Purchase from local shop, or online - now NEW AMP DAY

joetele

Ok, so my Peavey has sold and I'm eyeing up the Boss Katana 100 with a footswitch. 

Online of course, the Katana is £243 and the footswitch is £74. 

My local music shop, who sold the Peavey for me for £339 and have taken their 10% (leaving me about £305), are saying that the sale proceeds "will cover the Katana 100 and will do the footswitch for £70 (RRP is £85)".

So I'm in a bit of a quandary. I know they're an independent shop, and can't match online prices for obvious reasons....and these guys have been great to me over the last couple of years - doing me good deals, doing really good and cheap setup/repair etc on my kit, and always great to chat to. 

But it's still clear I can get the Katana plus footswitch online for £317 together, and I'd be spending roughly £375 on the same at the local music shop. I appreciate that technically I'd bought and paid for the Peavey ages ago so in essence, all I'm spending is £70 on the footswitch - and I do want to support them - so should I just swallow the roughly £60 difference and buy there? 

I like the fact that I can go back to them if there are any issues, and they continue to take money off for me when I buy stuff, plus their resident tech has offered to help me (a luddite) run through all the options on the Katana including looking at my pedal chain and FX loop etc.

What do you guys think? Support the local buddies or save £60 in theory by going online?

EDIT: They've just emailed to confirm they sold it at £330 and so my take is £300. So with the difference between £317 and £370 being that much smaller - closer to £50 I suppose - I feel happier with the deal. 

EDIT: they reduced the footswitch to £60 too and gave me a deal on some cables for the FX loop. Will be playing the Katana (with headphones) tonight. 

dazzajl

If you can afford to support the local
shop, you should. As you’d clearly like to. If that extra £60 is just more than you have, then maybe next time??

joetele

dazzajl said:

If you can afford to support the local
shop, you should. As you’d clearly like to. If that extra £60 is just more than you have, then maybe next time??

It doesn't help it's been an expensive few months with weddings, birthdays, car stuff etc, with new tyres to buy also and a refund on Reverb because the switch on a pedal didn't feel right to the buyer. 

Maybe I could just get the amp with the shop, and get the footswitch later down the line. Or just stop fannying about and swallow the £60. I guess I'm just always aware of the online prices being that much better and like to get the most for my money. 

dazzajl

If you buy online, you’re buying an amp. If you buy locally, you’re buying an amp and (hopefully) the added extra of keeping a local resource to use. The question is how much is that worth to you?

joetele

dazzajl said:

If you buy online, you’re buying an amp. If you buy locally, you’re buying an amp and (hopefully) the added extra of keeping a local resource to use. The question is how much is that worth to you?

Agreed - see above edit to the original post. I think that roughly £50 extra is worth it. 

joetele

Ok, some good advice here and from the legend that is @Alnico - I'm going to swallow the £50 to support them and have them available locally if any issues arose. 

Alnico

joetele said:

Ok, some good advice here and from the legend that is @Alnico - I'm going to swallow the £50 to support them and have them available locally if any issues arose. 

Glad to help.

Good luck with it.

Vinylfan

Have you actually asked them if they can get closer to/match the online price?  Small, independent shops are not always more expensive and I would have thought that would prefer the business with a little less margin than no business at all.

joetele

I will probably do that when I'm next in there - easier to do that in person I think.

Wazmeister

For me, it boils down to the following;

1.) Can you afford the extra £60 ?
2.) Do you have a good relationship with the shop ?
3.) Will they look after you if it goes wrong, or is not what you want ?

If the answer is 'yes', buy from the shop.

If 'No', buy online, save the money and get cover from the DSR

joetele

Yup, it's a yes to all of those (and being closer to £50 difference helps too)

jellyroll

If it helps, their 10% sales commission is quite modest...

Modulus_Amps

This situation will only get worse as time goes on, online pricing is a shortest trip to the bottom, everyone is trying to undercut everyone else and real shops will suffer.

anyway ...I would say support the shop if they are a good shop and provide good honest service.

gordiji

If you buy from Thomann they give a 3 yr guarantee which they honour & cover the shipping charges with a printable postage paid slip. They may not be the cheapest but get my money especially for amps.

Musicman20

I've supported shops in the past and been stung for it when I really needed their help.

Personally, whilst it is very noble and moralistic to help businesses around you, its a dog eat dog world, so I go for the cheapest option unless there is only a few quid in it. 

axisus

I supported my local shop Coda for years. Bastards left the town. 

joetele

Ha! My music shop is literally 10 minutes walk from my house in a tiny little village/town in South Wales. I think the rent is cheap and they get decent trade and they know lots of local musicians. 

Adamski

I would make the deal with your local shop. As others have said it’s a useful resource for you. I would ask them the question though to see if there’s any shirt on price. 

As as others have said, their commission was VERY low - peanuts in fact - on selling your amp so maybe it’s the least they deserve. 

joetele

Adamski said:

I would make the deal with your local shop. As others have said it’s a useful resource for you. I would ask them the question though to see if there’s any shirt on price. 

As as others have said, their commission was VERY low - peanuts in fact - on selling your amp so maybe it’s the least they deserve. 

Yeah, this is kind of where I am on it. I can certainly mention the web prices and enquire if they can get a little closer to those. The commission was very low, and their prices for things like setups, repairs, pickup replacement and services are super low too - I couldn't believe how low the price was for the power amp valves and their replacement for my last amp. And it wasn't like they used cheap valves, either. 

ICBM

Adamski said:

As as others have said, their commission was VERY low - peanuts in fact - on selling your amp so maybe it’s the least they deserve. 

This.

10% is actually unrealistically low, they've already done you a favour by charging that little. You would have lost that much in Ebay/Paypal fees as well as almost certainly getting a lower price.

You can return it by allowing them to make the profit on the new gear - it won't hurt to ask if they can do a bit better, but I wouldn't be offended if they don't.

jpfamps

10% commission on an amp is VERY reasonable.

Most shop are reluctant to sell any amps on commission as they may have to carry the can if it develops a fault down the line.