cosmikdebriis Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Carefully sticks head above parapet... Hmm... Looks clear... Okay, so following on from the "What the **** is going" on thread over at Bay Watch... Perhaps Heritage should consider getting a "foreign" manufacturer to market a cheap version of Heritage guitars under... say... the "Heritage Session" label. These would increase the market for H guitars, hopefully turn a very useful profit and increase brand awareness.. Quickly ducks down behind parapet... puts on helmet... and waits... "INCOMING"...
golferwave Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 No way. In this economy it's probably best to keep doing what you do best and try to survive. The market for guitars is going to fall off just like the market for everything else. Not the time for an outlay of cash to test these waters.
Dick Seacup Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Dilutes the brand in a market that already has too many brands, and especially too many brands playing in the low-end, imported segment of the market. Like any other business in a recession, they need to stick to core competencies (in English: what they do best) and advertise the hell out of it. Yes, they need to step up marketing...during the Great Depression, industry leading companies sat on their laurels thinking brand recognition was going to carry them through, while small companies put a ton of money into building their name and increasing market penetration. By the time the war rolled around, the former big names were mostly gone and the little guys who advertised became the new big guys. I don't think Gibson or Fender are going anywhere, but Heritage could eat up a lot of market share from all of these little "boutique" builders.
peterbright Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Dilutes the brand in a market that already has too many brands, and especially too many brands playing in the low-end, imported segment of the market. Like any other business in a recession, they need to stick to core competencies (in English: what they do best) and advertise the hell out of it. Yes, they need to step up marketing...during the Great Depression, industry leading companies sat on their laurels thinking brand recognition was going to carry them through, while small companies put a ton of money into building their name and increasing market penetration. By the time the war rolled around, the former big names were mostly gone and the little guys who advertised became the new big guys. I don't think Gibson or Fender are going anywhere, but Heritage could eat up a lot of market share from all of these little "boutique" builders. Yes...learn from history. What a concept.
yoslate Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Harrrumph...! To meet Ren, Marv, Jim, et. al. is to see what a far fetched, unworkable concept that is. And how's Brent gonna organize a Pilgrimage to...Beijing...? :wink:
cosmikdebriis Posted December 5, 2008 Author Posted December 5, 2008 Puts white handkerchief on stick... Pokes it above parapet and waves it about... Sticks head up... Okay guys... I wasn't exactly expecting overwhelming support but... In my defence... We are a discussion group and hopefully we can discuss all things without the need to resort insults and "smitings"... :wink: I'm going to play devils advocate here in the interests of fair debate but please don't get angry with me. There is some reason in what I say. I think we'd all have to agree that from a profit making business point of view Henry is performing better than the guys at Heritage. Not content with resting on his laurels he has had many innovations and I would guess is significantly increasing his market share? As some people have already pointed out, in times of trouble it is often the forward thinking that will survive. I'm certainly not advocating the need to change anything at Parsons St. Just the opportunity of supplying kids with very little money, a guitar that may well influence their decisions as to which guitar they may buy at a later date. Currently, with this new "signature" series, Epiphones, mass produced Gibbons and "custom shop" Gibbon seem to have them pretty well sewn up from cradle to grave... ??? Resumes defensive position
tulk1 Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Agreed that we should be open minded for discussion. However, not smiting you for thinking asian guitars ... I dunno about that one. :wink: Our boys are not "un-savvy". I think they know pretty much where they want to go with their buisiness. Didn't Ren mention he'd toured the Gib/Epi plant in China. Had something to do with setting it up? I know he mentioned it, just what his involvement was is escaping my 'himerz-mind this morning. I do recall his story about the worker that got knocked out because her work was "unacceptable". Argh!! Point is, they are aware of the market for asian produced guitars. Conjecture (Dixie - is that the right word?) - they don't want to go there. Kinda like a new website. Just isn't something on their radar.
