dadgad
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by dadgad on Apr 6, 2020 14:55:45 GMT
I still wonder if DHL was using Airliners to carry some shipments and not just dedicated DHL aircraft. With passenger traffic off there is no excess capacity to fill at what was probably the cheaper rates. Amazon used to fly on Fedex planes. Now they have their own fleet. They probably did that for schedule control as well as cost savings when they were hot on 2 day Prime delivery. Now Amazon is on next day delivery and I think there are 4 or 5 stocking location under 100 miles from me in about every direction. When that got into place they bought a fleet of 20,000 MB delivery trucks.DHL has its own fleet and perhaps its cargo capacity is stretchered by what is not on airliners. Supply and demand does effect price. Perhaps DHL has what was on the Airlines?
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3,457 posts
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Post by LeoThunder on Apr 6, 2020 14:59:04 GMT
Not worth the effort. Thomann is the largest music store in Europe. They make their money selling everything US music stores already sell. I wonder why they'd even bother trying to sell two dozen more Harley Benton in the US. What if it was 2 dozen a day? Effort? What effort? Send the container. Amazon ships and collects. Thomann makes profit and ups volume. More volume gets better contract pricing. Lower prices for everyone. More profit for Thomann. More jobs in Asia. Everybody wins.
Being the biggest store in the EU is not that big a deal. Its a house out in the county with warehouses. I've seen it. Its a great operation but why limit growth? Amazon is a perfect example of how a small company can be a world wide operation. I have also heard the excuse Thomann is family owned they won't do that. Why? Beezos and his wife started Amazon. That was a family business. The biggest book store in America. Could have stopped right there! Its a bit bigger now.
You are under estimating the market. The EU is around 430 million and the United States in around 350 million. Add in 40 million for Canada and 130 million for Mexico which are both in our trade agreements and the market is larger than the EU by about 25%. Its really a simple process they just send a container to Amazon. Amazon does the rest. Everybody wins.
All Thomann would sell in the US are Harley Benton and Thomann products, based on a few enthusiastic videos on YouTube. They would have to compete with already established shops there without any significant advantage. An illusory potential, not even worth considering. Thomann became the largest in Europe because they jumped on the Internet sale train at the right moment. That opportunity is gone now, others have done it elsewhere. The extra shipping cost is a temporary measure due to the corona thing. It will be gone the moment people start buying anything else but toilet paper. Once again, not a situation worth reacting to.
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Post by blindwilly3fingers on Apr 6, 2020 16:46:14 GMT
The rich make the rules! The rich always get richer even in times of crisis. The high earners don't pay anywhere near the same percentage of their earnings run of the mill folk do. There are loopholes and fiddles! I remember one year Tony (socialist pretender) Blair receiving (definitely wasn't earned) 11 million GBP, after his fiddles he payed around 300 thousand in tax! This all for being a sleeping director on most income sources! That's definitely not a third of his income like normal people pay.
Sorry for going a little off topic but the optimistic quotes of shipping costs returning to normal, I believe may be short sighted. I think normal as we know it is gone, I'm not a doom merchant but people need to realise 'this corona thing' is going to get a ****ing lot worse before it gets even slightly better.
Tbh if you think this is a few weeks and all is back to normal? You need to wise up! Thousands of people are dieing, there is no sign of a miracle cure either!
Still let's not dwell on reality let's be selfish and worry about that new guitar we want or talk bollocks about pickups!
This is not a rant by the way, just an observation. I suppose most people rich or normal are selfish and driven by greed!
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dadgad
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
Back up my Hard Drive? How do I put it in reverse?
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Post by dadgad on Apr 6, 2020 18:39:32 GMT
I think Thomann could sell many more HB's in the USA. I have several reason to think that. Look for a HB on Reverb or Ebay. Odds are its for sale above the original Thomann price listed as used with even higher shipping! I also don't think the mass market buyer in the US has any clue what a HB is or that Thomann exists. Not everybody reads and keeps up with the market or You Tube reviews. Much less go to NAMM. Some that do don't want to order overseas. They want the illusion of buying in country even if its really a shell game. The You Tube "promotion" review is a real sales tool good idea or not. Like it or not. I know some reviews are hand picked setups sent out and do not reflect the actual product. There is a Chinese "contract brand" that started hitting big selling hollow body guitars that were pretty good for the price. They would sell out a full shipment in days. Now with many You Tubers promoting it for the affiliate commission they went to selling solid body guitars. The quality on those has not been as good. They had a entire shipment with miss cut Fret boards that had to be returned. Clearly not as good a product as the HB line and no where nearly as large. If a inferior line can sell out one or two container shipments in a week or so a much better brand like HB can have even better success. I think Thomann has done well bringing the line up in quality over the years and deserve a bigger market share.
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dadgad
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
Back up my Hard Drive? How do I put it in reverse?
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Post by dadgad on Apr 6, 2020 18:45:50 GMT
I wonder if Thomann have a more honest approach to tax too? I find Amazon to be one of the sickest business models. It really needs to be addressed but I fear they have become so big that nobody wants to take them on. I'd happily see the back of them and the return to domestic trading with businesses who pay their fair contribution. Now more than ever we can see in the UK that tax revenue is vital. Amazon collects taxes both Federal and States here in the US by law. Regulations were passed on that. There was a period of time online sales were not taxed and the government wanted it that way to promote online sales. When it took off they had the systems is place to collect on it. They get it now...
