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I hate to see dealers involved in unethical (and illegal?) behavior, though I must admit that I have seen enough unethical behavior on the part of so-called authorized dealers to last me a lifetime (but I don't expect to be purchasing another piano in this lifetime, so I may not have to see it.)

But it seems to me this is a dealers'/manufacturers' problem, not the customer's. The customer has the right to honest information about warranties (knowing that 95% of pianos never need a repair authorized under a warranty anyway -- it is usually taken care of by the local tech), honest information about price (often extremely difficult to obtain from dealers, authorized or not), and about service (equally difficult to obtain.)

Customers should not be expected to be policemen. It is hard enough to be a customer! Frankly, I have no reason to believe that the dealer in this case of the "unauthorized Grotrian" is any more unethical than the authorized one, and, from what I've heard, has delivered on warranty, price, and service. Maybe some of the authorized dealers out there (not on this list of course!) should take note.

seems to me that some of this confusion would be eliminated if manufacturers identified their authorized dealers on their websites. Most of them do not. You are invited to fill out a form and may, or may not get a reply. Posting the information directly on a manufacturer's site would take some effort to keep the list up to date but I think it would be worth it.

Yesterday, i spoke to a Chicago area dealer who told me he had several new Forster grands on the floor. This dealer does not identify the Forster brand on their site and I asked whehter they were authorized dealers. The answer was evasive. To my knowldege (and I may be wrong) their is no authorized Forster dealer in the Chicago The area.To be fair, the person I spoke to may not have known and this dealler has a good reputarion around here. A posting on Forster's web site would have cleared this up quickly.

A slightly off-topic, yet real-life example of how this works is when I bought some studio monitors a few years ago from a friend of mine who is a pro audio dealer. As he is a friend (and not just a friendly dealer), I trust him in every way. However, he is not an authorized dealer for the speakers that I had decided on. He told me it wouldn't be a problem, and that he could get them "sideways". He purchased them from a large dealer in Hollywood for 5% over cost. He then added another 5% on his end. This translated into the same 10% over cost that he would have given me on anything that he did carry. While I did not lose on price, he assured me that he wouldn't have taken such a small cut if I were a "normal" customer. He also told me that the arrangement he had with the dealer in Hollywood was a reciprocal thing. They often purchased gear from him for the same mark-up.

The interesting wrinkle was when one of the woofers blew a few months later. I had a receipt from my friend's company, but that wouldn't do much good with the manufacturer. The dealer in Hollywood had recently closed its doors after decades in business. I was out of luck in terms of a warranty.

The story does have a happy ending: Since the manufacturer was actually very close to my house, I decided to drive over without so much as a phone call. (what did I have to lose?) They treated me very well upon walking into their lobby unannounced with a busted speaker. They not only replaced my speaker, but even tested & adjusted the good speaker to provide a proper "match" between the two. It was only after I left that I realized that they never even asked for my receipt. Although the manufacturer never said this, I believe they took care of me because they were an up-and-coming company that badly needed a strong user base. Now that they're achieving great success, I wonder if they'd do the same?

This thread is incredible, what a slew of ideas,observations and ethical conundrums.
Alex also make sure the Förster you look at is a German not a czech instrument.

Alex H:

Good point. I did not think of that even though, as a regular addict...er...visitor, I should have. Thanks.

Alex F.

A couple of thoughts:

First, Beethoven's Grotrians are "Grotrian-Steinwegs," which I believe is a name only seen on the European-bound pianos. Someone astute enough (astute enough to be considering a Grotrian!), would notice this. Yes, the set-up is a bummer to other dealers, and should Beethoven close its doors, Grotrian-Beethoven warranty holders would be out of luck. That's a risk that every customer has to consider (as Pique did). But they are filling some need. I didn't see an authorized Grotrian dealer in New York. Maybe there is one, I don't know. I do know that I talked to the U.S distributor and they are very unhappy about the Beethoven situation.

