How much do you bargain with a salesman before buying a guitar?

[Jazz Rock]

Re: How much do you bargain with a salesman before buying a guitar?

I think I did pretty well when I bought my Gibson LP:

There was this Wine red LP Studio in the shop (kind of independent shop, not to small, not very big) I used to go fairly regularly to try out stuff with a friend. One day I say the rep I was quite interested in this one. I bought the Epi two years ago to the same guy and I told him about my problem with the pups when jamming with a drummer.

So the guy said, it's been a few month we got this one in stock, you could have it for 6000 francs (approx. £600), with retail price 8000 francs. I said ok, I'll have to think about it.

One or two months later, I come back, having filled my bank account with a summer job. I spot the beauty, still waiting for me in the display. Talk to the shop keeper. He tried to bullsh!t me saying it wasn't the same one, he couldn't do it for the same price, this one was 8000 francs full stop... I started saying I worked the whole summer to gather the 6000 francs, I couldn't pay more. Getting on saying it was a real shame.

Then he got is calculator out, which is actually part of the whole packaging right from birth. The damn calculator is incorporated in its hand, I swear. Don't know if it is the same in other places, but every music rep in Strasbourg (France) has the calculator amidst his very own flesh! Anyway, after quite some time typing on his calculator he arrived to the price of 6200 francs. Yeah he still got to to grab a further 200 francs but I thought it went quite well.

The funny thins is though, first time I have been trying teles at Sound control, it was a mexican one, the guy offered to drop the price by £100 without me mentioning I was seriously interested in the guitar. Really weird the way these people behave.

When you think about the RRP given by the manufacturers, It seems crazy the amount of profit they hope to cash in on your back.

 

[marvar]

Re: How much do you bargain with a salesman before buying a guitar?

I've lived here all my life, (Knoxville Tn) and I always shop at the same 3 stores in the area, they know me well enough, and I've spend enough money, that they know I'm serious when I'm looking at a piece of gear- and they also know that I never pay MSRP. So I usually get the best price when I state my intention to buy.
I have bought stuff from ebay and from the net dealers, but I prefer to see and play before I buy.
Shopping at the same stores, and getting to know the salespeople/owners has created a bond. I'm allowed to take home almost anything I want 'On approval" I get 1st class service, no BS and usually pay the price I want- I do take into account that they are in business to make money. I just want a fair deal to all parties involved. I usually have a price in my head as to what I will pay for something, if they can't meet it, then I just thank them, and leave. Usually, if I go back a week or two later- they get their heart right.

 

[Bezmotivnik]

Re: How much do you bargain with a salesman before buying a guitar?

Stores are great because what you buy is exactly what you get. Purchasing online is a crap shoot.

True, but it's not entirely that simple:

If you have serious damage or QC problems with an online purchase, it can go back 100% at their expense. I've done it twice recently. Even if you just don't like the axe, you usually have 30-45 days to return it at your expense, about $30.

Buying in the store, especially with standard-grade instruments sold without cases (FMIC "5" option on MIAs, though I've been told that's recently been stopped), usually means you're going to be missing the accessories that normally ship with instruments, as places like Guitar Center just discard the stuff in the hang bags along with all the tags and docs. This is an annoyance when the axe needs some unusual proprietary tool and you have to go out in the shop and make one before you can set up the instrument.

Ironically, the more expensive the instrument, the more likely it's going to be floor trashed. Because it's expensive, it sits around for months or even years while idiot kids beat on it until it's just covered with gouges and scrapes. It's a used guitar by the time the store sells it at long discount at a sale to finally get rid of it.

The Epiphones, Squiers and MIM Fenders just fly out the door (this is where the money is, BTW, not in the high-end stuff), so they're usually pretty unscathed.

I'll have to see if Gibson has learned how to construct a solid guitar without any flaws.

Not to gratuitously bash Gibson, but I'm not holding my breath on that one, even for Custom Shop stuff. Interestingly, I see a surprisingly large number of Fender and Gibson Custom Shop output returned as unsatisfactory by buyers.

Flawless guitars don't exist.

I've been buying, selling, brokering and servicing guitars -- for years at a stretch as my full-time occupation -- off and on for over forty years. I don't have any idea how many instruments have passed through my possession over the decades, but it's well into the four figures. I've never seen a perfectly-produced guitar -- EVER. I see flaws, real ones with consequences, that few players and pros ever notice because they don't want to see them, even when it's their business to see them.

