Nov. '07 - Latest Commentary
ARE MY $40 PEDALS REALLY MORE EXPENSIVE
THAN THIER $20 PEDALS?
A Local Piano Player that doesn't shop locally
I had a guy come in to buy a piano style sustain pedal for a keyboard. When I was getting him to sign his credit card reciept I reconized his name. I had never met him before but I had heard of him. He plays keyboards for a band from the area that is 'some what' popular with the kids. They are not big time but they have had some moderate success. As you can imagine, since I had not met him before he was not a regular customer.
"Ya'll are too expensive" in not as many words
As he was signing the slip for his $39.95 sustain pedal he made the comment, "man, these things are expensive" to his buddy that was with him. Now, I took that to mean 1 of 2 things. Either he has no idea what the going price for a Roland DP-10 piano style sustain pedal is (which I would find really odd for a keyboard player in a touring band) or he was making a statement about the local dealer prices (which apparently was too high in his opinion). The latter is how I took it, which if he thought our 'things are expensive", would also explain why he's not a regular customer.
Fooled by the good ole "everyday low price"!
But is it possible that this music professional really didn't have an idea of the price for a quality sustain pedal? For him to think our price was expensive there had to be a price in his mind he was comparing it to. If I was to take a wild guess I would say he was comparing it to the $19.95 sustain pedal on musiciansbuddy.com* or in some mega store like Guitar Mart*.
* denotes fictional places
Comparing Apples to Oranges?
Sure, the $20 pedal is not a Roland but it looks just like one. There can't be that big of a difference, right? WRONG! If a company as established as Roland says it takes $40 to get a pedal the quality of a DP-10, then the only way to get a lower price is to lower the quality. If you lower the products quaility, the easier the product will break. The easier the product breaks, the more products you have to buy. The more products you have to buy, the more EXPENSIVE it is to you! It sound's like common sense but too often it's learned the hard way.
A penny earned (by us) is a penny saved (by you)!
The products we sell are based on experience. I've tested the $20 pedals. I find they work fine for a child learning to play "Mary had a little lamb" but for a performing musician they are junk. The website administrator of musiciansbuddy.com*, the mega store corporate buyer, or the mega store counter clerk is not going to tell you this. They don't know this. There is value in dealing with experienced, qualified people.
The "hidden" costs
But let's just say he was making an apples to apples comparison and made the comment based on the same pedal. The website or mega store had it priced for $29.95 meaning it was $10 cheaper there. Well, the website is going to charge $5 to $10 dollars for shipping making the actual price between $34.95 to $39.95 plus your going to have to wait 3 to 10 days to get it. So he's paying $5 dollars for the convenience of getting it now. Expensive??? He could still drive 70 miles to the nearest Guitar Mart and get it for $29.95. I'm not even going to get into how much time that would cost but the gas alone is going to drive the price of that pedal well above $39.95. Yet, were more expensive???
The lowest price is not always the best deal
I don't know if he was ever able to put 2 and 2 together and figure out that he actually got a pretty good deal from the local guy. I haven't seen him since. But don't be fooled by the smoke and mirrors of "everyday low prices"...check us out and you may find our $40 pedals are just as good a deal, if not better, than thier $20 pedals.
*musiciansbuddy.com and Guitar Mart are fictional places (to the best of my knowledge) and not based on actual places...wink, wink.
