02/26/2022
People ask me every day why I rarely, if ever anymore, have new acoustic guitars in stock. Here’s the reason:
The top twenty shipping companies have raised the rental on shipping containers from average of $1500 per trip to $20,000 per trip. (That’s not a misprint.) Yet, they posted a total of $150 billion profit in 2021. Major companies like Amazon, Guitar Center, Walmart, Costco, etc., have the power to negotiate but any entity smaller doesn’t. Small business must get their merchandise from wholesale companies. We don’t buy enough to get direct pricing from out of country manufacturers. It’s either pay the price or do without.
Guitars take up a lot of room in a shipping container. If you pack one with guitars that have an average retail value of $125-$200 the cost per guitar to the wholesaler has gone from $40-$70 per unit to about double. The wholesalers are forced to raise their selling price from $70-$100 to about $110-$160 just to cover the increase in the inflated price of the container. They then sell their guitars to the brick and mortar dealers for about $150-$200. The end retailer, then, is forced to raise the selling price to $190-$270 just to break even. What’s the use in breaking even? Consequently, if B&M dealers don’t order them, why should the wholesalers order them? The guitars are worth $125-$200 but certainly not (say for instance) $225-$300 which is the price it would take to make a profit.
Now, take guitars that sell in the $400-$500 range and more. Although their price is inflated as well, the increased price to make a profit is more justifiable. Those are more readily available but, keep in mind, they are still marked up about $100 more than they were a couple of years ago.