Hello!
in shopping for a baby grand, we came across a dealer that provided us with a price on a "new" kawai. in fact, they said it just arrived last week. i looked up the serial # and it was a 2006 production. when i questioned them, they said it was a repo from another dealer.
to me this seems like a poor practice and one that would not only lead to not buying this piano but not doing business with this dealer.
is my thinking correct on this or is it just my lack of understanding for the business.
thanks!

This is an old subject and we recently had a grand customer who bought a name brand upright under very similiar circumstances.

In this case, the piano was actually 8 years old when bought "brand new".....

Norbert

Any time a retailer buys B stock or stock from closed out dealers they always research the age and condition as it is relevant to the wholesale pricing discount vs fresh stock. The unit might be technically "new" as it was never sold or rented. They might have infact received the unit last week. But, they shure were skirting the truth.

Some times the average salesman on the floor is not privy to the details of a wholesale buy transaction done by the company leadership. They may not have looked up the serial number if the unit was fresh looking. If you were dealing with the owner, they knew the truth about the item.

Welcome to the wild and woolly world of Piano Shopping USA where nothing is what it seems, dealers aspire to one day be as reputable as a fly by night used car dealers, customers are seen as marks to be exploited and practically no one feels terribly bound to truth or integrity.

Tell the dealer what you think, tell everyone you know what you think of the dealer, complain to Kawai USA about this specific dealer telling porkies and run, don't walk to a reputable dealer.

Better yet, consider dropping this whole quaint piano idea and buy a big, widescreen TV instead. At least you can find an honest dealer and a fair price for those. If push comes to shove, and you are really interested in learning and or playing the piano rather than buying a piece of furniture, why not buy a digital piano instead? Skip the traditional piano dealers now and keep your eyes out later to buy a grand piano from a private, motivated seller.

Journey,

We have gone ring-around-the-rosy before. I will say it again for the record. Your universal disdain for piano retailers is rude, all inclusive, somewhat anti U.S., and not helpful to those who write into the Forum for help and advice. Your long distance potshots from Amsterdam are unwelcome.

I have been in this business for over 35 years and know lots of good fine and forthright folks selling pianos. There are bad apples in every industry. To paint all of us with the same brush is grossly unfair.

What is distane? Never heard of it.

Is that something like selling used instruments as new?
Or setting the made up new price and fantasy discount based on how ignorant the customer is?
Or claiming that buying a "new" piano is a good "investment"?

I can imagine that the suggestion to find a piano from a private party doesn't set well with someone in the new piano business. However, most reasonable people would agree that it is better to pay an attractive used price for a used piano from a private party and not throwing away money on some dealer's middleman margin than it is to buy a so-called new piano that is actually a used piano being sold as if it were a new piano at a new piano price (which is the topic of this thread)/

Your comments about buying a used piano from a private party were not a part of my issue. That is always an alternative. My gripe was with your characterization of all U.S. piano dealers.

My response to the OP about this specific case was very clear.

Well, then we are in agreement, aren't we?

BTW, do you see the word "all" in my post?

In general, it is better to listen to what people are actually saying rather than reacting emotionally to what you imagine they are saying.

"Welcome to the wild and woolly world of Piano Shopping USA where nothing is what it seems, dealers aspire to one day be as reputable as a fly by night used car dealers, customers are seen as marks to be exploited and practically no one feels terribly bound to truth or integrity."

Read like all inclusive to me.

The problem that I have with the conduct described in the OP's post is that the dealer said that the piano "just arrived last week." This would clearly leave a customer with the impression that it "just arrived [from the factory] last week." If a piano has never been sold, and comes with a full warranty, it is new, although I think that the dealer should disclose its age. That to me is a different issue from the one I raised at the start of this post, however. I have no interest in rehashing the "what is new" issue. The issue here for me is a "what is misleading" one, and based on what the OP said, the dealer made a misleading statement.

By the way, and by way of reassurance to the OP, there are plenty of wonderful, reliable, and all-around excellent piano dealers out there. Don't let anyone persuade you otherwise!

thanks everyone.
what also bothered me was when i mentioned this to the sales person, there was no "hmm...i wasnt aware, let me check, etc" instead the person just told me the full story of the piano. i even heard the word repossession in there!
so a 4 yr old new piano sitting around in some other dealer that went bankrupt.
we have movings, dust, ? tunings, etc to contend with. far from new to me!
aside from one reputable kawai dealer newar the pa/delaware border it has been am interesting experience so far!