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Post by kodiakblair on Apr 6, 2020 19:07:37 GMT
dadgadThere's no need to set up a US warehouse and certainly not with Amazon taking a cut. Thomann do just under $1 billion in sales p.a. Harley Benton only makes up a small part of that. They're doing just fine as they are,their business model works for them. You mention 350 million in the US,it's actually 332 million but that's besides the point. As things stand Thomann can sell to 430 million in Europe,332 million in the USA,40 million in Canada,120 million in Mexico and I don't know maybe another 4 billion potential customers worldwide. All from the set up they have right now.
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dadgad
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
Back up my Hard Drive? How do I put it in reverse?
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Post by dadgad on Apr 6, 2020 21:17:51 GMT
dadgad There's no need to set up a US warehouse and certainly not with Amazon taking a cut. Thomann do just under $1 billion in sales p.a. Harley Benton only makes up a small part of that. They're doing just fine as they are,their business model works for them. You mention 350 million in the US,it's actually 332 million but that's besides the point. As things stand Thomann can sell to 430 million in Europe,332 million in the USA,40 million in Canada,120 million in Mexico and I don't know maybe another 4 billion potential customers worldwide. All from the set up they have right now. We have census this year and it is estimated we have 20 million illegals here. They tried to get data on that but as you can imagine that is hard to do. I am surprised Thomann doesn't do more business than that. Last I heard Fender alone does 500 million and Gibson before the restructure was around 2 billion but that probably included some of the companies they bought. Its owned by some Hedge fund guys now. No clarity there. Our much disliked Guitar Center is in the 2 Billion range which I think includes the Music and Arts chain. Musicians Friend is in there somewhere. Not sure who own who. The employees say its a partnership. They ship out of the same warehouse. Same company but I do business with Musicians Friend and avoid Guitar Center. I have heard other people mention that and not know its the same company. Amazon doesn't really take a cut. It performs a service many small companies could not do at the same cost. Reaching customers and fulfilling orders, collecting taxes is also part of the service. I was shocked to find out they took in over 19 billion on just Prime memberships in 2019. Wow! Last I looked they were doing 60 to 90 billion per quarter. Pretty good for a mom and pop mail order book store. Who could ever see that coming at the start? I bet Bezos never thought that would happen. But he kept it moving and it kept growing. Now he is like Musk building Rockets that land in reverse for a side business. Amazing.
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Post by kodiakblair on Apr 6, 2020 22:39:03 GMT
No idea where you get the Amazon "mom and pop" tale from. It's always been an online service. Have to admit it's a good creation myth,makes a change from the "garage" story Apple,Microsoft and Google used. GC and Musician's Friend are owned by the same outfit,Ares Management, and despite their $2 billion p.a in sales are still $1 billion in debt. Both Fender and Gibson are owned by Hedge fund/Investment type things and both are in the red. $100 million for Fender, $500 million for Gibson. Gibson should be OK,the mob who own them also owned "Toys R Us". That worked out well Anyway back to Amazon and Thomann. Thomann have a good name in Europe and have worked hard to get it. Teaming up with Amazon would lose them respect which is far more important than selling a few extra $150 guitars in the USA.
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3,457 posts
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Post by LeoThunder on Apr 7, 2020 3:09:20 GMT
I think Thomann could sell many more HB's in the USA. I have several reason to think that. Look for a HB on Reverb or Ebay. Odds are its for sale above the original Thomann price listed as used with even higher shipping! I also don't think the mass market buyer in the US has any clue what a HB is or that Thomann exists. Which is why I say they would sell "two dozen" Harley Benton more. Not worth the investment.
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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on Apr 9, 2020 13:00:33 GMT
The cost of holding inventory and managing a separate supply chain is a non-trivial cost for each guitar. Thomann would be crazy to have a local warehouse in the US. They won't sell many more extra guitars in the US on the back of getting the order to delivery time down to a couple of days. They can sell enough guitar even while supporting a multi-week delivery policy. As for recent increase in shipping costs - see this www.flightglobal.com/airlines/freight-rates-on-the-rise-amid-slump-in-passenger-flights/137714.article
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Post by kodiakblair on Apr 9, 2020 20:15:47 GMT
If you look for electric guitars on Amazon in the $100 to $200 bracket there's 126 hits from 51 brands.
How would bringing that number up to 52 benefit Thomann ?
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1,773 posts
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Post by MartinB on Apr 10, 2020 18:43:29 GMT
I currently have a guitar lost in UPS hell it got lost in transit apparently, they opened a case yesterday to find it and it's back as "In transit" I realise that compared to the Coronavirus related problems we're all having it's small change, but it's still important to me. I ordered this guitar back at the start of March and it was supposed to arrive 4 weeks ago today.
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Post by blindwilly3fingers on Apr 10, 2020 20:04:59 GMT
Is that the one from Richards Guitars? MartinB. That sounds a bit fishy lost in transit then its back on! Hope all goes well for you and it arrives safely.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2020 20:48:41 GMT
Fingers crossed it all ends well for you Martin. From your latest ' found' report, looks like clearer skies ahead.
I must've missed the original thread. What did you buy?
Richards Guitars rates with me. I like his vids, ethos and product he sells. A fit with me. I think I'd be doing some shopping there too were I closer, and possibly will in future once I hit that critical point I gauge my skill can make us of/to warrant it.
All the best with that delivery.
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