pushover Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Knowing me... I'm probably repeating what others have already said.. What you're basically describing is the fact that there are price-performance points in the guitar market. The theory of that is that a) not everyone needs a custom shop model, and not everyone can affort a custom shop model; so make sure there is a model available that provides the best value given the talents and/or budget of the purchaser. The interesting thing is that this occurs in products across the board. Look at cars for instance Ford-> Lincoln, Honda->Acura, etc. I think however, that part of what makes this work is that the various products don't compete against each other, so when you consider a car you're really comparing ford vs honda, etc, rather than ford versus acura. While it's true that Gibbon and Fender cater to all these price points, in some cases it's all about just slapping their name on a product that has been contracted out to mexico, china, etc. What they're doing by slapping "Squire by Fender" on it is really just trying to leverage the fact that people will think of high end Fender quality, when comparing peice of shit low end models. They're just messing with your mind to try and get you to think you're comparing a First-Act guitar to a Fender, rather than actually comparing a First-Act guitar to a Squire. I strongly suspect there is more bottom-up pressure to "brand" the cheaper models with the fancy name, by the makers of the cheaper models since it helps to sell them. Kinda like opening up a 7-11 store rather than "pushover-mart". I'm probably gonna get more business just cause people know 7-11, but I offset some of that by paying a franchise fee to 7-11 to use their name. Right now.. I'd hazard to say that Hertiage probably doesn't have the name recognition to make it worthwhile for the makers of the cheaper models to gain much by slapping a "The Heritage" sticker on their. While it probably wouldn't necessarily hurt Heritage much to contract out the building of cheap models and then take some percentage of every sale, they probably don't have much gain from it. In particular, a lot of what seems to drive them is being associated with quality, and they might lose some of that if they start to be associated with less well made instruments. The cool thing about Heritage (IMHO) is the fact that what you're actually buying is the custom shop quality at a much better price than the other custom shop quality options from other companies (i.e. in my lame ass analagy world: your buying the Acura for the price of the Honda). It still confuses the heck out of me about why more people don't realize this. But perhaps they do? The situation seems to be that Heritage can already sell all of the guitars they make and don't seem overly worried about expanding to making more of them.
Gitfiddler Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 I must admit that as soon as I read the topic of this thread, I locked and loaded. The main reason for my knee-jerk aggressive stance was that Cosmic specifically mentioned 'Chinese' Heritage. I'm not a fan of Chinese products, mainly because of that government's lack of ethics, morals and a poor human rights record. The other problem is that the market is currently flooded with Chinese guitars. That's what happens when you re-train furniture makers and violin makers to become guitar makers and pay them a tiny bit more. However, if the thread had read 'Asian' Heritage...The way forward, maybe I'd have been more receptive. There are a number of high quality guitar factories in Japan (Fujigen being one of the best). Also the Korean Cort factories are producing very high quality instruments for most of the major guitar makers. Even Roger Sadowsky is having his highly rated Jimmy Bruno Signature archtop made in Japan, then shipped back to the U.S. for his final set-up. He seems to be making a go of it, charging and getting a hefty $3,500 for that laminate archtop. G&L is another maker that has an import line. But to my thinking, they are only diluting their own brand, especially since they are installing the very same pickups in the slightly lower end imports. Heritage has a business model in a gradual up-swing with Vince's recent arrival. Quality has improved as well as the reputation of Heritage Guitars. Let them get their current game more on track before expanding to the Pacific Rim. They don't even seem prepared to upgrade their modest website, much less become a global guitar company. Hopefully Heritage's 'way forward' will be a continuation of their current progress. I for one am a huge fan of this U.S. maker and hope they continue to make a positive mark, doing what they do best...right there from the old Gibson plant on Parsons Street.
Thundersteel Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Sticks gun in air...prepares to fire warning shots... Even if some brands may supposedly be good, I will NEVER--EVER--buy a guitar that says "Made/Crafted in China!" Puts rifle away...realizes it was loaded with blanks...selects Samual Adams seasonal brew...waits for reponses...
