Buying musical instruments reminiscent of guitars, keyboards, microphones and so forth has been an costly process if you’re dwelling outside of the USA. Usually local music stores inflate their prices and so they end up costing you up to THREE TIMES what you’d pay for an area USA shop. An extreme example of this can be found in New Zealand the place that John Mayer Stratocaster costs $999 USD within the United States, however by the time it’s shipped to New Zealand with staff costs, Saxophone rent prices, inflation, markup and taxes – you will be paying 3 times more! For this very reason many musicians worldwide choose to purchase from USA stores who ship internationally.
Though they have to advertise their products as non-worldwide, a easy phone call to any of those firms can have your item shipped internationally. Most retailers provide DHL, USPS and FEDEX.
For piece of thoughts you may ship DHL/FEDEX but might be paying twice as a lot as USPS rates. USPS have more common occurrences of products being damaged in transit, or being misplaced altogether while FEDEX/DHL are very diligent most of the time. Google the above enterprise names and I’m positive you may find a shipper who can deliver musical instruments to your international location for a fraction of the value chances are you’ll purchase at locally. Although do bear in mind forex conversions and 110VOLT/240VOLT adapter differences as you wouldn’t want to plugin your new merchandise solely to have it explode because you didn’t take the time to check this minor detail.
Other things to consider when buying online are:
* Power provides – do they match your local voltage?
* Warranty – what support will you obtain in your country?
* Forex conversions – check your bank rates before shopping for online!
* PayPal protection – At all times shop utilizing PayPal so you could be covered in the event of problems.
* Import taxes/duties – at the moment Hong Kong is the one country which won’t cost you additional taxes when importing gear from overseas. Some nations corresponding to Australia have a threshold so any worth below $1000 will not incur import tax/duty.
As to the question of why American listed prices are typically much lower than their retail counterparts within the UK, Australia, NZ, etc. This query has many answers:
For the final 30-forty years the American Musical Instrument trade and their retailers have been battling it out, attempting to beat each other on value – because the years have passed by, these value pressures have compelled prices down very low while this competitive market remains to be in its infancy in other countries. A common rationalization given by retailers in different international locations as to why their costs are a lot higher comes right down to their insistence on client warranties – they might argue that their Fender John Mayer guitar prices $500 more because they offer native warranty and restore if required. This is totally 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 do you have to face any problems. The complication arises for high ticket items, similar to John Mayer Signature Fender Guitar – where the financial savings can get into the 1000’s and the selling point of native warranty becomes less attractive. Some of the largest Music Stores in America equivalent to Guitar Center and Musician’s Pal retail most of their objects on-line which reduces operating costs while many bricks and mortar stores throughout the world should pay a large proportion of their income towards rent, tax, staff etc.
In conclusion, I’d say for items valued under $1500 you’d be higher off buying locally, assuming the worth is right. If your next guitar is going to price more than this, it might 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 will not get stung by customs on tax and/or GST. Australia, for example, will not cost you any import tax/duty for items DECLARED at underneath $one thousand Australian dollars. For this reason it maybe beneficial to ask the USA shipper to declare your shipment at a low value. However, if the unit sustains damage in transit – you may solely be covered below this declared value.