Second, about Faust Harrison. When I was there, Mr. Harrison went on and on how the only worthy new grand piano was a M&H. He would never offer any other brand. The only reason he offered S-P verticals was to offer a variety of verticals M&H does not. So I find it quite surprising that he is now taking over the Estonia dealership for New York. As well respected as they are (and their pianos are fabulous), it just goes to show you what a salesman can and will say. I remember specifically him telling me that M&H were the only piano he COULD sell because they were the only ones he believed in. I told him if I had a dime ...

penny

There is another side of this that complicates things even further. I have experienced manufacturers (not piano makers) who are somewhat double-tongued about unauthorized dealers and their policies on warranties. They will state publically that their policy is not to honor a warranty on a product purchased outside their dealer network. However, when faced with an irate customer who just learned he/she doesn't have a warranty, the manufacturer will cave in fear that they will ignite backlash against the brand instead of the dealer who is the real culprit. While this may service an individual customer, it does so at the expense of the honest dealers out there.

Alex F., if you want to find out if that Chicago dealer is an authorized dealer for genuine German Forsters, contact GermanAmer@aol.com, August Forster's contact for America.

Alex H.

I recently compared the two August Forester's, the German and the Czech. The German one was twice the price as the Czech one, and I honestly didn't see that much more piano.

They were both nice pianos, but they shouldn't be compared.

I don't think that the Czech ones are available in the U.S.

lb

Re warranties:

That [damn] paper is only worth what the manufacturer [which backs the 'authorized' retail store!]is willing to accept as his resonsibility.

First of all, all manufacturers have pre-printed and brand specific warranty cards which are only to be given to their appointed dealers.

Second, and most importantly, the warranty will show its true face only when 'put into action' at the time a [serious] claim is made and forwarded to the manufacturer.

How about cracks in soundboard [rare but possible] or just easing one lousy key when the customer lives in Tim-Buck-Two and the next tech is 3 hours away?

Who pays for what, when and for how long?

Hey,I'm facing this very situation right now
and the company [Y.C.] is coughing up a tech to fly in from the civilized world to help my customer somewhere out in the great Canadian wilderness.

Beats getting only 'airmiles'......I guess!

Norbert Marten
www.heritagepianos.com

I'm not one usually to stir the pot on this forum, but let me see if I have this straight:

1. Piano manufacturer sets up a local monopoly by allowing only one dealership of a given brand in a particular metropolitan area.

2. Piano manufacturer reinforces that local monopoly by forbidding all dealers of its piano from quoting prices on the phone.

3. Joe Consumer has no way of knowing whether he is getting a good deal on the manufacturer's piano unless he drives he drives to Timbuktu 3 hours away to another "authorized" dealership or is fortunate enough to use this forum or know someone in the piano business (which is no guarantee because of all of the incentives that dealers give to technicians, teachers, etc.).

4. Dealership complains when Joe, deprived of the opportunity to garner meaningful information, obtains the identical piano from a cross-town competitor for less $ than the local monopoly dealer is asking, and cross-town competitor buys the piano from a third dealer and resells it to Joe Consumer.

Excuse me if I don't shed a tear for the "authorized" dealer, but it seems to me that he is simply being deprived of the benefit of a system otherwise tilted in his favor and against Joe Consumer. That hardly qualifies as a tragedy; rather, the dealer simply is being subjected to -- horrors -- competition.

That being said, there is a better way for the dealer to protect his franchise and his business: offer value for the $. The value could be in wonderful preparation, in standing behind a product, in low-pressure salesmanship, or in extraordinarily low overhead that allows the dealer to sell for less.

As for warranties, the key question is what the warranty says. Some warranties are nontransferable. This, of course, hurts a manufacturer competitively in a sense because it will make it slightly more difficult for Joe Consumer to sell the piano when the 5 year-old prodigy gives up the piano after 4 weeks and instead spends time chasing frogs in the local creek. So the manufacturer, as many do, make the warranties transferable, which of course means that they are enforceable against the manufacturer unless something else in the warranty precludes that. Unfortunately for the dealer (who otherwise benefits from the transferability of the warranty), that also makes it easier for the grey market to flourish.