Dick Seacup Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 I think the discussion is valid (and could be highly entertaining) and didn't smite anyone, least of all cosmik for bringing it up. I honestly don't think that it's the way I would go if I were running Heritage. I'd go up market before I went down.
cosmikdebriis Posted December 5, 2008 Author Posted December 5, 2008 Sticks gun in air...prepares to fire warning shots... Even if some brands may supposedly be good, I will NEVER--EVER--buy a guitar that says "Made/Crafted in China!" Puts rifle away...realizes it was loaded with blanks...selects Samual Adams seasonal brew...waits for reponses... Takes helmet off... stands up... Safe in the knowledge he is amongst friends... :-* Okay but these guitars aren't aimed (excuse the pun) at you. They are (conceptually) to be marketed at people who either cannot afford or perhaps, because of their ability, justify buying a Heritage... Regards having a moral objection to anything Chinese... This is a difficult position to assume as I would expect most of our homes are full of stuff made in China or at the very least made with components manufactured there. Remember, for better or worse, China owns a pretty big slice of both our countries :'( As to whether the Chinese could manufacture a guitar to a certain standard then I'd say this is exactly the same argument that was given back in the 70's when Japan started the now infamous "law suit" guitars. Some of those models are now accepted as being at least as good as some of the Gibbon/Norlin rubbish being produced at the time. As I recall... Fujigen (or at least Greco) were manufactures of sewing machine cases before their venture in to guitar manufacture. But on the other hand Gibbon were, for a time, owned by Norlin who I believe were a cement manufacturer Perhaps this is where Heritage scores so highly with us, as a "stick to what you do best" manufacturer. As a business model though... I'm not so convinced. Hopefully they will be able to survive the current financial downturn. I'd just like to add though... Before I get smited... I'm a huge fan of Heritage guitars and fully appreciate what those guys are up to. They have my complete admiration. Perhaps as I'm English my allegiance may seem a little tenuous but I prefer to think of things in a little less nationalistic way. I'd like to add my support for many manufacturers from around the globe who do what they do for the love of it and are just trying to earn an honest buck, pound, yen, peseta or whatever. As for this debate... Well perhaps it's helping to highlight why, when people say Heritages are just a Gibbon copy, they are so completely wrong.
yoslate Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Wanted to chip in here in some sort of more meaningful way than my last bit of tripe, but I must say: Kudos to pushover and 'fiddler for posts I think are the definitive response to cosmic's original gambit. When I read the first post, it brought immediately to mind the scene from Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail, in which King Arthur confronts the French (Norman?) soldier on the parapet...only this time it's the Englishman hurling offal over the side! (All I good fun, cosmic...you've started another good, if provocative, thread. I've sort of missed this.) :wink:
y2kc Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Shipping Chinese made Heritage guitars around the globe will only cause problems. Look at G&L and how the product has gone down hill since they started importing guitars from asia. They are now using asian made and designed parts on the domestic guitars. Leo is not happy. Face it, G&L's were made in Fullerton by Leo and George and Heritage only comes from Kalamazoo. My 5 cents worth, y2kc
Thundersteel Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 They are now using asian made and designed parts on the domestic guitars. Where did you hear about this? The only thing I know that isn't USA-made on those are the Sperzel tuners.
111518 Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Funny, Wolfe told me he ordered Sperzels because they were the only tuners still made in America ...but that was a couple of years ago. There's another issue here. What competitive advantage would an Asian CNC-made "Heritage Session" guitar have over an Asian CNC-made Epiphone by Gibson guitar? Epiphone benefits from the international reputation and enormous advertising budget of Gibson, as well as a scale of production that has allowed Gibson to control production and quality ...not to mention Gibson's access to marketing through MF and GC and Best Buys, and especially in the current economic climate. Would it be a reasonable market strategy for Heritage to take on Epiphone? To be honest, I worry that the recent substantial price increases by Heritage endangers the market niche they've thus far maintained. Granted, each of us makes their own calculation about what justifies a guitar purchase --and please, don't shoot the messenger, I love Heritage guitars and hope only the best for their future-- but when I compare the new Heritage prices to the used market prices and think about likely trends as demand decreases and purchasers become even more concerned with reputation and resell value, I wonder. I'm afraid they've chosen a bad time to gamble that the market will recognize that Heritage quality v. Gibson justify the new prices that largely erase the substantial savings once available by buying a Heritage. In my experience most new guitar buyers base their purchase on: 1)what advertising tells them; and 2)whether the new one will fit under their credit card limit. Since Heritage is doing so little to compete on #1, seems a bad time to surrender so much of the advantage on #2.