Rarely, almost never, I see instruments with no significant problems and a little more often I see instruments that are total junk. What I see in new gear about 95%+ of the time -- at any price point -- is D+ to B- build quality. Price bears surprisingly little relevance to overall QC in production instruments.

The interesting outcome of this is that people are pleased that cheap axes, while not perfect, are far better than they expected and annoyed by rough work in the $2000+ range.

 

[Bezmotivnik]

Re: How much do you bargain with a salesman before buying a guitar?

But music and playing music is an emotional thing so by definition there is no checking your emotions if you want to be a player.

Presumably the musician knows when to check his emotions as inappropriate and self-destructive, otherwise he is mentally ill and a danger to himself and others -- though I have known musicians who certainly fit that picture. To buy based on emotional response is one of those self-destructive acts.

I'm personally convinced that people buy instruments based on emotion simply because they are too ignorant and lazy to buy on any other criteria, just as they are with their other purchases. I'm astonished at how few guitarists really know a good guitar from a so-so one, though the entire guitar industry operates on -- and gleefully profits by -- that pervasive ignorance, meanwhile stoking the buyers' irrational and emotional urges.

Face it, these people buy for the excitement of it -- "retail therapy." They no more want to do the homework needed to buy instruments intelligently than they want to do their tax returns. They just want to ecstatically groan about some stupid axe's "awesomeness" for a couple of weeks, otherwise they don't see the point because they didn't get their freak on.

[T]o...say a guitar is just the sum of its parts is equally emotional and empty-headed, as if money is all there is. Yes, at the end of the day a guitar is still just wood, metal and plastic, but its ultimate purpose and intent is very "cosmic" and intangible and spiritual (and all the other descriptive words I might use here that you would probably spit on) in ways that money can't touch any more than a yardstick can measure temperature.

Hold your horses: Its purpose and intent was from its conception to be sold at a profit. Anything beyond that is merely manipulative ad copy written by people even more cynical than I am -- marketing professionals who make billions of dollars "selling the sizzle, not the steak," as the description of their occupation goes, working for manufacturers whose job is explicitly to give the consumer the least value for his money they can get away with, over the long haul. That's how the CEO keeps his job.

Despite all their high-flown "mission statement" rhetoric, they couldn't care less (barring the Network Effect) what the buyer does with it after that, and would be delighted if he threw it into a bonfire and bought a replacement the next day.

You know all this is true as well as I do. Even the dumbest gristlehead on these boards knows it if he can be forced to think about it for ten seconds. It's not pretty, but the truth rarely is -- which is why nobody wants to marry it.

Do people play better and feel "inspired" by certain new instruments? Sure they do, but that is and always will be 100% in the player and 0% in the axe.

There are shoes that fit and feel great and ones that don't. No matter how comfortable they are, they don't walk anywhere by themselves. They're just shoes. If a guitar fits you, great, but there's no magic in that either, and there are a lot of other ones out there that fit you too.

Beyond that, a musician is just another guy who works with his hands. When craftsmen get new tools they go through honeymoons with them, doing finer work "inspired" by the excitement of new gear, too, but there's no inherent magic in a Bosch hammer drill either.

People need to get their minds straight, if only for a few minutes: You always hear people on these gear boards talking about axes "speaking to you," and all these other nonsensical magical references...

Pay attention, people! If you think that guitars talk and have magical powers you are clinically delusional. Either admit you're crazy and get psychiatric help or else admit you know better and stop using such creepy metaphors. Thanks!

I think it's actually possible to strike a balance somewhere between being a blindly infatuated musician and a cold mercenary so you're presenting a false choice. It is possible to both love guitars and be smart about deals.

Maybe, but not at the same time.

That said, your point that "there is always another deal" is a very good one to keep us sober during those GAS attacks that you just know are wrong. When you've been around a while, you notice that those "once-in-a-lifetime deals" that you about cried over in your teens and 20's actually pop up at least several times a year -- and that's when you're not even looking for them.

In August was the Jackal born
The Rains fell in September
"Now such a fearful flood as this,"
Says he, "I can't remember!" -- Kipling

Boy, dealing with overexcited young (and merely immature) people, I tell you...

In the old days, I had to make deals -- now they fall out of the sky.

 

[ibanezrocks]

Re: How much do you bargain with a salesman before buying a guitar?

admit you know better and stop using such creepy metaphors. Thanks

He's right you know, we do use some creepy metaphors sometimes. I vote that from now on we stop discussing guitars like mythical creatures and increase the number of comments based on women's body parts.

