Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Pros and Cons of posting prices paid for pianos.

I just posted a price I was quoted for a Seiler 208 on another thread ("Reverse Sticker-Shock?"). I was a little uncomfortable doing so, but several other members had posted comments that brought me back to earth, so I didn't think it would hurt anything.

Thanks to those members, I can now take a bit more distanced view of the situation, and decide based more on how much I like the instrument, rather than on what a potential bargain it may or may not be (though the two are not mutually exclusive).

My father, who was a very, very sharp businessman, taught me that a fair price is when both parties walk away satisfied. (He also bequeathed to me a deep love of music. :))

We consumers have every right to scrounge for the best price and to bargain hard, but we also have to keep in mind that no two pianos are the same, and that the goal is to end up with the one we love the most at the price we can afford. We also have to understand that the dealer is entitled to a profit.

If knowing the approximate street price of an instrument, a consumer and a dealer can still agree on a number that satisfies both, great.

...Just my opinion...

What you say may well be true, but, usually, the motive behind the motive is to help someone else, buyer or seller (or both), or to learn something or to share something already learned that may be helpful to someone else.

The good that Piano World imparts to members, visitors and the online community far outweighs the bad, in my view.

Were my reasons for posting this thread selfish? Probably. But it was also to make a point that might benefit someone else in the future.

And, I reiterate... be careful what you post on the internet!

Rick

Sir,

Because of the nature of different costs and different amount of clientele for a given brand within a given territory, dealers all sign agreements with their vendors that direct how and when pricing (other than MSRP) can be discussed. That might be the reason for little dealer activity here.

There are many reasons for this. The most relevant to this thread is to prevent a man who stocks one xxxx brand console in Death Valley from taking phone orders on the xxxx brand concert grand and drop shipping them to Los Angeles where the local dealer maintains three of them on his showroom floor, actively rents and promotes them, and spends thousands marketing them each year.

My 2 cents,

I appreciate the sensitivities of authorized dealers to this topic. One challenge territorial dealers increasingly have in all lines of business is that the internet makes it easy to locate product outside of the territory where one resides. This is a threat to the "authorized territory" model. I'm not judging this as good or bad either way, merely observing.

Elon Musk is turning the car business upside down by having company-owned showrooms, but not having dealers with territories. This seems unlikely in the piano business on a brand by brand basis (manufacturer-owned store) because so far, no manufacturer could afford to set up a chain of stores.

Having said that, pricing is a negotiable that should take into account all the other factors such as support, warranty, etc. And that price is driven by the economic situation of the two parties involved in the sale.

If a dealer is cash-strapped one month and lets a piano go at cost to raise cash, is that wrong? I don't think so. If I share on a blog that I bought a new piano at dealer cost, is that wrong? I don't think so. If I share the price? I think that's an issue only if I had a verbal agreement that I would not share the price.

All valid points, and I agree with them.

Whether or not someone wants to post the price they paid for a piano (or sold) here on Piano World is up to the individual. There is no PW rule, per-se on that particular subject.

However, in my example in this thread, my decision to do so sort of came back to haunt me (or at least irritate me ) to some extent. And, at my age, the less irritation the better.

Rick

From the consumer standpoint it's the territory thing that I think is the most troublesome. I flew to Texas to pick out my piano and it was well worth the trip (both generally and financially). Car dealers are similar, but you will usually find half a dozen dealers for a given make within a day's drive, depending on where you live. If it weren't for tax and registration overhead, I think a lot of people would shop for cars out of state as well, though margins are not as high as they seem to be on some pianos.

Also interesting point, Rickster, about posts on PW unexpectedly complicating resale! I think in light of that, I would refrain from publicly posting exactly how much I paid for my B, though I have shared that information with a few people via PM.

Hi,

I would like to add a small twist. For me, this was the definitive post on listing prices...................

https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubb...f%20a%20new%20Kawai%20RX%203%20Blak.html

The thread was such a hot potato, even Ken Knapp posted. And Rickster, consistent as ever, echoed his view then, as he does now. It's still a touchy subject for members and dealers alike, just ask BrianDX!

I would never post what I paid but I'm sure glad others do! Point being, information is power. I wanted to know a decent selling price for this model and found my answer, right here. Since that time, other soon to be RX3 owners have asked for my help in this regard. To me, that's what the PM button is for.........blob

Sharing atypically low selling prices does an injustice to the shopper, by setting up a false expectation and often moving them to comparably priced brands of lesser quality and value; the dealers who lose sales due to their inability to match atypically low prices; and to the manufactures who lose sales to competitors of lower quality instruments.

However shoppers want reasonable pricing guidance. That's why Piano Buyer created the SMP and the explanation of the 10%-30% discount from the SMP. It is fair to both the consumer and the industry.

