Anybody else noticing the prices creeping up?

Strat_a_tat_tat

BGG said:

Tylers are five grand now, that's just stupid !

Errrr.... it's the headstock shape on Tylers that I find stupid.

ChrisMusic

As a related aside, I can't see the business rate increases helping UK Plc, or any of us, much.  A hike of 80% is not uncommon in our town, and many businesses are already struggling to stay afloat, lack of spend in retail, lack of cash flow to pay wages in industry, and this compounding things on top.  Confidence is well down and the spending public are being extremely cautious, as nobody knows where this is heading long term, and the only ones who do are either delusional or lying to us, (and it is not just a UK isolationist thing, and we are not the masters of our own ship).

If we are to become strong as a nation, we could do without stripping a layer of business and weakening our economy still further, with the corollary of those that supply into them and provide manpower will also suffer too.

There is the potential for dark times ahead, on so many fronts...

mellowsun

If the pound was considered overvalued before the Brexit vote I can't see how it can be undervalued now.

Once we drop out of the EU with no trade deal and thus on WTO terms there'll be added costs.

At least we have 2 years to get our act together and hopefully beef up our manufacturing industry.

Hisnamesjames

Add to all of this the extra cost timber merchants will have to pay for CITES certification, manufacturers for CITES inspection at shipping and receiving, and then distributors having to do the same, you're gonna see prices on any Dalbergia family wood go up too.. 

Dave_Mc

darthed1981 said:

guitars4you said:

I have a bad habit of buying a Lindt bar of chocolate on a Thursday from Sainsbury's which is only yards from me - Yet that bar of chocolate changes from around £1.20 to £1.70 on a regular basis - so much easier for such operations to hide, manipulate and change prices - If they want to run a big promo of say product A reduced to 99p from £1.50, they can simply add 1p to a 100 different products , be it Cream Crackers or Alpen, and no one notices yet the stores overall margin is protected - They have the logistical ability to do this

The supermarkets take the piss with this.  Asda go in cycles of a massive  "rollback" campaign followed by sneaking the prices up at least where they were before, only to later reduce them in a big campaign.

It's really dishonest, and it is actually surprising they get away with it...

Didn't Which? make a supercomplaint about it?

I thought some of the supermarkets said they would cut back on it. But whether they will or not...

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Dave_Mc said:

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Check out the price of a Suhr Satin Modern.

I think they were about £1599 - about 3.5 years ago... then they went up to £1699... then £1799... then £1899. Now, GuitarGuitar are listing their newly arrived ones for £2199.

http://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/electric_guitars_detail.asp?stock=170313308715007-624940

... but the government tells us inflation has only just now risen to 2.3% per annum.

They really need to start adding fancy superstrats to the list of goods they use to work out the CPI...

If you run for PM... you've got my vote.

guitars4you said:

HAL9000 said:

Bought a MIM Std Strat 18 months ago for £440. They're now £507 so approximately 15% increase or about 5 x inflation.

so many factors determine what goes in the 'basket' to obtain the latest inflation figures - Governments have changed and manipulated information a number of times over the years - But guitars and accessories are never included

Governments want inflation, but they want it controlled - but controlled inflation will bring in a small increase in vat revenue, so a very crafty 'stealth tax' that barely ever gets mentioned - vat on a £200 item at the old price or vat on the same item at the new price of  £204 based on 2% - now multiply that small increase in vat revenue by tens of thousand of transaction and you can quickly see one reason why they need and want inflation - But they will only show, include and exclude what they want to

But surely then the government's costs would increase too? (Maybe they'd have a little while before they had to introduce pay rises etc. though.)

I thought the reason was that you don't want deflation or people hold off on purchases so you get into a death spiral. But too much inflation is bad too, so you want a little inflation so people don't put off purchases, but controlled so it doesn't turn into hyperinflation either.

Strat54

guitars4you said:

There will always be price increases on the cost of goods leaving a factory, for many reasons - both materials and labour - but post Brexit we've seen serious changes to the exchange rate making it far worse

What makes it also worse is that all prices are based on cost + a margin , as such price increases are compounded - ie if a pedal was a  £100  and a UK dealer added 35% (Dealer makes £35) - the pedal is now £135 - yet a 10% price increase on the cost of the pedal now makes it £110 - now add the 35% dealer profit (the dealer now makes £38.5) and it is £148.5 in the shops - Like wise the vat on £135 is less than the vat on £148.50 - so all prices are compounded as such