Anyways I have figured out that the deals come around more often than we like to trick ourselves in to thinking. Although I like this guitar more than any other Tele I played in that store (and more than all the tribute series G&Ls I played yesterday) I would have no problem waiting around for another one that I like. I'm taking my time with this purchase since I may not get another chance to spend some serious cash on anything guitar related for awhile and I have to make this one count.

P.S. I find it amusing that this is the first thread I've seen in awhile that stayed on topic this much and went so long. You guys are awesome.

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: How much do you bargain with a salesman before buying a guitar?

Anyways I have figured out that the deals come around more often than we like to trick ourselves in to thinking. Although I like this guitar more than any other Tele I played in that store (and more than all the tribute series G&Ls I played yesterday) I would have no problem waiting around for another one that I like. I'm taking my time with this purchase since I may not get another chance to spend some serious cash on anything guitar related for awhile and I have to make this one count.

I think a good idea is to keep your wallet at home when you go gear shopping. That way you don't end up making an on-the-spot deal you'll later regret. Buyer's remorse sucks.

If you love a piece of gear when you first try it, you can feel better about making the right decision if you check it out again a week or two later and having the same feeling -- especially if you try out lots of other gear at other places during that timespan.

- Keith

 

[theodie]

Re: How much do you bargain with a salesman before buying a guitar?

If its a small shop or a bro I am buying off of, I dont haggle. If its GC, they better knock off 15-20% and throw in a few small items.

 

[J Moose]

Re: How much do you bargain with a salesman before buying a guitar?

...usually means you're going to be missing the accessories that normally ship with instruments, as places like Guitar Center just discard the stuff in the hang bags along with all the tags and docs. This is an annoyance when the axe needs some unusual proprietary tool and you have to go out in the shop and make one before you can set up the instrument.

Ironically, the more expensive the instrument, the more likely it's going to be floor trashed. Because it's expensive, it sits around for months or even years while idiot kids beat on it until it's just covered with gouges and scrapes. It's a used guitar by the time the store sells it at long discount at a sale to finally get rid of it.

The Epiphones, Squiers and MIM Fenders just fly out the door (this is where the money is, BTW, not in the high-end stuff), so they're usually pretty unscathed.



Not to gratuitously bash Gibson, but I'm not holding my breath on that one, even for Custom Shop stuff. Interestingly, I see a surprisingly large number of Fender and Gibson Custom Shop output returned as unsatisfactory by buyers.

Flawless guitars don't exist.


The interesting outcome of this is that people are pleased that cheap axes, while not perfect, are far better than they expected and annoyed by rough work in the $2000+ range.

There's a whole lotta truth said above IMO.

Guitarget can either your BEST friend or your WORST NIGHTMARE depending on the stars are aligned...

Most of the time I just don't like 'em... but I have scored some great deals there over the years, usually workin' it into the ground. I got the EJ Strat for $1500 out the door & it was tagged at $1600 & change. It had been on the floor for less then a week and it was hanging out with a SLEW of Mexi-casters & Squiers, just waiting for some Mall-Goth kid to mangle it with the spiky belt & bracelets...

There's a lotta guitars out there, probably now more then EVER before that are "furniture" guitars. It exists in the $400 range and the $4000 range too.

They look real good. They might play real good after a setup. But they don't sound real good or feel inspiring to play.

To ME...when I pick up an insturment that's what I'm looking for, that last thing. The BIG thing. Inspiration.

Something that makes me want to play on rather then putting it down & picking up a book or watching a movie.

I've got $350 MIK rides and hand-made jobbers in the arsenal. They're all valid if they can carry weight & do something well.

Years ago I used to work with these two guys who were big wigs at Kramer back in the day... we used to sit around & wonder where all these guitars & SM57's were going...

Imaginging some kid at home, his bed getting higher & higher with each new purchase!

I don't care so much about flaws depending on what they are. If they're purely fluff, like some whacky buff marks or orange peel in the paint it's nothing. When they're structual, like dripped out glue on the inside of a hollow body or acoustic then I'll probably pass or make a low-ball offer if I really want the piece.

I expect to see more "flaws" in the sub $1000, mass-produced range then I do on expensive hand built guitars. One mans flaws are anothers character when it comes to finish work...but sloppy fretwork & poorly fitted parts are just sucky no matter what the price point. I'd hope that in the $2000 range that you'd get an instrument that's at least decently put together even if it sounds like poo.

At what point is a "Custom Shop" no longer really 'custom'? Is it when you start churning out dozens of "Custom" instruments as such standard fare that they're in the catalogs & kool dealers have at least a dozen of each in stock?!