# Will Gear Prices Go Up ???



## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Since the loonie has nosed-dived into the pavement to become road kill, do you think music retailers will bump the the prices of gear? With the economy sinking faster than the Edmund Fitzgerald what do you think will happen. Can you imagine a $479 MIM Strat going up to $579 ???


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## kat_ (Jan 11, 2007)

Where I work we have received emails from all of our suppliers telling us that our costs will go up by Nov. 1 at the latest. We're trying to stock up on stuff but some of the price hikes have already gone into effect.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Paying a little more for gear won't break my heart. I would be more concerned about losing my job because of an artificially strong CAD (or weak USD).


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Paul said:


> It's not that bad. A $0.79 CDn dollar looks a lot better than the mid $0.60's dollar we had for years. Everyone knew, or ought to have known, that last Novembers $1.10 exchange was more a description of the weakness of the Greenback, and much less a description of the Loonie.


Dropping around 15 cents in less than a month is a dive and crash from my POV. :smile:





Paul said:


> Absolutely will happen. If their cost goes up, (and it will, if not already is), the selling price will go up.


With the cash crunch and a sudden hike in prices, I think they are going see people stay away for a while.


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## dwagar (Mar 6, 2006)

Sure stuff is going to go up, Even if it's not made in the US, most importing is done in US$.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

Robert1950 said:


> Dropping around 15 cents in less than a month is a dive and crash from my POV. :smile:


The speed of the swing is the most unsettling aspect.

I haven't even looked at ebay these past couple of weeks. Time to become a seller I guess.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Timing worked out good for me. I purchased $8,000 worth of gear while the loonie was high. I do have some plans to buy more but most of my music purchasing for the next few years is done.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

T think the impact on gear prices will be most influenced by the value of the canadian dollar relative to Chinese currency, and the price of the fuel needed to ship here.


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## lyric girl (Sep 4, 2008)

Already has. The price I was quoted to order a new Larrivee two weeks ago is now $200 more. I hate this!


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## AGP1 (Jun 18, 2008)

The US$ can not keep its current level, it is just a function of a short term demand form banks and hedge funds needing USD to cover positions and this will correct in the near future. The economic fundamentals of the US economy and all the money they have printed will bite soon and bring it back in line. Medium term we are headed back to a higher loonie. May be not par but at least >0.85 IMHO.

In the meantime whether it is just a slow down or full recession, retailers are going to find it very hard to push prices back up significantly, in the face of low consumer demand - you just have to look at the lack of sales activity on this forum to see how people are being more careful with their cash. I think we will see some great bargains appearing.


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## nitehawk55 (Sep 19, 2007)

lyric girl said:


> Already has. The price I was quoted to order a new Larrivee two weeks ago is now $200 more. I hate this!


Can you not do as good or better from a CDN dealer ?


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## sysexguy (Mar 5, 2006)

Our prices went up and will likely go up again...however if the exchange rate reverses, we'll be the first to change in the other direction.

We have a sizeable number of instruments being custom built for customers and their prices are locked in, so we're basically just changing 4 quarters for a buck on those. 

On guitars and amps in stock, if you really want it, we'd really like to sell it so if you can come up with a good story how you almost bought it last month, we'll probably be able make you very happy:food-smiley-004:

Andy


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

The currency here took a stronger hit than the Canadian dollar. I was just about to order something yesterday, but I changed my mind after I calculated the exchange rate.


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## JSD's Guitar Shack (Feb 24, 2006)

I got a message from one of my distributors this week saying all dealer prices have been increased by 23%.


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## Apostrophe (') (Dec 30, 2007)

Whoops, I posted something in the wrong thread. Ignore this message.


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## sysexguy (Mar 5, 2006)

Just while we're :smilie_flagge17:feeling bad about this....imagine in Australia

Their dollar dropped to 65 cents from about 3 cents below ours, n-z too

Andy


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## kat_ (Jan 11, 2007)

nitehawk55 said:


> Can you not do as good or better from a CDN dealer ?


CDN dealers still have to get stuff from the US.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2008)

A good friend emailed today saying everything Roland was going up 8% and everything Ibanez will jump 23% as of today. I'm sure the rest will follow.


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## lyric girl (Sep 4, 2008)

nitehawk55 said:


> Can you not do as good or better from a CDN dealer ?


Nite,

That was a Canadian dealer!