OldCrow Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 Funny, Wolfe told me he ordered Sperzels because they were the only tuners still made in America ...but that was a couple of years ago. There's another issue here. What competitive advantage would an Asian CNC-made "Heritage Session" guitar have over an Asian CNC-made Epiphone by Gibson guitar? Epiphone benefits from the international reputation and enormous advertising budget of Gibson, as well as a scale of production that has allowed Gibson to control production and quality ...not to mention Gibson's access to marketing through MF and GC and Best Buys, and especially in the current economic climate. Would it be a reasonable market strategy for Heritage to take on Epiphone? To be honest, I worry that the recent substantial price increases by Heritage endangers the market niche they've thus far maintained. Granted, each of us makes their own calculation about what justifies a guitar purchase --and please, don't shoot the messenger, I love Heritage guitars and hope only the best for their future-- but when I compare the new Heritage prices to the used market prices and think about likely trends as demand decreases and purchasers become even more concerned with reputation and resell value, I wonder. I'm afraid they've chosen a bad time to gamble that the market will recognize that Heritage quality v. Gibson justify the new prices that largely erase the substantial savings once available by buying a Heritage. In my experience most new guitar buyers base their purchase on: 1)what advertising tells them; and 2)whether the new one will fit under their credit card limit. Since Heritage is doing so little to compete on #1, seems a bad time to surrender so much of the advantage on #2. I agree when you say that there isn't a conceivable way for Heritage to compete against Epiphone, especially now with the push from Gibson to make Epi a house brand and make Gibson, once again, the brand of the stars and truly serious. But I disagree with the price increase on new Heritage instruments, even at the price they are at now I can still, as a lefty, get a Heritage 150, custom to my few specs and it's STILL less than a new Gibson LP Standard (in lefty mind you) AND I can get the color of my choice. I think Heritage is doing fine with the path they're on now, and any deviation of that path would put them in peril at this point.
shook494 Posted December 5, 2008 Posted December 5, 2008 I like the way Heritage is right now. I agree with most here. We don't need another Asian made guit. I got rid of my Korean made few and I'm now sticking with American Made. I just prefer them.
Andy R Posted December 6, 2008 Posted December 6, 2008 Considering Heritage's relatively low price point, I don't think that a "budget" line would really make a lot of sense. I wonder how well those G&L "Tributes" are doing? A used American G&L sells for about the same as a new "Tribute", and that doesn't make sense to me. I passed on a nice 150 today for $800, and your "session" wouldn't list for much less. Also, I think that the jury is still out on Henry's business acumen. I certainly wouldn't invest with him!
golferwave Posted December 7, 2008 Posted December 7, 2008 Considering Heritage's relatively low price point, I don't think that a "budget" line would really make a lot of sense. I wonder how well those G&L "Tributes" are doing? A used American G&L sells for about the same as a new "Tribute", and that doesn't make sense to me. I passed on a nice 150 today for $800, and your "session" wouldn't list for much less. Also, I think that the jury is still out on Henry's business acumen. I certainly wouldn't invest with him! About 3 years ago I bought a brand new H-150 in OSB from Jay with a beautiful flamed maple top for $1,299.00. At the time new LP STD's were going for about $1,899.00. Now a new H-150 is just a couple of hundred dollars away from the price of a new LP. With the current resale value on these guitars I'm not sure that Heritage can get much closer to the new price of an LP without hurting their market share. The OSB H-150 plays better than any new LP I've ever had. Makes me feel like I got a steal on this one. I agree with your analysis of investing with Henry.
freshmattyp Posted December 7, 2008 Posted December 7, 2008 Rather than go with an overseas guitar, I'd love to see them bring the H 120 back to the market. I'd buy one in a hot minute.
brentrocks Posted December 7, 2008 Posted December 7, 2008 Rather than go with an overseas guitar, I'd love to see them bring the H 120 back to the market. I'd buy one in a hot minute. i would like to see them do some bolt-ons too...w/ floyds and kool stuff like that
freshmattyp Posted December 7, 2008 Posted December 7, 2008 i would like to see them do some bolt-ons too...w/ floyds and kool stuff like that HERETIC! ;D
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