If you are near Philadelphia, you should definitely stop in and see Rich Galassini at Cunningham Piano Company, the man who gave me faith in at least some piano dealers. It will be a real education--he will take you on a tour of their factory and give you all kinds of information. That is, if you want. If you want just to play the pianos, he will let you do that too. But the tour is fabulous. . . .
As you will find out if you look on this forum, Rich is utterly reliable, a gentleman and a scholar, to coin a phrase.

It is time that US dealers woke up to the fact that the typical shopper thinks that something that has sat around for years and/or been used as a hire piano, and/or been beaten to death in a music conservatory on "loan", and/or is an ancient repo is not, by any stretch of the imagination "new".

It is disreputable for the industry to defend this pretence. It taints all dealers. In some European countries there is a time limit that prevents this kind of misleading malpractice. Reputable dealers should adopt such a scheme.

This kind of practice tends to tar all dealers with the "disreputable" brush. Marty may dislike this, but it is an unfortunate fact of life that a few rotten apples taint the whole barrel.

There are excellent dealers around. They readily disclose the year of manufacture and the history of any instrument. This is what leads to business credibility and a reputation for ethical trading.

If dealers want to be labelled dishonest shysters, then they will continue with these practices.

Adrian

"This kind of practice tends to tar all dealers with the "disreputable" brush." The practice doesn't tar dealers, it is the irresponsible overreaching characterizations that do.

"It is disreputable for the industry to defend this pretence." I have yet to see any industry professional on this forum defending this. Certainly not me.

Marty doesn't like it when products are misrepresented.
Marty doesn't like it when products are malrepresented.
Marty believes retailers of any/all products that cheat buyers should be outed and tarred.

Marty also believes that their ought to be a modicum of civility, and resents sweeping generalities about his industry. Those who would throw the brickbats might look at their own industries:
Teachers, clergy, lawyers, stockbrokers, bankers, congressmen, entertainment, etc. All in the news in recent weeks with "bad apples".

I had to drive 220 miles from my home to find a honest dealer, and even then I verified the serial number with Kawai. You have to do your homework. If the dealers is hesitant about giving you the serial number, look elsewhere. I had a dealer tell me the piano was 'new to me' and said the serial number will be on your receipt. As a matter of fact he didn't even list the model number. I thought something was not right, and when I finally got the model and serial number from him, I found out the piano was 10 years old. Now he is trying to keep my deposit.

Your only other option is to insist on a new piano in a crate, and still, it may be one year old, depending on which warehouse it has been sitting in.

Good luck!

My question would be was the Kawai offered at a 2006 price, or a 2010 price? There seem to be plenty of repo pianos and B stock at stores these days.

What is a B stock actually?

B stock is pianos returned to the distributor's warehouse. They are then sold to a store who may or may not repair them before sale, depending on how they are represented. Some B stock returns could include color mis-matches, dents, dings, scratches, warped/broken/loose/missing cabinet parts, buzzes no one can fix, improper or missing key weights so keys stick, tuning pins too loose or too tight. At least that's the common issues I've seen. Years ago, when Baldwin had a fire, the pianos in the building at time of the fire were stripped of the Baldwin decal and plate decoration to be sold as no name pianos. Some dealers did exactly that, while others added the Baldwin decal to the fall and sold them as Baldwins. I occasionally run across each type in my travels.

theJourney
That was a brutal assault on US piano dealers. It is not a "wild and wooly world of piano shopping USA". We are not trying to elevate ourselves to "fly by night car dealers". We do not see our customers as "marks". I can't even grasp your vitriol.

Rank Piano Amateur, thank-you, you rank #1.
Mike

There is good and bad in all walks of life. The bad get a lot more "press". People are much more likely to talk about bad experiences than they are to give praise for good experiences and good service - what's that old saying? "If a customer is happy he'll tell his friends. If he's unhappy he'll tell everyone."

I think that the negative pictures that keep being painted with a wide brush are unfair to the vast majority of the piano dealers in this country - who really care about providing their clients with the best piano for their budget.

This is a worldwide forum with fifty thousand members. There are many dealers who give of their time to help people who will never set foot in their showrooms. Bashing their profession does not encourage them to remain here and give us their perspective.