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## nitehawk55 (Sep 19, 2007)

lyric girl said:


> Nite,
> 
> That was a Canadian dealer!


Sorry , you had been talking on getting a guitar from the US in another thread and I thought the price increase was just the cost for the money exchange . Not all CDN dealers have jacked prices yet and some are trying to clear/reduce inventory too .


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Well, not to gloat--but I'm glad now that I bought when I did.
I'd already been shopping for 9 months or longer, and finally found the right one.


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## Perkinsfan (Oct 17, 2007)

I noticed Axe music has already hiked the prices on a couple of the items I've been thinking about buying lately.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

L&M's been busy with the sticker printer. USA Standard Strats n Teles are $1150 now, as opposed to the $999 of a couple of weeks ago. Many other hikes observed.


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## kat_ (Jan 11, 2007)

One odd change - at Mother's the prices of all AKG mics and headphones dropped. I don't know why it happened or how long it will last. Some of the drops were only by a couple of bucks but other stuff was down by $10 or $15. It seems to only be for AKG stuff.


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## rhh7 (Mar 14, 2008)

I expect sales of American Standard Strats & Teles to nosedive as long as they are substantially higher than the U.S. street price...the genie is out of the bottle, and you can not go back.

Read an interesting article by a top Canadian economist who predicts we are entering a two year deflationary spiral.


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## lyric girl (Sep 4, 2008)

nitehawk55 said:


> Sorry , you had been talking on getting a guitar from the US in another thread and I thought the price increase was just the cost for the money exchange . Not all CDN dealers have jacked prices yet and some are trying to clear/reduce inventory too .


Sorry, didn't mean to cause confusion. In the effort to find my parlor I was dealing with both US and Canadian dealers. With both Canadian dealers I was close to going with, they were both going to have to bring the guitar in at our current dollar as they didn't have one in stock. That is how I ended up come with the PV-09E that was already in the store and bought before the price increase.


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## lyric girl (Sep 4, 2008)

Still on the subject of our currency, I am SO happy that I ordered my Ric in September before all hell broke loose! :smile:


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## RIFF WRATH (Jan 22, 2007)

yesterday I cought the tail end of a news reporter walking through a mall where every storefront was having a 2 for 1 sale.........the comment being that sales are needed to encourage consumer spending and that most goods have already been paid for with the (previous) strong $.....the idea being to stimulate retail sales.....I can see prices for USA ordered goods being more, but that stuff sitting on the "shelves" should, at the very least, be staying the same, or going on sale ..........


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

RIFF WRATH said:


> yesterday I cought the tail end of a news reporter walking through a mall where every storefront was having a 2 for 1 sale.........the comment being that sales are needed to encourage consumer spending and that most goods have already been paid for with the (previous) strong $.....the idea being to stimulate retail sales.....I can see prices for USA ordered goods being more, but that stuff sitting on the "shelves" should, at the very least, be staying the same, or going on sale ..........


I think what Riff said is correct. Retailers went shopping when the dollar here was high. Now there is excess inventory sitting around that needs to move out. With all the talk of recession and what's happening in the states, consumers are hesitant to part with their hard earned dollars. I think there will be bargains on the higher ticket items such as electronics, otherwise prices should stay static.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

keto said:


> L&M's been busy with the sticker printer. USA Standard Strats n Teles are $1150 now, as opposed to the $999 of a couple of weeks ago. Many other hikes observed.


The price of Fenders is likely to change quicker than other brands because there is no Fender Canada or Canadian Distributor that have inventory. All stock comes directly from Fender USA.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I was in the same store I bought my AF95 in 2 months ago (and am still in a honeymoon period with.)

They had another AF95, and before GST it was about $70 more than what I paid with GST. I checked a few other guitars there as well that i had looked at during the time I was guitar shopping--and the least any of them went up was about $50. (The tacky, but appealing Ibanez AFS75TD--metallic silver finish with cream pickguard.) 

I looked at a couple of other stores as well--and everything I'd priced out before was up at least $50--often times more.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Re: L&M again, I just bought a Blues Jr. a month or so ago for $475+tax. In the L&M winter catalogue mail thingie, it's listed for *$599*


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## devil6 (Feb 24, 2006)

I had been looking at buying a Lakland bass, I looked on the Club Bass website and saw this



> Price: $1349.00 Last one at this price. Price increase soon! New price will be about $1629.00!


