Fender reportedly lays off hundreds of California employees

[Steve Browning]

You might have an entire cornucopia of them.

[Bunion]

8 hours ago, Count Bassy said:

Thanks for using that word - it means a lot.

I was going to use ‘superfluity’ but I thought a surfeit of people might have to look it up 😄

[JohnDaBass]

11 hours ago, karlfer said:

The cynic in me wonders if the cheaper to produce Mexico range will replace the US Professional & Performance range, leaving Corona to produce American Vintage & Custom Shop?

Totally agree. 

The value is in the brand and OEM & ODM Fender branded products will generate a sizable income for very low investments.!( sticking Fender badges on other people's products)

Competition has caught up and in many cases surpassed that which were "Fender". 

Diversifying and exploiting the brand appears to be the way forward for Fender. 

As @karlfer suggests US components shipped over the border to Mexico for assembly then the completed instruments sold in the USA. Just like Levis jeans "assembled in Mexico from US materials ".

By shipping the components (trees 🤣) to bonded facilities in Mexico means that Fender only pays import tax on the labour cost of the Mexican workforce. 

[thedontcarebear]

I've been round the US factory, and to be honest, your US Fenders are mainly made by Mexicans anyway.

 

I don't see any issue with a greater shift to Mexican production, the factories aren't even that far apart in the grand scheme of things, few hours drive down the coast.  So they can easily keep management from America, with a cheaper Mexican based workforce.

[Thunderpaws]

On 05/08/2022 at 21:35, 40hz said:

Strange one, this. You don't lay off that amount of employees unless there's something seriously wrong. I wonder what's going on?

I reckon they’ve enjoyed the boom too much and made far too many guitars and basses of certain models lines. Now the shops and their warehouses are full of them and they’ve saturated the market so don’t need to make as many now. 

[Velarian]

I just had a quick look at Fender basses listed on Thomann’s website and of the 169 advertised, only 23 are in stock and they all seem to be Mexican player series instruments. The availability of the American ones is quoted as “several months”. That doesn’t suggest there are warehouses are full of them.  Perhaps it supports the theory that they’re moving to a more custom/built to order model?

[tegs07]

11 minutes ago, Velarian said:

I just had a quick look at Fender basses listed on Thomann’s website and of the 169 advertised, only 23 are in stock and they all seem to be Mexican player series instruments. The availability of the American ones is quoted as “several months”. That doesn’t suggest there are warehouses are full of them.  Perhaps it supports the theory that they’re moving to a more custom/built to order model?

The warehouses won’t be full of complete and ready to go instruments though. The supply chain is still in a mess so likely to be in various states of build but not ready for shipping.

Fenders business model is bizarre anyway. As has been mentioned already the Japanese made instruments and many of the Mexican made ones are now premium instruments around the £1000+ mark.

Custom made US build would make more business sense.

The USA is also in recession by standard economic definition so Fender may be planning ahead, however in a country as large and diverse as the US recession is hard to quantify.

Edited August 11, 2022 by tegs07

[gjones]

2 hours ago, Velarian said:

I just had a quick look at Fender basses listed on Thomann’s website and of the 169 advertised, only 23 are in stock and they all seem to be Mexican player series instruments. The availability of the American ones is quoted as “several months”. That doesn’t suggest there are warehouses are full of them.  Perhaps it supports the theory that they’re moving to a more custom/built to order model?

The head of Fender, Andy Mooney, said in an interview recently that even pickup wire is hard to source these days and that availability and prices of electronic components vary wildly. He said the demand is there but the ability to satisfy that demand is very limited due to the state of global trade today.

[FDC484950]

Given there are basically no US Fenders for sale in the UK (well the odd ex demo and one or two left over, probably dogs no-one bought), Fender UK has pretty much nothin available and even Thomann are quoting several months, then they won’t be servicing that demand for a while to come. Maybe they are prioritising the US as Ernie Ball did for a time (some stock seems to be coming through recently after a long drought)?

[Thunderpaws]

6 hours ago, FDC484950 said:

Given there are basically no US Fenders for sale in the UK (well the odd ex demo and one or two left over, probably dogs no-one bought), Fender UK has pretty much nothin available and even Thomann are quoting several months, then they won’t be servicing that demand for a while to come. Maybe they are prioritising the US as Ernie Ball did for a time (some stock seems to be coming through recently after a long drought)?

Seems GuitarGuitar have more left handed than right handed😂.  A couple of nice used right handed basses seem to be it! 

[thewebow]

On 09/08/2022 at 18:23, Grahambythesea said:

Perhaps Fender have been their own worst enemy. There Japanese and Mexican products have been so good there is no need to buy USA made. 

Would people therefore recommend getting a 57 (maple) and 62( rosewood) precision bass Japanese vs one USA singular? I have a USA rosewood 2009 but wanted to invest in a maple neck.. thinking should I pick up a pair of  80-90’s Japanese precisions instead? 

[Lozz196]

It all depends on the player, the MIJ/CIJ basses are perfectly good enough, it just depends on how the player views them imo. I’m not sure about different ranges within the Japanese Fenders but I do know that although I prefer the US ones, specifically it’s the 2013-16 range that I really like. So there may be differences within the Japanese ones as well. Bit of a minefield really.

[OliverBlackman]

6 hours ago, thewebow said:

Would people therefore recommend getting a 57 (maple) and 62( rosewood) precision bass Japanese vs one USA singular? I have a USA rosewood 2009 but wanted to invest in a maple neck.. thinking should I pick up a pair of  80-90’s Japanese precisions instead? 

If you can get the JV series…. They’re still nothing like the real thing but neither were the US Fullerton reissues.

[TheLowDown]

Wonder if their financial troubles are related to the class action lawsuit against them for price fixing.

 

I'm happy to let other people buy their instruments.

[Geek99]

On 10/08/2022 at 06:48, tegs07 said:

well you wait for ages and then 3 turn up at once…

A plethora of plethoras?

[Geek99]

On 13/08/2022 at 18:12, thewebow said:

Would people therefore recommend getting a 57 (maple) and 62( rosewood) precision bass Japanese vs one USA singular? I have a USA rosewood 2009 but wanted to invest in a maple neck.. thinking should I pick up a pair of  80-90’s Japanese precisions instead? 

I would - I had a late 80s jap jazz and a mid 90s jazz and both were perfect 

[Steve Browning]

Not every seller fully identifies the model but the Japanese basses that have the US suffix to their designation are the ones to go for. Superb instruments.

[Chaddy]

On 09/08/2022 at 21:32, FDC484950 said:

I had a look at the Player and Player Plus series when I was in GuitarGuitar last week and they were basically identical quality-wise. Paint finish, joinery, pickups, hardware, weight, feel, sound. Given they’re now about the same price the US equivalents were 10 years ago, it sounds about right.

I did the same in more stores and bought a Charvel instead  .  ( Fender mex made ) and was wayyyyy much nicer than anything of their current stock. Everything of Fender's pro or player line as I tried it out for hours felt like plastic. Nothing to write home about & IMO, overpriced firewood. 

For me, A Fender Mexican body but with a Squire neck would of been the ideal set up. There was such a drastic change between each unit on offer as well. Build, wood, paint, set up, fret quality and so forth.  

But the Charvel Pro-D does have some gremlins. Pre-Amp is dog poo (changed it already ) and the shielding (non existent) / jack port had a nice whoopsy in during manufactory where the wood had been half removed and hidden.
Body and neck were "kiss"  in comparison. And that was £830 with a soft hard case thing from GAK.