any price" and wouldn't actually tell him how much they would charge him unless he went away and found out what the shop over the road was charging for it. He politely declined and bought it in the shop over the road for what he was expecting to pay.

I've also been in a shop (also in Denmark St) where they politely declined to honour the "we'll match any price" poster that my mate was pointing at when we wanted to buy a guitar.  Their story (after ringing and checking that the price was accurate) was that this other shop was selling for less than the wholesale price they'd paid so they just couldn't do it, but they knocked a chunk off the ticket price and threw in a couple of sets of strings, etc, so he bought it from that shop.

I don't think that either not showing people what the price is when they are browsing, or setting the price high on the off chance that people will pay it rather than asking for a discount is a great strategy in these internet times, especially for reasonably big purchases.  If it puts off anybody who just doesn't want to ask or try something until they are sure how much it's going to cost them, then they could be losing out on sales for no good reason

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I was in PMT in bristol the other day too, and noticed the same, which I thought was odd, but there were things being moved around (they weren't like that before christmas). I had a look at the ibanez, but without a price tag on it I am not looking. 

I think it is a bad move, regardless of whether it is understandable or not. There are less than 50 basses in there, unless they are changing daily it doesn't seem totally onerous to put a price tag on it.

Also I noticed, looking at the price of one specific ibanez, it has now gone up to the price it was 6 months ago, whereas andersons are the pre christmas price and someone else is lower.

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2 hours ago, The59Sound said:

Hasn't even happened yet (if it happens at all)... cheapskate way to raise prices on things. 

A large part of it has happened, in that our currency is worth a lot less than it was 2 years ago as we don't have the economy that we had. 

€1000 euro bass in 2016 was £700, now it is over £900, so it is a reasonable reason for things costing more.

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Thats the thing as I said 'it' has already happened to our economy. The actual brexit is irrelevant to the concept of finance. Our economy is physically worth a lot less than it was (many billions) because finance isn't a absolute, our economy was based on our stability and reliability, and that we have lost, we are not a reliable or safe place to store money. Whether Brexit happens or not, it doesn't materially affect that, we have shown a side of ourselves that the world hadn't realised. Obviously if it does happen then it will have an impact, more companies will have to move out and inward investment will be reduced so our economy will go down further. This will affect us in prices although it will make our workforce more competitive, which will be a shame as we no longer manufacture much, but maybe after a decade or so we will have increased it a bit. But even if we did cancel brexit, our economy can not rise back to where it was because we have already lost a lot of influence and the investment that went away won't come back because it is already somewhere else, and unless there is something wrong with them it will stay there, it costs money to move stuff. However, it will go back up a bit, and more importantly, stabilise.

So yeh, maybe I should get that Ibanez now!.

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What if spotty Herbert the Saturday boy tells you the £2200 stingray is £900 confusing it with the Sterling Ray? What do they honour at the till?

I used to work on the basis "if you have to ask the price you can't afford it". Seems that's gone out the window.

Could you spend an afternoon in there going round every bass saying "how much is that one?.... And this one?  And this one? How much was that four string again... No the black one, the other black one...?" How long before the sales assistant explodes?

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I could be wrong but I believe this practice is not legal. 

Having been in retail for over twenty years it was always drummed into us that there is a legal requirement to clearly display the price of a product and trading standards backed this up several times when there were things went wrong. 

I seem to think there is a allowance for smaller stores, below a certain floor area, but I think that was in relation to the level of detail required to be displayed rather than being able to not display a price at all. 

I'm sure trading standards would be interested in this case..... 

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14 minutes ago, gs_triumph said:

I could be wrong but I believe this practice is not legal. 

Having been in retail for over twenty years it was always drummed into us that there is a legal requirement to clearly display the price of a product and trading standards backed this up several times when there were things went wrong. 

I seem to think there is a allowance for smaller stores, below a certain floor area, but I think that was in relation to the level of detail required to be displayed rather than being able to not display a price at all. 

I'm sure trading standards would be interested in this case..... 

Not illegal at all. Even if the wrong price is displayed the retailer has no legal responsibility to honour the price, as all displayed prices are an invitation to barter.

Trading Standards can make recommendations to retailers regarding trading practices, but I believe they have little power to enforce anything, the retailer  may need to show due diligence, however there are many loopholes.

All that being said in the age of social media, the customer has truly become king, and most large businesses will honour wrong prices etc as an act of goodwill in order to give “good service”.

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4 minutes ago, Crawford13 said:

Not illegal at all. Even if the wrong price is displayed the retailer has no legal responsibility to honour the price, as all displayed prices are an invitation to barter.

Trading Standards can make recommendations to retailers regarding trading practices, but I believe they have little power to enforce anything, the retailer  may need to show due diligence, however there are many loopholes.

All that being said in the age of social media, the customer has truly become king, and most large businesses will honour wrong prices etc as an act of goodwill in order to give “good service”.

"If you’re a retailer, you must display:

  • the price of products - this must be in sterling (pounds and pence) and include VAT where applicable
  • the price of a single item (the ‘unit price’) for products that you sell loose
  • metric measures (like kilograms, centimetres or litres) for unit pricing - except for some products (for example, beer is still sold in pints)"

https://www.gov.uk/product-labelling-the-law

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39 minutes ago, gs_triumph said:

I seem to think there is a allowance for smaller stores, below a certain floor area, but I think that was in relation to the level of detail required to be displayed rather than being able to not display a price at all.

Bristol PMT is not a small store.

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Never worked in a music shop so not sure how the retail part works.  I can understand the practise if the stock in the shop is effectively 'vendor/manufacturer owned stock' and the shop is selling on and taking its cut and then paying the supplier for the goods.  However if the stock is purchased and re-sold I would've thought they can apply a price at their preferred margin level and display accordingly.  This would then only require adjustment it the shop decides to change the margin or if other external tax changes come into play.

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3 hours ago, uk_lefty said:

Could you spend an afternoon in there going round every bass saying "how much is that one?.... And this one?  And this one? How much was that four string again... No the black one, the other black one...?" How long before the sales assistant explodes?


Spending an hour or so in the 'Pound shop' doing that and asking the assistant how much each item is can be fun....... ;)

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I bought a Fender Player P last year, but they wouldn't match the Rich Tone online price, but went a good way toward it, same with the Player Jazz I bought the next month.

In Salford, it only appears to be certain guitars that are unpriced, but still quite a lot of them.

When a £2k Telecaster looks like a £700 one, price tags would avoid disappointment.

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2 hours ago, The59Sound said:

Thank you. It doesn't make sense putting up prices does it? 

Prices went up after the brexit vote because of a lack of confidence in the British economy by international currency traders leading to a decrease in the value of the GBP. 

If you're buying guitars and paying in USD and your currency is worth fewer USD than it was before, prices have to go up. 

Makes perfect sense. 

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