Thus, dealers, the name of the game is value, value, value. Offer it, and they will come, because then you have a legitimate competitive advantage. But don't go crying because your price is sufficiently inflated that it pays another dealer to pay a third dealer for a piano (for a profit, to be sure), ship it, and then sell it to a consumer for significantly less than the "authorized" dealer.

Will this help to reach 10 pages?

Jim L.

Yikes. Maybe 11. Jodi

Oh, and LOFL.

Jim L

Your theory in the long run benefits neither the consumer the dealer nor the manufacturer. They will all lose.

I have spent my life in manufacturing and have seen this idiological theory applied to labor relations. It has shut down more companies and put more people out of work than it has benefited.

lb

lb,

With all due respect, you need to support your argument. Why won't what Jim L. suggests work?

The retailers benefit from a local monopoly. Please explain to me how this benefits the customers.

A question for the dealers here:
Aren't there requirements for becoming an authorized dealer? Is there a "fee"? Are there inventory requirements such as maintaining a certain dollar amount of inventory? Or a certain number of units? Is there training involved? How about required advertising? It seems to me that the dealer selling grey market goods reaps all the benefit without any of the cost or responsibility. Perhaps one should simply open a "Piano Store" without becoming an authorized dealer of anything and simply sell grey market product.

For Jim L: Doesn't a manufacturer have the right to influence how their products are sold to the public? Doesn't this right extend to placing restrictions on it's dealers? Don't these restrictions help build a product's resale value? I see the downside of the territorial issues. But there's got be a happy medium here, right?

Jim, don't take any of this as an attack. I like you. But your post shows a complete misunderstanding of how business - not just the piano business, but business period - works. And you it's a bit misleading because you fail to mention that one of the things you do is find pianos for people for a fee, using this very method on occasion. It is useful to the reader to know that as they read your opinion.

Surely you are aware that the piano business is not the only business that follows this method of doing business. When was the last time you drove by a new car dealership and saw a sign outside that just said "New Cars - All Brands"? When was the last time you went into an appliance store that offered all brands? Or a furniture store? Or clothing? Electronics? What do you find where every conceiveable brand made can be found in the same store? Soft drinks? Food? What else?

My point is this: far from the cynical view you have painted of "monopolies" or "greedy dealers" or having the system "tilted against the consumer as the reason why manufacturers limit distribution, the real reason is basic business. Practically every item made is sold through limited distribution. And while there are many reasons this has been proven over and over to be the only way the system can work, the biggest reason is the exact opposite of what you seem to believe. Instead of serving to somehow "limit" the consumer, it protects him by protecting the business as a whole.

Let me explain. Let's follow your advice to its ultimate conclusion. Every dealer in the country can order any brand he wants. No problems. There are no checks and balances built in to determine who is a legitimate dealer, so anyone who wants to call up and say they are in the piano business can order whatever they want. That means that now, you won't have to rely on those awful "authorized dealers" any longer, Jim. You can just call up any manufacturer and order it direct. All's well in the piano world, right?

No. The piano business is going to die. For a short period of time, manufacturers see a jump in sales volume. But they know it is going to be shortlived. You see, the first thing that's going to happen is they are going to begin losing their established dealers. You know, the ones who have mortgaged their homes, hung themselves out on a limb financially in an effort to make a living selling their products. Once these guys begin to see there is no profit in their products anymore, they are going to quit risking their money ordering them.

The entire process hinges on profit. Not obscene profit like you seem to think we make, just a decent profit. The manufacturer isn't building pianos out of some desire to support the arts. He is building pianos to make money. Dealers don't go to work every day out of a benevolent desire to promote the arts. They go to work for the same reason you do - to get paid.

Now if you're selling a commodity, that's one thing. But no one has to have a piano. We *want* pianos, and there's a big difference. Now that consumers can buy any brand they want in any store they go into, if you think the vast majority of them will buy from the guy who isn't pushy, who tries to compete by offering them the best service, etc. you are sadly mistaken. They will buy from the guy who quotes them the lowest price. Face it - isn't that your beef anyway, that the current system doesn't allow the consumer to get the lowest price? Well, now that all the brands are in all the stores, that's exactly what you'll get. Dirt cheap.

