dradlin wrote:
My question is: what would that $500 guitar cost if wages, health and safety, environmental protections, ethical materials procurement, municipal/state/federal taxes, health care benefits, etc., were on par with North American manufacturers?
I look at the finite resources consumed on these disposable guitars and wonder how much better instruments could be built from the same materials... or at least one that is serviceable.
Sorry, not a fan... customers buy them, and I service them, but I can't respect anything about the business model even if it is profitable.
I consider the Canadian brands Godin, Seagull, Art & Lutherie, Simon & Patrick, Norman to be far more noteworthy since they deliver better products at the same price point and do so within an ethical business model.
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This is a good post, David and I agree on all points. If you asked my business partner what he has to put up hearing coming out of me near daily he would tell you that perhaps the number one recommendation that Hesh provides, near daily... is the Godin line. Reasons: Serviceability, value, north American manufacture, and lots of experience with them, mostly positive.
We are not a store and pushed back on anything resembling being a guitar store pretty vigorously.... When we took over the repair side of a 52 year old store we likely could have had the entire store including merchandise, lessons, etc. We purposely made the strategic decision to do one thing very well instead of several things...... lousy. Lousy is not the word that I usually use with this expression either.
Mom and Pop music stores have had a very difficult (and often because of many unfair things...) go at it in the past 10 years or so. Be it big box music stores be they brick and mortar or Internet resellers or both that further the proliferation of cheap, unserviceable instruments (a couple of keyboard clicks away...) being a music store these days is a very tough slog....
Additionally if cheap imports and big box store/reseller competition is not enough some manufacturers with one specific American one coming to mind have upped their dealer requirements to the point that many Mom and Pops just don't have the financial resources to meet the requirements...
No apologies here from me in that I'm not a fan either of imports as I write this from about an hour and a half drive from where some of the most iconic instruments of our time were produced in Kalamazoo.
But I also can't do a thing about it except steer people, when they ask.... toward serviceability AND in my case companies who have not earned poor marks for things such as environmental stewardship, treatment of their labor force, value perceive to be provided, and what I also hear from my clients as far as how satisfied they may be with their prior purchases of some of these specific offerings.
Like it or not global competition is the reality of the day and as such one has to operate within the confines and opportunities that this means.
Sure in a perfect world my recommendations would be largely as they are today and have been for some years now, serviceability, quality, value, client satisfaction,.... etc. What's far more realistic for me though is that I have to deal with what comes in the door and the vast majority of time we have no influence over what someone may purchase and from whom.
Going up on overpasses and shooting at cars carrying an imported guitar is not an option (for me....) nor will or would it ever be. I'm mentioning this because I also live in the heart of the US auto industry. Talk about the likely most highly documented example of struggles with foreign trade where the playing field be it labor, health and safety, environmental, the ability to collectively bargain, etc. concerns come into play. There was a time here where a very few did go up on over passes and take shots at Toyotas, Hondas, etc.
Cheap imports have for the most part been around a very long time and the further proliferation and taking of market share that we see these days is just a continuance of a long standing trend. For us, Luthiers it's sad to see but also for us I know and believe in my heart that what wins in the marketplace is "value" and value may mean many things to many people.
I used to have run-ins with the conclusions from the organization "Consumer's Reports." Although I never had any beefs with them over how and what they test, the quality of the science, etc. Where my objection was was the fact that consumer reports has to weigh lots of criteria and then make a recommendation. For each criteria they weight it in terms of the importance that this specific criteria will have in the selection process and overall resulting rating.
Price was weighted too heavily for me... Sony TV's always were marked down by CR because they were priced higher. There was a time when Sony TVs were the best available IMHO.... and if I am going to stare at something for maybe 10 years I don't want to be siting there all grumpy over the idea that I got cheap and now am looking at a picture that has lousy color, blacks that aren't black, etc. or if the thing can't last as long as I want to use it.
I've thrown away or given away lots of Sony TVs over the years and even named my dog Sony (RIP) because I was such a fan and a bit of a rebel as well when working for GE....
The TVs were given away or pitched because I had upgraded and upgraded to Sony again as well and never because they broke or did not work. I have two Sony TVs in my basement now that work fine and I need to get rid of them.... No one wants tubes these days so these things will have to wait until I have an opportunity to dispose of them properly with a recycling organization.
Can North American companies compete even with the unleveled paying field when it comes to regulatory environments, labor laws, treatment of employees including benefits, opportunity for all...., safety, etc?
It's not easy by any means but there are examples and Godin is one of them, Costco, is another where a Costco store is roughly twice as profitable per square foot as a Walmart store AND Costco pays and treats employees very well.... But sadly the exceptions and exceptional when it comes to business excellence are seemingly few and far between.
It's our world today the realities that have to be considered and as such if one narrows the focus as to what "value" means to them and with even North American publications such as Consumer Reports placing a lot of weight on the economics of consideration for high ratings, price.... it's even more difficult.
How will this all play out in time? Who knows but my sincere and very personal wish is that since North American manufacturers have so very many good stories to tell about guitar production that we never lose this edge that may be already lost to some degree.
Reality sucks sometimes, Godin stuff is often recommended by me personally, I can't control how others evaluate their own purchasing decisions and as such we simply deal with what comes in the door - unless it's an Ov*tion....
Funny story - Last week I sent an Ov*tion away but it came back late Friday and will be how I spend my morning tomorrow.... fixing it...
I also know in advance what my attitude will be and it could be said that it's something like this: some will, some won't, so what, next.... And the reason that I will be rolling with the punches in terms of dealing with the previous poor choices of others is that I also believe, strongly, that everyone deserves to have great music in their lives....
It is what it is...
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