Buying musical devices corresponding to guitars, keyboards, microphones and so on has been an costly activity for those who’re living outside of the USA. Often local music stores inflate their prices and they find yourself costing you up to THREE TIMES what you’d pay for a local USA shop. An excessive instance of this could be found in New Zealand the place that John Mayer Stratocaster prices $999 USD in the United States, however by the time it is shipped to New Zealand with staff prices, hire prices, inflation, markup and taxes – you may be paying 3 times more! For this very reason many musicians worldwide choose to buy from USA stores who ship internationally.
Though they must advertise their merchandise as non-worldwide, a easy phone call to any of those firms can have your merchandise shipped internationally. Most retailers provide DHL, USPS and FEDEX.
For piece of mind you can ship DHL/FEDEX however can be paying twice as a lot as USPS rates. USPS have more widespread occurrences of products being damaged in transit, or being lost altogether while FEDEX/DHL are very diligent a lot of the time. Google the above enterprise names and I’m sure you will discover a shipper who can deliver musical devices to your worldwide location for a fraction of the price you might purchase at locally. Though do bear in mind foreign money conversions and 110VOLT/240VOLT adapter differences as you wouldn’t want to plugin your new merchandise only to have it explode because you didn’t take the time to check this minor detail.
Different things to consider when shopping for on-line are:
* Power supplies – do they match your local voltage?
* Warranty – what assist will you obtain in your country?
* Forex conversions – check your bank rates before shopping for on-line!
* PayPal protection – Always shop utilizing PayPal so you will be covered within the occasion of problems.
* Import taxes/duties – currently Hong Kong is the one country which won’t charge you additional taxes when importing gear from overseas. Some international locations akin to Australia have a threshold so any value below $a thousand won’t incur import tax/duty.
As to the query of why American listed prices are usually much decrease than their retail counterparts in the UK, Australia, NZ, etc. This question has many answers:
For the last 30-40 years the American Musical Instrument business and their retailers have been battling it out, Violin trying to beat each other on worth – as the years have gone by, these worth pressures have pressured costs down very low while this competitive market continues to be in its infancy in different countries. A common explanation given by retailers in different nations as to why their costs are so much higher comes down to their insistence on shopper warranties – they may argue that their Fender John Mayer guitar costs $500 more because they provide local warranty and restore if required. This is absolutely true and in lots of cases you may be better of buying a guitar,microphone or piece of DJ gear for that little bit more realizing you’ll be covered must you face any problems. The complication arises for high ticket objects, akin to John Mayer Signature Fender Guitar – the place the savings can get into the 1000’s and the selling level of native warranty turns into less attractive. Some of the largest Music Stores in America similar to Guitar Center and Musician’s Pal retail most of their gadgets online which reduces operating costs while many bricks and mortar stores throughout the world should pay a big percentage of their revenue towards lease, tax, staff etc.
In conclusion, I’d say for gadgets valued underneath $1500 you would be better off buying locally, assuming the price is right. If your subsequent guitar goes to price more than this, it could well pay to phone an American retailer and haggle with price and pay shut consideration to the unit’s voltage (110VOLT or 240VOLT) and request they declare the value low so you won’t get stung by customs on tax and/or GST. Australia, for instance, is not going to charge you any import tax/duty for gadgets DECLARED at under $1000 Australian dollars. For this reason it perhaps helpful to ask the USA shipper to declare your shipment at a low value. Nevertheless, if the unit sustains damage in transit – you’ll only be covered underneath this declared value.