Now add a falling £ v $ and it makes it far worse - and that is effectively were we are today

even if the cost of a Strat had not gone up at the factory and the cost was say $1000 - UK cost ex any tax/shipping/import duty etc would have been £740 in 2015 - Today the same Strat costing $1000 would now be around £869 - Hence the price of the Strat leaving the factory can remain fixed, but it is now the cost of buying the dollars to pay for the guitar that has changed

Yes.....BUT when the pound rose to its high peaking at  2.08 against the dollar in Nov 2007 did we see prices come down in the UK? NO. Back then the price of a US Standard Strat for sale in the US in dollars was on equal parity with the price of the same guitar in the UK. It been than way for a long time. $899 in the US... then £899 thereabouts in the UK. That's why myself and hundreds of other UK guitar collectors bought from the US till the crash. In 2004 I bought a 50th Anniversary John Cruz Strat for $3500 with duty paid its came in at £2100. Meanwhile my local FCS dealer had one in for £3995 and wouldn't discount it. 
 Oddly enough here we are post Brexit with a 1.25 value against the dollar and today an American Professional Strat retails in the US at $1399 and here in the UK at £1349! So explain that...

guitars4you

Strat54 said:

guitars4you said:

There will always be price increases on the cost of goods leaving a factory, for many reasons - both materials and labour - but post Brexit we've seen serious changes to the exchange rate making it far worse

What makes it also worse is that all prices are based on cost + a margin , as such price increases are compounded - ie if a pedal was a  £100  and a UK dealer added 35% (Dealer makes £35) - the pedal is now £135 - yet a 10% price increase on the cost of the pedal now makes it £110 - now add the 35% dealer profit (the dealer now makes £38.5) and it is £148.5 in the shops - Like wise the vat on £135 is less than the vat on £148.50 - so all prices are compounded as such

Now add a falling £ v $ and it makes it far worse - and that is effectively were we are today

even if the cost of a Strat had not gone up at the factory and the cost was say $1000 - UK cost ex any tax/shipping/import duty etc would have been £740 in 2015 - Today the same Strat costing $1000 would now be around £869 - Hence the price of the Strat leaving the factory can remain fixed, but it is now the cost of buying the dollars to pay for the guitar that has changed

Yes.....BUT when the pound rose to its high peaking at  2.08 against the dollar in Nov 2007 did we see prices come down in the UK? NO. Back then the price of a US Standard Strat for sale in the US in dollars was on equal parity with the price of the same guitar in the UK. It been than way for a long time. $899 in the US... then £899 thereabouts in the UK. That's why myself and hundreds of other UK guitar collectors bought from the US till the crash. In 2004 I bought a 50th Anniversary John Cruz Strat for $3500 with duty paid its came in at £2100. Meanwhile my local FCS dealer had one in for £3995 and wouldn't discount it. 
 Oddly enough here we are post Brexit with a 1.25 value against the dollar and today an American Professional Strat retails in the US at $1399 and here in the UK at £1349! So explain that...

I can't recall the full ins and outs of a 2 dollars to a pound scenario, but I do recall selling a new PRS Custom with 10 top and birds for £1999 for about 4/5 years - No price increase at all during that period - One thing that has changed regarding Fender is that in 2007 Fender UK has a distribution company called Arbiter to handle sales - That company would have needed a 20-30% margin to run its business, - Hence additional costs involved and as you say prices in the UK were more - Today, with the odd exception like Martin, all major companies run their own EU/UK distribution channel, so no middle man involved over here, so global prices are more on a level playing field

Van_Hayden

TheGuitarWeasel said:

 Add to this a major UK supplier slashing dealer margins to the bone for the components I can source here, and we have a situation where something had to give. 

You're  not wrong....

Schnozz

Yamaha were selling the SG1800 Series for £1500 in 2010 and now it's £2500...Is that inflation? I don't think so. Is it to do with Brexit? I don't think it's that either.

I think it's greed set by Gibson/Fender/PRS where other brands then follow.

capo4th

The people who voted Brexit did not see the option on the voting slip for higher prices on everything like electronics, fuel, food, guitars, I wonder how they would vote today. 

Dont worry though were all in it together! 

matone

The market will value the product,if people can`t afford stuff,the sensible one`s don`t buy it,so sales will slow.
There will always be those who go into debt for non essentials tho` !

darthed1981

matone said:

The market will value the product,if people can`t afford stuff,the sensible one`s don`t buy it,so sales will slow.
There will always be those who go into debt for non essentials tho` !

Well we are all OK then because guitar gear counts as essentials.

