Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Piano shops aren't surviving

Interesting. And funny! Especially the bit about guitarists disguising themselves on youtube. We are talking about adult guitarists, I assume. Which just makes it that much funnier - grown humans going to that much trouble for such a silly reason. What, I wonder, do they think their parents will do? fall down dead from the shame of having a guitarist in the family?

tiger parents make me sick. and I say that as an Asian parent. but I don't care if mine drop out of school and learn the banjo, as long as they earn their keep and follow their passions

I just visited one of those sales.

It was something like £150 off some acoustic pianos.

The only ones in my price range were tiny dwarf pianos without the full 88 keys. Or ones with WORSE touch than my casio. How is that even possible!

I got chatting to the staff there who hovered behind me for a few minutes, he kept insisting this £4K Yamaha (which in his defence did sound lovely) was right up my street.

But aside from me in there for a whole hour, nobody else came into the shop.

Beethoven is right.

My dad and grandfather were in the tuning business too. My dad taught me not only how to tune but also how to run it. Honesty was ALWAYS top on his list. Next was morals, ethics and of course, he always stressed quality. Quality and honesty is something that is lacking in so, so, many businesses today. I see it lacking in the tuning business constantly.

Dad always said that in hard times, those that generally deserve to go out should go out. Those that don't know how to run a business may go out and those that are the most unethical will be one of the first to go in many cases. I'm seeing that with tuners too. Some can't make it for many of these reasons and then some, so have left to go into something else. It may have needed weeding out.....

American tends to shop more for price over quality not only in the appliance or piano buying industry as we see posted here continually "is this a good price" but also in the quality department. Many do not even consider quality, just price assuming that one tuner is like another which isn't further from the truth. It is the same with all types of busineses. As I have said many times before, you get what you pay for in many cases if not most.

You remind me of many car mechanics around here.

In the UK we have a road worthiness test every year after the first 36 months a car has been on the road.

There are a lot of dodgy mechanics who will fail a perfectly fine car in order to make money on the workshop side of things.

I've caught several of them at it.


In fact it reminds me of a lot of things. Opticians who every single year tell you your eyes have gotten weaker. Therefore you need a completely new pair which is very very slightly stronger.

I always get two eye tests and look over last year and never bring me glasses to an eye test.

i work for a major dealer here in the states and i can tell you that, for the last year, business has been extremely rough. as a sales guy, i can assure everyone that less and less people are considering grands and even verticals. most of our business is digitals. which is a sad thought from my experience because most of the digitals are just being bought by parents who want to spend the least amount of money on their kids, shying away from a $5,000 quality acoustic piano that could last a century for a $1500-$2000 digital. people's priorities are just mixed up. so many people are buying new $30-40,000 cars every 3-4 years so they can keep their status up but they're reluctant to even spend $5,000 on something that will last a lifetime.

Water seeks its own level. We will have enough piano shops that we need based on demand. No more, no less.

Modern technology permeates our lives, or at least for those of us who live in contemporary "western" societies. It is not surprising that piano manufacturers are complying with the demand for less expensive pianos in providing cheaper "digitals". It certainly helps the large manufacturers ride through these rough, economic times. I agree that it is disappointing that priority spending on cars, which in their current form, have serious implications for the environment and city planning, takes precedence over the purchase of fine instruments of invaluable cultural enrichment and individual, intellectual enhancement. We live in a world of shifting values, steeped in materialism and "the reality is" kind of thinking. In my view, the truth is that a future generation of parents will come to their senses and make learning the piano for their children, non negotiable. In other words, I am optimistic that with the commitment of governments, educators and parents, better times are ahead for the piano industry.

Kind regards,

Robert.

Stephen Foster wrote a wonderful song entitled:

"Beautiful Dreamer"

I hadn't thought of that.

And nobody knows what that "level" will be.....

Norbert

Clef
"...So many other businesses, which want to move product, use advertizing to stimulate demand, but piano makers seem to know better."

Furtwangler
"...There are 4 ads for piano makers on this page alone."

Clef
Preaching to the choir. Or, targeted marketing, to say it another way. But I was talking about mass marketing, intended to inform people (whose attention it had escaped) that they desire a certain product.

Instead of wresting sales interest from one brand to another, it actually generates new sales and creates a broader--- and less precarious--- base.

Stephen Foster wrote a wonderful song entitled:

"Beautiful Dreamer"

Dear Furtwangler,
There is also a wonderful truism that "sarcasm is the lowest form of wit".

Kind regards,

Robert.

Glad to have helped..

You ever think that pianos stores are similar to the companies that sold buggy whips that Danny Devito speaks about in Other People's Money?

... an increasing share of a shrinking market ... ?

If I had the space and the money for monthly tunings ... and regular maintenance, I'd own a nine foot Bösendorfer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7rvupKipmY

I think of myself as a wit.

My wife says I am half right.

Just as long as there are always enough Estonia dealers - that's all I really care about.

What the majority of members of this forum do not appreciate is the very small size of most piano mfrs. You might be astonished to find how small they are - including some of those advertising on this page.

They cannot afford "mass marketing". Not even close.

A small "mass marketing" budget would dwarf their annual sales volume.

And thus they certainly cannot - and should not even consider - attempting to "broaden the base". That would be suicidal, especially in a declining product category like acoustic pianos. It would be like trying to hold back the tide with a broom.

This reminds me of a clip I show my Survey of Calculus students regarding elasticity of demand.

From "The Wire"--profanity warning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGgRtiCVo2w

Perhaps you don't realize that some people's priorities have changed, and I wouldn't concede they are mixed up. For instance, until a few years ago I wasted hours driving through traffic to retail stores, dealing with salesman that didn't know their products or could care less that I got the best product for my needs, settled for products of the "wrong" brand that were in stock at one store or drove all over town to find a store that had the right brand, etc. etc. etc. My priorities were mixed up then. Now I buy a huge amount of stuff over the net whenever I can and save my time and frustration for more worthy priorities.

People change their priorities to better use their time and energy (physical and emotional) when better opportunities or better ways of doing things become available. Perhaps the move to digital pianos is in part because many people are fed up with some of the practices of the acoustic piano industry and now have a digital alternative. My recent negative buying experiences were discussed above so I won't reiterate them again here. Except to say, that anyone that willingly participates in the "car dealer sales process" to buy a piano is an idiot in my mind. I quit buying cars that way over 30 years ago and wasn't about to do it again to buy a piano now. (Unfortunately, the poor quality in the acoustic piano industry, and the lack of competition and scarcity of product in piano stores precludes many methods of working around their archaic process that are easy to use in the car industry.)

Now that we've all moaned about the reality.....what is the fix? Is there a fix? Should Guitar Center and Sam Ash be selling acoustic pianos? At least people come to those stores and would get exposed to acoustic pianos, if they were sold there. I haven't seen much traffic in the piano stores lately. Improved economy won't be enough. The young folks are of a digital mind. One store I visited sells 75% digital, 25% acoustic. I give it 20 years, and folks will yearn for a new acoustic piano, because all they can afford is a digital. Just as many yearn for a Steinway or other similar concert quality instrument today.

I predicted the coming digital dominance some 5 years ago in these forums. I'm sad to say my suggestions then have come true.