These dealers have a lot more to do than give of their time to us. They are not sitting in their showrooms playing solitaire. They are showing pianos, following leads, scheduling deliveries, looking for the best possible deals on inventory. I think Ori once said to me that he is able to sell for a fair price because he does his homework and makes sure he gets the best possible price when he buys.

I for one appreciate the time and effort you guys give to this forum.

Ken

Thanks!

This is going to sound slightly OT, but I too must stand up for piano dealers. It appears to be a tough business.

I started shopping for a new grand about two months ago when I joined this forum. My experience with dealers, and the purchase of a new M&H, was MORE than pleasant -- even though I must admit to being somewhat of a cynic when it comes to high-ticket items.

The only unpleasant experience during the last two months was tolerating unnecessary anti-USA postings on this forum by our elitist friend from Amsterdam.

If you consider yourself a cynic regarding high-ticket purchases, you might ask yourself why that is. Perhaps it is because you are an informed consumer, aware of what can go wrong and not easy to be taken advantage of as someone who might post here with a sob story, too late to resolve. Your anecdote of a pleasant experience does not mean that all experiences are pleasant, any more than that the many reports of unpleasant experiences here mean that all experiences are unpleasant or that all dealers are bad, despite the straw man argument that Marty has tried to attach to me. It does mean that both exist and that consumers must be very careful.

As to your using the terms Anti-American and Elite...
That sounds suspiciously like code language labels that are used in today's political 'debate' for anyone with whom one disagrees. Rather than name calling it is much more helpful and kind to discuss the issues using arguments.

It is a simple fact -- one that has been verified ad nauseum with stories of tears and scrapes and bruises on this very forum during the years I have been reading and actively contributing and one that is again proven in this thread -- that consumers must be very wary when shopping for pianos if they want to emerge unscathed. Larry Fine has a whole cottage industry built around this unfortunate fact and this forum exists in large part due to the inadequacies of piano retail distribution, especially in the US.

Trying to put your head in the sand thinking that all dealers are honest and wonderful will wind up giving you the kind of experience often reported here of people buying 10 year old instruments sold as new, or overpaying by thousands and thousands of dollars over fair prices, or having deposits extracted from them with stories of false urgency and then never refunded, or having pianos fully paid for that are then never delivered, or different pianos delivered than purchased, or dealers refusing to resolve issues with pianos, etc. etc. All it takes is one used car dealer to act dishonestly for other used car dealers to risk being viewed with suspicion.

I can assure you that it is not anti-American for me or anyone else to want Americans to also to be able to continue to enjoy and buy pianos and to do so without suspicion and fear. I also would like to see Americans be much less swindled and taken advantage of than they are today whether from dishonest piano dealers just trying to survive but doing so on the back of innocent customers, or dishonest bankers getting away with highway robbery, tanking the economy and then raiding the treasury for billions, or dishonest politicians in the paid service of corporations refusing 50M people affordable access to healthcare while starting trillion dollar offensive wars based on lies and false pretenses paid with deficit loans from the Chinese, etc. Who would wish anyone to have to suffer those kinds of indignities? Not me. I feel your pain. Pretending everything is hunky dory won't help, however.

It is truly painful to see that piano sales in the US continue to dry up and have dropped by 32% recently. It is very obviously a tough business. There is a saying "when the going gets tough, the tough get going". Some may believe that piano dealers are only the victims of this drop in demand. Unfortunately, however, it is a well-understood and documented phenomenon that in declining industries that "the tough get going" too often translates as those remaining marginal operators doing absolutely anything they can, often in desperation, to stay afloat: even if that means acting in a way that is in direct conflict with the interests of the customer or their long-term success and reputation.

Have piano sales dropped by a third in the US despite the efforts of US piano dealers or in large part because of the actions of (other) piano retailers? There is ample evidence to suggest that bad, consumer-unfriendly piano dealers (whether you believe represent 1%, 10% of 50% etc. of all dealers) are in fact a big part of the problem. Does that mean that there are no good dealers out there? Of course not. However, with the knowledge that you and anyone can glean here in this forum, one can conclude that the process of shopping for a reputable piano dealer is every bit or even more important than the process of shopping for a piano. Buyer beware.