Also, there would be no way for you to verify whether the prices were real... data could easily be forged to skew the results.

Meh...if I were Rick in that situation I'd tell the buyer if she can find a better deal then go for it. The reason why she wanted to buy Rick's piano is it was probably the best deal she could find. What Rick paid is irrelevant - the only thing that matters is what other options the buyer has. If zombies take over the world and Rick's piano is the last one standing, then he can probably get millions for it, even if he only paid $200.

It's like if someone bought Apple stock back in the late 90's for $1, is he expected to sell it for $1?

I think it's good that people post prices online. It wouldn't be necessary if buying a piano wasn't so opaque. If dealers didn't have so much price discrimination and/or put actual, firm selling prices then people wouldn't worry about getting ripped off so much and have to come to PW to get some guidance, or just skip the headache altogether and buy a digital from Amazon.

PB's 10-30% wasn't very helpful for me. For one, that's a pretty big range. But for California sticker prices are often below his max discount.

Anyway, it's like Yelp. Some people love writing reviews, some people would never. As long as enough people do it should paint a fairly accurate picture. There are always people who want to write Yelp reviews, post piano prices, review toilet bowl cleaners on Amazon, respond to messages on PW, it's all self-expression - apparently fills some need.

The discount range has to be reasonably large because there are so many factors, many of them listed in the Pisno Buyer, besides the wholesale price that determine what a dealer will sell a piano for. If you find that many dealers are giving a discount more than 30% then it would be reasonable to use that larger discount as a goal when buying a piano in your area. The 10-30% discount range is not meant to mean that a piano will never sell for a discount less than 10% or greater than 30%.

I think more information is almost always better. If someone posts the price they paid, and it turns out to be a deal unlikely to be matched, I'll figure that out on my own soon enough. Meanwhile, I'm sure there would be plenty of posters on the forum pointing that out. No harm done.

As a consumer, it is up to me to sift through all of the sometimes conflicting information in order to navigate the marketplace of whatever I'm buying. As I said, I think more is better.

But perhaps most importantly, I didn't know zombies played piano.

Dead on Blob!

There needs to be a balance here between folks who have bought pianos and would like to share that information to other potential buyers, and to remember that there is always a context to that price. Not to mention that the piano dealers who post here have a right to make an honest living and make a fair profit.

As Blob said, that's what the PM button is for...

I agree.

This being a consumer-controlled market, however, how "fair" something is is really up to the customer.

If one person is willing to pay several thousand more for after-service care and good relationships with the dealer, then that is fair enough.

Not everyone can afford that though. Some people, perhaps with tighter budgets, might be more inclined to search farther afield in order to get the instrument that they really want and know that their money can fetch them. Such people would then have to search elsewhere for after-service care. This is also fair.

It's up to the customer whether or not he is willing to shop elsewhere, and it's also up to the dealer whether or not he is willing to receive less sharing of cake or is willing to go without entirely.

spot on.

Many with the means who buy pianos are in the mind set that "if you have to ask then you can't afford it" and the dealers know this. Piano sales are not as strong as they once were and both consumer and seller must adapt.


I also think that what the dealer or rebuilder paid for the piano is also relevant, how else would they establish the final price? Final product based on sound or investment?

Steve, these are good points, but I have to ask, who established this way of doing business, the industry or the consumers?

Neither the consumer nor the industry have a choice in the matter. There simply isn't another way that works.

I don't view high-end pianos as a commodity item. Two new concert or semi-concert grands by the same maker that are putatively the same "model" may be very different instruments. Anyone who has shopped for a high-end piano knows this to be true. I've played pairs like that and been willing to pay a lot more for A than B. So when a shopper sees price X paid for A, and price X-$15k for B, what is she really seeing?

Beyond the fact that pianos are individual items -- not commodities -- part of how a dealer and I meet in the middle on a price is the dealer's hope/expectation/confidence that I won't be telling the world what deal I got on piano A. If the dealer thought I would disclose the final sales terms in public, those might be very different terms.

One other point: Acquisition of a high-end piano often involves a trade-in of another instrument. As with cars, these trade-in transactions involve a lot of, um, creative structuring that render even less meaningful the ostensible "price" paid for the acquired piano.

In the end, there is a great deal of information already in the public domain, starting with Piano Buyer, which is terrific. And recall that the dealer/seller is "buying" your money just as much as you're buying his piano. If you don't love a high-end piano, don't buy it. If you do, consider what it is really worth to you and don't pay more than that.

A topic both simpler and more complex than it might seem at first blush...

Why wouldn't no haggling pricing work? Even cars are sold that way nowadays. Steinway does that and they seem to be doing reasonably well.