Buying musical devices equivalent to guitars, keyboards, microphones and so on has been an expensive activity if you happen to’re residing outside of the USA. Often local music stores inflate their costs and they end up costing you as much as THREE TIMES what you’d pay for a local USA shop. An excessive example of this will be present in New Zealand where that John Mayer Stratocaster prices $999 USD within the United States, however by the point it’s shipped to New Zealand with workers costs, rent costs, inflation, markup and taxes – you will be paying 3 times more! For this very reason many musicians worldwide select to buy from USA stores who ship internationally.
Though they need to advertise their merchandise as non-international, a simple 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’ll be able to ship DHL/FEDEX however will probably be paying twice as a lot as USPS rates. USPS have more common occurrences of products being damaged in transit, Saxophone or being misplaced altogether while FEDEX/DHL are very diligent a lot of the time. Google the above enterprise names and I’m positive you will discover a shipper who can deliver musical devices to your international location for a fraction of the worth you could buy at locally. Although do keep in mind forex conversions and 110VOLT/240VOLT adapter variations as you wouldn’t need to plugin your new merchandise solely to have it explode because you didn’t take the time to check this minor detail.
Different things to consider when shopping for online are:
* Power provides – do they match your local voltage?
* Warranty – what help will you obtain in your country?
* Currency conversions – check your bank rates before buying on-line!
* PayPal protection – Always shop using PayPal so you could be covered in the event of problems.
* Import taxes/duties – presently Hong Kong is the one country which is not going to cost you additional taxes when importing gear from overseas. Some nations equivalent to Australia have a threshold so any worth below $1000 is not going to 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 last 30-forty years the American Musical Instrument industry and their retailers have been battling it out, attempting to beat one another on value – because the years have gone by, these worth pressures have forced costs down very low while this competitive market continues to be in its infancy in other countries. A typical clarification given by retailers in other international locations as to why their prices are so much higher comes down to their insistence on client warranties – they could argue that their Fender John Mayer guitar costs $500 more because they provide native warranty and restore if required. This is totally true and in lots of cases you may be better of shopping for a guitar,microphone or piece of DJ gear for that little bit more realizing you will be covered do you have to face any problems. The complication arises for high ticket items, comparable to John Mayer Signature Fender Guitar – where the financial savings can get into the 1000’s and the selling point of local warranty becomes less attractive. A few of the largest Music Stores in America such as Guitar Center and Musician’s Pal retail most of their objects on-line which reduces operating costs while many bricks and mortar stores all through the world should pay a large share of their revenue towards lease, tax, workers etc.
In conclusion, I would say for items valued below $1500 you’d be better off shopping for locally, assuming the worth is right. If your subsequent guitar is going to cost more than this, it could well pay to phone an American retailer and haggle with worth and pay shut consideration to the unit’s voltage (110VOLT or 240VOLT) and request they declare the worth low so you will not get stung by customs on tax and/or GST. Australia, for example, won’t cost you any import tax/duty for objects DECLARED at under $one thousand Australian dollars. For this reason it maybe helpful to ask the USA shipper to declare your shipment at a low value. Nonetheless, if the unit sustains damage in transit – you’ll only be covered under this declared value.