The first thing dealers will do to try to compete is stop servicing pianos. Next, they'll start cutting out any extras. Next, they'll take their marbles and go do something else. Eventually, you'll have one dealer in town who stayed on top. He now has not only a monopoly on brands, he has a monopoly on outlets. And now *he* dictates to the manufacturers what he wants, and what he will do. And do you really think he will continue to be as competitive as he used to be once all his competition has gone on to other things? Of course not. Do you really think he will continue to stock every brand? Of course not. He will stock what he wants to stock. And the result will be the end of the "boom" for the manufacturers.

Now, in an effort to survive, they will send their sales reps out trying to find someone to carry their brands, but there won't be anyone. So manufacturers will begin to drop out of the business as well. Eventually there will be one dealer in a town, maybe two in bigger markets, and two or three piano manufacturers.

Once the dealer network is shot, and the monopoly you were so incensed about has shifted to this new form of monopoly, and most of the manufacturers are out of business, you will begin to notice other things as well. With only one or two piano makers left, and only one or two piano dealers per town left, marketing the idea of owning a piano will drop drastically. And fewer people will think about wanting one.

This scenario has played out already many times over in the past. Fisher Stereo systems used to be the top of the line. They limited distribution, and built high quality products. They had a dealer network who promoted their products, explained the benefits of owning them, provided service to their customers for them, the works. Then Fisher got greedy. They went mass market. Any department store, furniture store, you name it, could become a Fisher stereo dealer. Today, you'll find Fisher stereos in the budget section of big box electronics stores. Cheap, poor quality. I could give you example after example like this where a manufacturer decided to try just what you suggest.

Look at any big item you care to mention, and you'll find that if there's any quality to the product at all, distribution is limited. Ford doesn't sell cars to the Chevy dealer. Fridgidaire doesn't sell refrigerators to the Hotpoint dealer. And they don't for a very good reason. They have the good sense to understand that if you don't establish a solid dealer network, you risk finding yourself dead in the water. And the quickest way to end up without a dealer network is to stop supporting a dealer network. The consumer wins for a short time, but in the long run you ruin the industry, and you really *do* end up with a monopoly - one that dictates to the manufacturers, who has no incentive to compete any longer, no incentive to provide good service, and an extremely short list of choices. And every time someone cheats the system, one consumer wins, but the network that keeps the whole thing running is weakened. Do it enough, and you kill the goose.

The beginning stages of this can be seen by paying attention to what's happening with digital pianos. If it keeps going the way it is heading, in a few years there will only be two companies making them in any real quantities, and only two dealers selling them. Already, they dictate to the manufacturers. I've already quit carrying any, and many dealers I know are following suit. The profit motive is gone. Before long they will be nothing more than something you find on a shelf at Circuit City or some place like that, with no salesman who can show you the features, or to help you comparison shop, no service department, no after the sale service of any kind. It will be like you've bought a toaster oven.

Is this really what you want to see happen to the piano industry? If you want to have product variety, good dealers, good service, and quality products, you need to hope and pray that nothing else happens to weaken the profit motive of the dealer network. Because once we all quit, your only choice will be a GH-1 in ebony polish. But never fear, it will be sold in every store in town, even maybe the local Texaco dealer.

Here's a real life example that involves me. In the 80s I owned a chain of piano stores in Tennessee. I began selling grandfather clocks when no one in town carried them. I showed them to their best advantage, had salespeople who were trained in how they were made, how they worked, etc. And we soon became one of the largest grandfather clock retailers in the United states. We averaged 30 clocks per week, per store. A couple of dealer friends of mine got into the clock business as well, and between the three of us the manufacturer had to double their factory. They were so thrilled that they sent their sales reps out all over the country to visit piano stores, with letters I wrote for them to convince the piano dealer that clock sales fit well with the piano business.

