Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Why do people buy pianos they have never tried

I do not know if I am correct but there seems to be an increase in people buying pianos they have never tried ? As we know buying a piano is not like ordering a hair dryer, or a cell phone.
Of course piano models are more rare, more difficult for a dealer to stock. Kawai models seem to be more difficult to find lately or is this an incorrect conclusion ? Actually I am just arriving at this conclusion from what I have read here lately about people ordering pianos and from a rumour I heard. So perhaps this is not true about this brand . The pandemic no doubt has slowed the distribution of certain brands more so than others though, possibly?

This evening when I go grocery shopping I shall no doubt search for the tin of tuna without any kind of dent in the tin as I always do.( so OCD )
So why do people sometimes feel compelled to order an expensive piano not having seen it or played it ? A new piano my technician says is an "unfinished instrument" unlike perhaps a flute or a clarinet.

I am not suggesting there are lemon trees growing in the garden of all manufacturers or am I ? That is a different question.
By the way I do not mean to just single out Kawai pianos. They make remarkable instruments.This could relate to any brand.It is just that Kawai are an extremely popular brand and we can all understand why.

Not everyone has the time or resources to travel around the globe in search of the perfect piano. So after playing pianos in their locale and notice that all the used pianos sound 'used' and no new ones meet their criteria of size\sound\budget and dealing with salespeople, they decide to roll the dice on one that is sight unseen.

I can think of situations where there is a special order. You want rosewood case, with the Mozart rail? Good luck finding that on E-bay! But going cold into a model you've never even seen, much less tried, seems a little... trusting.

For obvious reasons dealers are much less willing to stock pianos nowadays. And with very good value out of Yamaha and Kawai's entry level upright (U1/K3/K300), especially for that first piano people feel comfortable purchasing it sort of as an appliance, as evidenced by a lot of group purchase of those instruments. Maybe for a 2nd piano and an advanced player the situation is different, but I can also very well envision that somebody getting used to the Yamaha-type sound jump from U1 to C2X/C3x directly. We cannot underestimate how different people are making purchase (however big it is) compared to 10 or even 5 years ago.

The main reason is availability. Most of the people on the forums here that buy sight-unseen are in places where the pianos just aren't available to try, but they can be ordered, so the posters here have read amazing things and trust our advice, so they take the chance, and even then they have to travel quite a long distance to even find a dealer to order one.

Even where I live, in Minneapolis, you can't try a Kawai K-800, for example. Our one and only Kawai dealer (albeit several locations) won't stock it because it's just too rare for them. So, if you want a Kawai upright because you love the K-500 but you want a sostenuto, then you have to order a K-800 sight-unseen. You can't try a Petrof (new) here, either. You can *sometimes* try an Estonia, but they have been sitting awhile in front of the main door to the store during Minnesota winters. You used to be able to try M&H (new), but you can't currently. In fact, you can't even try a (new) Schimmel here except for one really long one that is a few years old on a dealer's floor. But you can try most Yamahas, any Steinway, and most Kawai GL and GX models. You can try a few Parsons stencils and most SMC stencils and brands, though.

The other reason is special order or finish. I ran into that ED186 in mahogany that was special ordered. The customer didn't like it and backed out, so now the dealer has to sell it. It *is* an odd color, I admit.

Some upright pianos have a sostenuto only on special order, as another example. You may be able to play a certain model in the store, but not *the exact one* that is being ordered for the buyer.

And my OWN experience with buying sight-unseen: I tried several 1990s Charles Walter 1500/1520 models that were all sold, and they are rare enough that another used one was extremely unlikely to show up any time soon, so I got a great deal on a NEW one that was still being built in Indiana. It was sent to the dealer for a quick prep and then my house. I never played it in the store because I trust the brand and loved the examples from the 1900s. Well, I didn't know so much had changed between 1990s and 2017, and everyone here knows how well buying that piano sight-unseen turned out for me...never again will I buy a piano sight-unseen, period. (Though a few people here have PM'd me and told me that they bought CW1500s sight-unseen based on my threads here, and they all LOVE them. Whew!)