Guess i'll be putting in some more overtime if i want to grab it before the price hike :frown:


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## kat_ (Jan 11, 2007)

We have started raising prices at work. There are still a few that haven't been raised. We sold a keyboard recently for less than it now costs for us to get a new one in stock. Same with a G&L. We sold a bass for $36 more than what it now costs us to replace it. There are still a few deals around but stores can't keep doing that for long.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Certainly stock that was around before the price increase should be sold for lower--I wound up buying bass strings that had the old price on them. Although that was a small savings--it was still a savings (Just under $3).


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## lyric girl (Sep 4, 2008)

devil6 said:


> I had been looking at buying a Lakland bass, I looked on the Club Bass website and saw this
> 
> 
> 
> Guess i'll be putting in some more overtime if i want to grab it before the price hike :frown:


Maybe you should call them and have them hold it for you until you can get there. That's a huge price increase. By the Lakland basses are very sweet!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Hmmmm. Just bought the new issue of Guitar Player yesterday, and there is only ONE PRICE on the cover. No US-price/Canada-price.


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## kat_ (Jan 11, 2007)

devil6 said:


> I had been looking at buying a Lakland bass, I looked on the Club Bass website and saw this
> 
> 
> 
> Guess i'll be putting in some more overtime if i want to grab it before the price hike :frown:


Will they put it on layaway for you and keep that price on it?


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

I just bought a 52 vintage hotrod tele from L&M for $1,625 even though the store lists them for $1,875 and other music stores were listing them anywhere from $1,875 to $2,000. I guess I must have got it just in time.


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## devil6 (Feb 24, 2006)

lyric girl said:


> Maybe you should call them and have them hold it for you until you can get there. That's a huge price increase. By the Lakland basses are very sweet!






kat_ said:


> Will they put it on layaway for you and keep that price on it?



Good idea, i'll give them a holler and see what they say. I've got enough in my "bass fund" to give them a hefty down payment but i'd rather not dig into my savings for an instrument.

The upside is my boss told us today that we can more or less work as much overtime as we want so it wont take to long to get the cash :smile:


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## lyric girl (Sep 4, 2008)

devil6 said:


> Good idea, i'll give them a holler and see what they say. I've got enough in my "bass fund" to give them a hefty down payment but i'd rather not dig into my savings for an instrument.
> 
> The upside is my boss told us today that we can more or less work as much overtime as we want so it wont take to long to get the cash :smile:


So, I expect we'll be seeing pics sometime soon of your new bass???? :food-smiley-004:


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## devil6 (Feb 24, 2006)

lyric girl said:


> So, I expect we'll be seeing pics sometime soon of your new bass???? :food-smiley-004:


As long as my landlord accepts "I can't give you any money this month because some people on the internet wanted to see my new bass" as a valid reason for not paying rent then yeah.

If I can get them to put it on hold for me I'd like to get it by early december, i hadn't really been planning on a new bass until the new year but with the price increases I may as well spring for it now and cram in as much overtime as i can


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## lyric girl (Sep 4, 2008)

devil6 said:


> As long as my landlord accepts "I can't give you any money this month because some people on the internet wanted to see my new bass" as a valid reason for not paying rent then yeah.
> 
> If I can get them to put it on hold for me I'd like to get it by early december, i hadn't really been planning on a new bass until the new year but with the price increases I may as well spring for it now and cram in as much overtime as i can


Ok, I will admit that I am a very bad enabler. However, it does make sense logically in terms of the price increase. I wasn't really planning on buying my Larrivee last month; however, based on the price increase and Larrivee recently raising their prices to begin with, I knew that there wasn't a better time.

I mean I guess our dollar could go back up, but who knows when. Consider your bass an early/only Christmas present this year :smile:


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

devil6 said:


> As long as my landlord accepts "I can't give you any money this month because some people on the internet wanted to see my new bass" as a valid reason for not paying rent then yeah.


If it would help, we could all sign a letter.
Maybe, if you ask nicely, it could be printed on Guitarscanada letterhead?

It's tough to balance gear and responsibilities.
I've had to forgo gear in the past due to that--including a lovely, fantastic sounding Legend 50 watt combo.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Prices don't even have to go up. I got on the wait list for a pedal in April, and just got the pay up call on Sunday. The wait cost an extra $30CAD with the exchange rate changes. 

** Shakes fist **


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