But they got greedy. All the furniture stores in town saw how many we were selling, and in spite of the dealer agreement I had with them, the manufacturer violated it. They began selling them to anyone and everyone who would place an order. After nearly 5 years of pace setting sales, in one year they flooded my market with clock dealers. I could no longer make any money on them, so I quit selling them. Once I quit marketing them, the other dealers found their sales dropping, so they lost interest. In one more year, clock sales in that town went to no more than a couple of dozen clocks per year, and today no one in town sells clocks. The manufacturer had to lay off nearly half their workers, and shut down a large part of their facility. Today, you hardly ever see anyone anywhere selling grandfather clocks. But I'll bet that no matter where you lived, in the early 80s you saw a whole lot of grandfather clocks for sale in your town.

Sorry for the long post, but this is just plain business sense. And to quote you, excuse me for not shedding a tear for those who don't get it, and think they are improving things for the consumer by promoting the very thing that could kill it.

Larry & Jim,

Perhaps I'm looking at this too simplistically, but it seems to me that a significant number of problems both of you discuss could be eliminated if the 'sticker price' was exactly what every customer paid for the piano.

Comments?

Derick

wow. an explosion unleashed. sorry, guys, but i am on the road for work and no way can i respond in detail to everything that has been said since my little post of a mere 24 hours ago.

this thread is now bringing out the subterranean theme of this board, which is how a customer's best interests and a dealer's best interests are not always the same. i can't really get into larry's long and detailed post, but i'll try to address some of the other questions that were raised.

first of all, i bought this piano from such a long distance and from an unauthorized dealer after shopping for a year and a half all over the u.s. and canada. i bought it after playing new and used grotrians from authorized dealers. i bought it after corresponding with the grotrian factory and talking on the phone with the u.s. distributor. i bought it after hiring an independent tech to inspect it, and after receiving the very best of advice from some knowledgeable people on this board, some of whom had also played this piano, some of whom are dealers and know of my dealer.

i bought it because i fell in love with it, far and beyond and above any other piano i had played, new or used, grotrian or not. it was the piano with my heart and name on it. i didn't care about authorized or unauthorized, i only cared if it was in new condition, if the dealer was someone i could trust, and if i could find a way to swing paying for it.

i did my homework. i decided that for all intents and purposes, it was a used piano, and i treated the purchase as if it was a used piano. grotrian does not transfer its warranties if the pianos are sold used before their five year warranty is up. but grotrian is not known for making lemons, and i had it on good authority that i could trust this dealer to honor his ten year warranty, in the event that something did happen.

i also did the math. if i were to have bought this piano used from a private seller, i would still have paid quite a bit more. this was a great deal, but i didn't buy it because it was a great deal. i bought it because i loved it. the fact that it was a great deal just meant that owning it was possible. you could have shown me a better deal on a bosie and i wouldn't have touched it. i wouldn't have taken a bosie for free.

the problem the piano has now is simply due to shipping. i had it inspected both before and after shipping. traveling for seven days (crated) by truck and rail shook loose a few bolts and my tech didn't catch this (i'm now shopping for a new tech). i'm lucky that the dealer's tech wants to come out here in march. but the downbearing is fine, the rim is fine, the soundboard is fine, everything is sound on it. it just needs a good regulation and voicing, and the best person to do that is the person who originally prepped it for sale, who knows exactly what i bought, and who can return the piano to that condition.

i think it is great that the dealer is willing to do this to make sure i am happy.

i bought a new/used, or a used/new piano. nobody here would be slamming this purchase if i had bought it from a private seller. what beethoven did, any one of us could do, and we would not be breaking any laws--they went to germany, bought the piano for the german price (which is considerably less than what it goes for here) and then shipped it back to the u.s. and resold it.

would it be a problem with any of the authorized dealers if i did this myself?--i could fly to germany and buy the piano from a german dealer and have it shipped here. they can't stop me from doing that. people do it to buy mercedes benzes all the time.

there is no authorized grotrian dealer in new york city. amazing, but true. so, beethoven's is filling a need and a niche.

i sorry to hear they lost the estonia dealership. faust harrison already had estonia pianos last year, btw, they just didn't have them in their new york showroom. they got into estonia because of one of their young sales reps, a julliard grad who turned the dealership on to the piano as an alternative for young and starving artists.

Brad

With all due respect, there is no way I could have explained it as well as Larry.

It was late and I was tired, and I knew that Larry would respond.

lb