Lastly, we Boomers and GenXers are the last to really go into stores for everything. GenY and GenZ are so used to ordering EVERYTHING from laundry soap to food to even cars (I know many who have bought their Teslas online), that why would ordering a piano without trying it be that much different or that much of a stretch for those generations? We experienced folks know that a piano is *not* a car, food, or laundry soap, but do they see it that way? I honestly don't think they do. (It doesn't help that a lot of piano dealers have shopping carts on their websites, thus you can buy a piano and have it shipped to your house from your couch in your pjs.)

I don't know if there really is an increase in people buying pianos they have never tried, but if so there could be several factors.
i) A significant reduction in 'real' piano stores in most towns & cities and also shopping malls, resulting in potential purchasers unable to test in store and therefore buying on-line.
ii) There maybe an increase in the number of folks with large sums of money available, who just want a piano as a showpiece and have little or no interest in the sound or playing themselves. On-line purchases for a top-of-the-range piano they have never seen could well make sense for people in this category.
iii) Covid travel restrictions and social distancing may also be motivating people to buy a piano on-line that they have never seen, heard or tried.

But what if the polished ebony one with or without the Mozart rail has the golden tone and the more sensitive response than the Rosewood finish one ,which is very good but has no where near as good a tone or touch.
Whether you are talking about a Kawai K300 , a U1 or a Steingraeber 130 , it does not matter they are not tins of tuna nor are they hair dryers. I mean you can spend your life polishing and stroking the Rosewood finish but you know what you missed ......if you have a musical heart ?

I'd suggest that two good reasons would be:

a) Many (most?) people just don't care that much. Simply getting a reasonable quality model from a known and reputable brand is good enough for their child's lessons or whatever degree of use they think it will get.
b) We live in an information age and in these days of global supply a much wider ranger of choice is available (to those that look) than is available at their local piano stores, which at one time would have been the sole choice on offer. So a choice has to be made between those pianos available reasonably locally and other more tempting or cheaper models available elsewhere, and the local piano you can actually play doesn't always win that battle.
c)I wouldn't be surprised if some people are also not comfortable about visiting a local piano dealer in the first place and wouldn't actually prefer to just get a well reviewed piano online without the potential embarrassment of being 'interviewed' in store, buying things off Amazon is so much easier than going to the shops these days.

Ok, that's three reasons not two. Perhaps not all of them were good ones :-)

Because pianos are very expensive items and most of piano shop cannot afford to stock in many of them. The piano also takes lots of spaces. For new piano, Japanese brand like Yamaha, Kawai are very consistant about their quality. Most of people in east Asia try order new piano from factory directly or they try showroom model and order boxed one.

There is not enough space to display same model pianos that customers cannot try and compare. Also the demand for acoustic pianos are much decreased. In Asian country like Korea or Japan, most of people buy electronic piano.
Lost of piano shops closed down.

There are many valid reasons already stated, although some of us piano "nerds" may not think all of them totally valid.

One related reason to gwing's suggestion that people don't care is that some people just don't know. Having tried a model of one brand which satisfies them they may well think that all other pianos of the same model will be exactly the same.

Regards

Progress in manufacturing definitely made it possible (and economically reasonable) to make entry level pianos (anything around or below 10k USD) sound very consistent from one model. I am not sure whether that is the goal in Yamaha/Kawai's mind when they made their U/K series. That might be boring for advanced players but could very well be a feature for less knowledgeable parents, internet buyers or even institutions that focus more on budget/consistency.

Good responses here so far, and there are likely several reasons someone may choose to buy an acoustic piano sight-unseen, which is certainly NOT the general consensus of this forum. However, I think it happens more often than most realize.

That said, I have purchased 3 acoustic pianos sight unseen, other than pictures and a description/history of the piano from the seller. In all three instances, I could not have been happier with the pianos, and I still have two of them.