ToneControl

we went through all the currency drop figures before, and people just saying "Brexit caused this" is wrong

in 2007, the £ peaked at nearly 1.50 EUR
in Dec 2008, it was down to about 1.02 EUR
it then went up and down an lot, 
then in 2015 it went up to about 1.44 EUR
by April 2016 it was down to 1.235 EUR (Before the Brexit vote)
since the Brexit vote, it's mostly floated between 1.15 and 1.19 EUR
Yesterday it was 1.16 EUR

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=EUR&view=10Y

So:
The £ is somewhere in just below the middle of the range it's been in for the last 10 years
In the months before Brexit, the £ dropped by 18 cents from 1.44 EUR in 2015 to 1.26 EUR a few days before Brexit, then speculation bumped it up a bit, driven by inaccurate election polls 
Since the week before Brexit, the £ has dropped from 1.26 EUR to 1.16 EUR yesterday, so that's 10 cents
in December, the £ was nearly 1.20 EUR, at which time it was only 6 cents below the price the week before Brexit

You can see that most of the drop was before the Brexit vote, and that we are still near the centre of the normal range for exchange rates against the EUR. 
1.45 or 1.495 EUR to the pound was not a "normal" figure that Brexit has damaged, it was a peak, and the £ was overvalued at that rate

So - the £ was coming down already, it was overvalued (again), and the drop after Brexit has been much smaller than the change before Brexit
I'd suggest the drop since Brexit (to where we are now) was likely coming anyway - Brexit or not

MattFGBI

It's the € to $ and € to £ rates that I'm interested in. 

Neil

Schnozz said:

Yamaha were selling the SG1800 Series for £1500 in 2010 and now it's £2500...Is that inflation? I don't think so. Is it to do with Brexit? I don't think it's that either.

I think it's greed set by Gibson/Fender/PRS where other brands then follow.

Indeed.

Although people will scrabble for reasons for pricing, the manufacturers will always charge as much as the market will bear.

usedtobe

None of this will even matter once they've taken all our rights away!
  

darthed1981

ToneControl said:

I'd suggest the drop since Brexit (to where we are now) was likely coming anyway - Brexit or not

There is also the possibility that staying in the EU would have provided a boost, and certainly had the referendum gone the other way it could easily have killed the rise of the populist right in the west, which is terrifying enough even economists have probably noticed.

Back more OT, the problem is not so much the price goes up when the pound gets weaker, it is that the prices never go back down.  The prices of a professional strat and LP Standard respectively are now hovering around 1399 and 1899 respectively, a good couple of hundred quid more than two years ago.

crunchman

On the other hand if we do get some kind of trade deal with the US we might be able to buy direct with no duty to add.  UK prices would be forced down at that point.

guitars4you

crunchman said:

On the other hand if we do get some kind of trade deal with the US we might be able to buy direct with no duty to add.  UK prices would be forced down at that point.

there has been talks for a while about a TTIP deal which looks like it has gone awol - many anti it (for very good reasons) including Trump - this was a potential deal with USA and EU

The actual import duty on a USA Guitar is minimal - you'd still pay the 20% vat, shipping and insurance which on a one off transaction is around £120/150 - so don't bank on any major savings - effectively with Fender, Gibson, PRS etc having their own UK/EU distribution channels you are now dealing direct with the USA, with no 3rd party middleman involved

crunchman

I imagine that any trade deal would mean that the £390 limit on the value of a guitar that you can personally bring back from the US would be gotten rid of, and you probably wouldn't have to pay VAT when you bring it back through customs either.  If you buy in the US then you might have to pay a local state sales tax, but most of those are a lot less than the 20% VAT we have.

If you went to Chuck Levins for instance, Maryland Sales tax is 6%.  A McCarty 594 with a 10 top is listed at $4,200.  It's listed at £3879 at Andertons.  The exchange rate at the moment is 1.24.9 on the BBC website.  Even if you can only get a rate of 1.20 it works out at £3710 when you add 6% sales tax - a saving of £179.  If you can get $1.22 to the pound it's £3649 - a saving of £230.  If there was no VAT to pay when you came back then if you want to buy that guitar then it would make sense to combine the purchase with a trip to Washington and see the Smithsonian etc.  If you could find a dealer in one of the states with no sales tax then the savings would be even bigger.

PRS seem to have a bigger price differential than some other brands.  Doing the sums someone like Fender actually seem reasonably well priced here.

Where there probably would be savings would be on pedals.  An OCD in the UK seems to retail at £132 at the moment.  In the US it seems to be $118.  By the time you pay shipping, duty and VAT it's not worth importing one at the moment but that would be very different if the VAT and duty was no longer there.