Buying musical instruments reminiscent of guitars, keyboards, microphones and so forth has been an costly activity when you’re dwelling outside of the USA. Usually native music stores inflate their costs 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 will be found in New Zealand the place that John Mayer Stratocaster prices $999 USD within the United States, however by the point it’s shipped to New Zealand with staff prices, hire costs, inflation, markup and taxes – you will be paying thrice more! For Saxophone this very reason many musicians worldwide select to buy from USA stores who ship internationally.
Though they need to advertise their products as non-worldwide, a simple phone call to any of these firms can have your item shipped internationally. Most retailers offer DHL, USPS and FEDEX.
For piece of thoughts you’ll be able to ship DHL/FEDEX however will be paying twice as much as USPS rates. USPS have more widespread occurrences of products being damaged in transit, or being misplaced altogether while FEDEX/DHL are very diligent a lot of the time. Google the above business names and I am certain 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 bear 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 did not take the time to check this minor detail.
Different things to consider when shopping for online are:
* Power supplies – do they match your native voltage?
* Warranty – what help will you receive in your country?
* Forex conversions – check your bank rates earlier than shopping for on-line!
* PayPal protection – At all times shop using PayPal so you might be covered in the occasion of problems.
* Import taxes/duties – at the moment Hong Kong is the only country which is not going to cost you additional taxes when importing gear from overseas. Some nations resembling Australia have a threshold so any worth under $1000 is not going to incur import tax/duty.
As to the question of why American listed prices are generally much lower than their retail counterparts in the UK, Australia, NZ, etc. This query has many solutions:
For the final 30-forty years the American Musical Instrument business and their retailers have been battling it out, making an attempt to beat one another on value – 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 typical rationalization given by retailers in different countries as to why their costs are so much higher comes down to their insistence on consumer warranties – they might argue that their Fender John Mayer guitar prices $500 more because they provide native warranty and restore if required. This is completely true and in many cases you will be higher of buying a guitar,microphone or piece of DJ gear for that little bit more understanding you will be covered do you have to face any problems. The complication arises for high ticket objects, akin to John Mayer Signature Fender Guitar – where the savings can get into the 1000’s and the selling level of local warranty becomes less attractive. A few of the largest Music Stores in America similar to Guitar Center and Musician’s Good friend retail most of their gadgets online which reduces working prices while many bricks and mortar stores all through the world should pay a big proportion of their income towards lease, tax, workers etc.
In conclusion, I would say for items valued underneath $1500 you’d be higher off shopping for locally, assuming the value is right. In case your next guitar goes to price 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 value low so you will not get stung by customs on tax and/or GST. Australia, for instance, is not going to charge you any import tax/duty for objects DECLARED at beneath $1000 Australian dollars. For this reason it maybe beneficial to ask the USA shipper to declare your shipment at a low value. Nonetheless, if the unit sustains damage in transit – you may solely be covered beneath this declared value.