That said, (part II:-) chances are, my reasons for doing so, although similar to others that have been mentioned here, are likely different than most. I bought the pianos sight unseen for three primary reasons. First of all, it was convenient (at the time it was difficult for me to travel, even relatively short distances); secondly, it was opportunity. If the piano was in as good a condition as the seller said it was, and in the pictures, the gamble would be well worth it. And, thirdly, economy/cost; the decision to buy sight-unseen was economically/cost driven/oriented.

It would be/was a very good buy for that particular piano, if the condition of the piano was as good as the pictures, and the seller's description.

I did not have either piano inspected, and yes, I did take a risk/gamble, but the amount of money involved was not substantial in my view. But it paid off, big-time.

Anyway, just a few more thoughts and ideas, that I would NOT recommend.

That said (part III:-) there is no way I could bring myself to pay a very large sum of money (or what I would consider a large sum) for a piano sight-unseen. But a potential bargain on a nice piano, that I could afford? Yes.

Rick

To me it depends... I am a casual player that plays just for fun. For me, all of the pianos I have ever bought were without physically seeing or playing the piano (i.e. internet/ebay purchase). If I was a serious pianist, I wouldn't buy a piano without first playing it. I've been lucky so far that the 3 pianos I've owned in my life, none have had any major issues and had to sell only because of relocation.

I don't think there's any evidence that buying a piano without trying it out is increasing. The OP offered no evidence so I think it was pure speculation.

It's naive to think most piano buyers are like the small group of frequent posters on PW. I think the average piano buyer or owner would be puzzled by the topics regularly discussed here. As can be seen from the posts so far on this thread, there are numerous reasons why some people don't try out a piano before buying it.

Not all of us have OCD.

Valid for who? As long as it’s valid for the buyer, then why does anyone else care? This was kind of a snobby question, tbh.

Rickster I think you may be like me...you never met a piano you didn't like!

Assuming I know the general size I want, and the piano checks out with a tech, I'd be ok buying without trying. When one prefers a particular piano over another (assuming both are quality brands), I doubt it's due to the unchangeable parts of the piano, such as rim construction or soundboard or scale design. Instead, I think most of what people are responding to is how the piano has been regulated and voiced, and to a lesser extent, the type of hammer and strings it has. If one buys a structurally sound used piano at a price that allows room for modification of these items, I don't see why they would not like the piano in the end.

That said (part III:-) there is no way I could bring myself to pay a very large sum of money (or what I would consider a large sum) for a piano sight-unseen. But a potential bargain on a nice piano, that I could afford? Yes.

Rick[/quote]

The only question is Rick , what is a large some of money ?
I mean would you order a new Yamaha U1 , if you wanted one.
( I do not know what the new prices are on Brand Profiles), but perhaps about $11,000 USD ?
At the moment I am just thinking about upright pianos, because there are I think two who are ordering grands, (so trying to be sensitive here ) Oh I just remembered there is one who is thinking of ordering an upright ??? What I am trying to say is that pianos are quite expensive anyway.

We like you would never consider ordering a piano so expensive that it would ruin us ,that money was saved up for buying a European piano.

As you know we nearly ordered an unseen piano from Sauter. It turned out we discovered an ideal piano in the dealer's store I cannot tell anyone how relieved we were when we decided not to order that piano from Germany.

Sauter would not have sent us a totally useless piano, but perhaps there would have been something we really did not like.So I have always thought of myself as being very "choosy"with musical instruments.
I was really quite prepared to buy an unseen piano myself.So I think it is possible from our experience that yes , there is a possibility that all of us ,even if we think we never could , we in fact can all order an unseen, unplayed piano from a manufacturer that we trusted or a used piano from people we trust. ( whether from Yamaha, Kawai or Bechstein, Hailun , ,Steinway ,Baldwin or whatever) Just what I think I have learned. Perhaps I am wrong ?

I do suggest people buy only the pianos they have played.
How does that song go ? ("Lemon tree very pretty and the flowers are so sweet ")
Of course one can buy a lemon in the store. The chances are less however, I think.