Hi Ellie,

There are some terms in your message that indicate to me some misunderstanding of what's going on here. A piano sitting in a dealer's store gets tuned, but also receives more prep. Both are good things. The additional tunings means the piano's tuning will be more stable when it gets to your house (after acclimating to it). Additional prep means action regulation and voicing. Whether the previous dealer did any of that we don't know, but generally the longer a piano sits unsold the more likely it will have been worked on. Now dust can be a problem, but in general dust isn't good for sales so my impression is that dealers go to great efforts to keep their inventory looking brand new. So "far from new to me" can actually be a good thing. And let's be honest I know some people have their techs clean out the insides of their piano, but in truth most of us don't. It doesn't seem to bother most instruments for the first half century or so.

The fact is a number of piano dealers have gone under in the last few years. Some of the instruments that have been repossessed from such dealers are actually very nice and they are usually priced accordingly (as repo's and part of a special dealer offering). You didn't mention the model of Kawai nor the price offered so we cannot help you in determining of the price was fair.

Frankly, I don't so all that much to be upset about. Once the salesperson checked the instrument's history he was upfront about the story. I believe the term repossession is unfortunate. This instrument was never sold (unlike car repo's) and probably received more work than other non-repossessed instruments. So what was the model and price? If we know that we'll tell you if the offering was fair.

One last point, beware posters who spend half a page explaining themselves. It's been my experience that the more one has to explain themselves the less confident they are of their own logic and the more convoluted that logic seems to be.

Good luck on your piano search and if you feel more comfortable buying from the "more reputable kawai dealer near the pa/delaware border" then by all means do so.

The issue was that the OP was initially only told part of the story: "it arrived new last week" - which is probably a true statement, only he initially did not tell where the piano came from (from an overstock of a dealer who went bankrupt).

However this happens all the time also here with potential buyers who are proud to state they've seen offered a 'model/brand' at a much lower price than put forward in an OP's thread. They then also forget to mention 'how new' the piano was for which they've seen a quoted price!

I wonder if all this is also not 'the price to pay' for an extreme price sensitive market; it was already very price sensitive before the economic crisis and I have the impression it has become even more now. Very greedy buyers will have to be aware of the fact that sometimes they will be confronted with greedy dealers.

schwammerl.

Hi Steve,
You may have missed it in an earlier post of mine, but the big issue here is the salesperson was completely aware of the history of this piano as well as the age. Rather than tell me the truth, they simply said the piano had just arrived last week. While this may have technically been correct, it is only a fraction of the story. Had we not looked up the serial number we would be the proud owners of a 4 yr old new piano. Perhaps it was tuned, but who knows? The dealer that went under may have managed their maintenance like they managed their finances.
Regards,
Ellie

The Steinway Dealer here has a large amount of used pianos traded in from a school deal. The used pianos have the date of manufacture on the price tag, which helps both salesman and customer.

Hi Ellie,

I'm not going to defend either dealer. The one who told you only part of the story was certainly a bit shady. This dealer may have information about the previous dealer, but apparently that hasn't been shared with you. I only respond here because in your earlier post you referred to tunings in a manner that indicated that you considered them wear and tear. Over the very long run I suppose tunings are wear and tear, but early in a piano's life they contribute to tuning stability. Remember we're talking about a lifetime of at least 50 years. We also have no idea whether the piano has received dealer prep. That's something that can be determined by a tech. As I said before if you feel the other Kawai dealer (near the DE/PA border) is more reputable no one here will blame you for choosing to do business there.

However, there are a number of very reputable piano dealers in the Washington DC area and Philadelphia and New York are a day trip away. You haven't lived until you've shopped Piano Row and Rich Galassini and Cunningham Pianos in Philadelphia are highly regarded here.

I woulr personally not buy from a piano dealer who has given me any reason not to buy from him. Why? Because pianos are a long term investment and there are a lot of piano dealers out there. Just look until you find the perfect one, or at least that's what I'd do.

You have to call Kawai, Petrof, Yamaha whoever, and verify the age by the serial number. I even used my Magic Jack to call Bohemia in the Czech Republic. It was worth a couple of bucks to find out the piano I almost bought was 10 years old, but the dealer said it was 'new to me.' Even my new RX-2 BLAK, was only at the dealer for 2-3 weeks, but when I called Kawai it was made in the end of 2008/early 2009 and was one of the first BLAK models to be made.