rmp@ulysses.UUCP (Reuben Prichard) (09/09/85)
FIRST: Thankx for all the responses to my "PURCHASING HELP". Your inputs are greatly appreciated. SECOND: In reading "net.synth," I have found that there are many of you (including myself and fellow workers) that are in the process of purchasing equipment. Three of us (at Murray Hill) have decided to pool our individual purchases into a single one (~$6k retail) in an effort to optimize our "purchasing power". The one or two music stores I have approached have been more than happy to offer better prices because of the volume. Food for thought. Has anyone in "net" world thought about combining our purchases for a similar objective. Something like this might be the scenario: 1. Once a month anyone interested in purchasing equipment submits a purchase list to a central location or person (on the net) with the best offer they have acquired. 2. A list of the items is compiled and mailed to 'n' music stores for a itemized bid. (n to be determined by the net). 3. The lowest bid, gets the contract if and only if the price of each item is lower then the one submitted in (1). 4. COPIES of the submitted bids would be distributed to all purchasers. This service would have to be used by individuals SERIOUS in purchasing equipment (not just shopping) and would be a CASH ONLY arrangement. Money orders or BANK check would be made out to the music store ONLY. I'm certain there are a lot of problems associated with this arrangement but MIGHT be made be well worth considering. If this worked out successfully, dealerships could be directly established with major vendors (KORG, YAMAHA, .etc...) that could result in MAJOR savings via a minimal 5%-10% mark-up over wholesale cost. Having worked in a music store (long ago in a galaxy far far away) I have seen dealer's price averaging ~50-60% of retail for most items. I would know i would like to be able purchase a new YAMAHA DX7 for $1,200-1,300 instead of the 1,600 - 1700 that I am hearing from music stores. Am I KNUTS or is this a viable alternative (even on a small scale)???? YOUR FEEDBACK IS MORE THAN WELCOME!!!!!! (My current order consists of :) 1 Multi-track (Sequential Circuits) 2 DW-8000 (KORG) 1 RX-15 (YAMAHA) 1 Porta Studio 1(TASCAM) And Since the DW-8ks won't be out till the end of Sept, I am willing to add to the list if anyone is interested in joining in a group buy.... THANKX FOR READING AN COMMENTING! Reuben M. Prichard AT&T Bell Labs 600 Mountain Ave. Murray Hill NJ 07974 201-582-4384 ..!ulysses!mentor!rmp
wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (09/18/85)
In article <1089@ulysses.UUCP> rmp@ulysses.UUCP (Reuben Prichard) writes: > > This service would have to be used by individuals SERIOUS in purchasing > equipment (not just shopping) and would be a CASH ONLY arrangement. > Money orders or BANK check would be made out to the music store ONLY. > ^^^^ (emphasis in original) If you can't trust the people's checks, you can't trust them in this sort of pool-shopping arrangement. Why the specification of "BANK checks" (meaning certified or cashier's checks) anyway? That just adds a layer of annoyance and hassle and paying extra charges to everyone participating. This is only going to work for people working together or at least in a fairly limited geographic area, anyway, so you should know anyone involved (or at least be a friend of a friend) in such a scheme, which gives a measure of evaluation and control automatically. (This hit a long-standing pet peeve button; I never wrote a bad check in my life, and I expect have my checks so accepted until I demonstrate my evilness by actually writing bad checks. I am perfectly willing to wait for checks to clear when mail-order shopping, also.) Will