What is with the purported “MSRP” that you see on all new music gear? I used to get Musicians Friend in the mail and EVERY single item was 20-40% off MSRP which sounds like a great deal until you realize that EVERY dealer sells the shit at the same price. Every dealer sells the same guitar for pretty much the same price. Same goes for every piece of gear I’ve ever seen. And it’s ALWAYS some obscene % off MSRP like 25-70% off. Guitar Center always has everything for 20% off or more.
Does MSRP mean ANYTHING?? Do people really buy into the “great deals”? I know there are many manufacturers that inflate their suggest retail price but why is music gear always so inflated by manufactures?
Here is the way it works for music gear. If the list is $1000 the store buys it for about $500 and sells it for around $700. In most cases cars are the same, you don’t pay the list price. It’s just a system to make you feel better. Most people know the list price doesn’t mean anything except in rare cases.
(Of course in some cases they might sell it for $500 or slightly less just to clear room for new stuff. )
Part of this is that nearly every dealer is Musician’s Friend. Guitar Center? Same company. Music 123? Them too. Woodwind-Brasswind? Same guys. Some unknown dealer you picked up by googling a piece of music gear? It turns out to be a portal that leads you back to Musician’s Friend. Hence not surprising that their prices are consistent…
When I bought my first bass amp as a teenager, I paid 60% of list which I assumed was a good deal. Later on, I was talking with a friend of my father who was a musician, and he told me I got a bad deal because I didn’t haggle at all. He offered to help me get a better deal on my next purchase. (That didn’t happen because he’d lost touch by the time I got another amp.)
A few years ago I bought some home hi-fi speakers from an audio shop. I was offered list price, and haggled it down to 10% off. I wasn’t sure if I had been ripped off, so I went and asked in an audiophile forum what the typical discount in that field was, and people seemed appalled that I expected any discount at all.
I used to spend a lot of time on a mandolin website. The assertion there (and some retailers were participants) was that the major producers (Gibson, Weber and Collings) all restricted their authorized dealers from selling below 90% or MSRP. I’m not sure if there was a legal mechanism other than “If you want to call yourself an authorized dealer…”.
Some music instrument companies try to keep prices near list but that is not common. Gibson guitars are sold at 70% of list. In some cases they are even cheaper than that.