ridethatbike Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 I'm trying to understand how some of the dealers put an H150 out there for $2500, and seem to be content sitting on it for over a year? I'm referring to gbase prices, and reverb.com as well. It's not necessarily a gripe, I'm just trying to understand the business mechanics of how that is profitable. Every time I've called Wolfe Bros and gotten a quote for a custom guit, they are under $2500, usually by a good chunk. Are these dealers assuming there are a lot of people out there with more money than sense to shop around?
tulk1 Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 Just speculating, but could be they don't do the volume to get better discounts from Heritage. Thinking their investment in an instrument or two may preclude giving huge discounts. Thus, sitting on it is better than taking a loss.
SouthpawGuy Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 My first two Heritage guitars, 535 and 575, were bought from Heritages biggest dealer, Wolfe Guitars. And I found them on gbase. That was late 2007, early 2008. Also got my first G&L from the same dealer. I'm not in the US though, and my "local" dealer is somewhere in the UK so my situation is different to guys in the US.
Thundersteel Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 Some stores have guitars (not just Heritages) for 7 - 8 years or so, and are still asking full price. Maybe they hope someone will pay their asking price someday.
Dick Seacup Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 Just speculating, but could be they don't do the volume to get better discounts from Heritage. Thinking their investment in an instrument or two may preclude giving huge discounts. Thus, sitting on it is better than taking a loss. Sitting on the sunk cost is potentially a very large unrealized loss, though, when considering opportunity costs. Or something i vaguely remember that smells like that. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
HANGAR18 Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 I'm trying to understand how some of the dealers put an H150 out there for $2500, and seem to be content sitting on it for over a year? I'm referring to gbase prices, and reverb.com as well. It's not necessarily a gripe, I'm just trying to understand the business mechanics of how that is profitable. Every time I've called Wolfe Bros and gotten a quote for a custom guit, they are under $2500, usually by a good chunk. Are these dealers assuming there are a lot of people out there with more money than sense to shop around? Many independent retail business owners (selling whatever) decide upon a specific strategy and stick to it most of the time. One business may have in their business plan "cost plus %50" for everything they sell, hoping for faster inventory turnaround while other businesses may list everything for full MSRP and then pay the bills through selling accessories or some other product which moves out the door in high volume. Every local market (zip code) has different clientèle. Some zip codes have a lot more big dollar spenders while other zip codes... not so much. There are two guitar stores in my area that I know of which have premium pricing on everything... but they have stuff on one else in town has. One store is MSPR pluss $100.00 on everything. (Home of the New Old Stock. hahaha) Shoes in Beverly Hills CA or Georgetown (Washington DC) are likely to cost a lot more than they would in Dogslobber Arizona. But if I want to get a cut-throat price on a guitar, I go to Guitar Center and rough up my personal guitar salesman. hahaha Some places deliberately mark up the price of stuff really high in the hopes that some people won't try to haggle over the price. Kinda like pawn shops. No one in their right mind walks into a pawn shop and pays exactly what the price tag says. (At least I hope no one reading this does.) There are no Heritage dealers which operate as an "Internet only" store so they all have a brick & mortar location with all the overhead and bills to pay which go with it. If they ever changed that policy, I'd be first in line to become an online Heritage dealer.
Gitfiddler Posted July 17, 2013 Posted July 17, 2013 The prices listed are typically 'asking' prices. I suggest if someone is truly interested in a particular instrument, they give the seller/dealer a call and make a reasonable offer. They are businessmen/women and are intimately aware of the costs of maintaining unsold inventory (taxes, flooring charges, etc.) and can easily be motivated to move a guitar that has been around a while. If one dealer won't work with you on price, then try another. I've done that and ended up with great deals on all of my newly bought Heritage guitars over the years.
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