Hello. How much is s brand new Steinway D or B???? I would like prices for both. Thanks.

Ask your local Steinway dealer - it's not a secret.

Prices are detailed in Piano Buyer. Link is in the left-hand column on this page.

A satin ebony B's MSRP is 81,200, and a satin ebony D's MSRP is 123,800.

Hint: Steinway does not like to sell under MSRP. If you want a "whole" 10% discount, look for a Steinway dealer going out of business. This was the case a month ago for Steinway of Phoenix where I live. For additional savings, buy out of state so you can dodge sales tax.

Where ever you buy, make sure actually play the piano you are going to buy. According to non-Steinway dealers, New York Steinway's are notorious for there variance. You would not believe how much high end piano dealers throw digs at their competition. It appears to be the same in the high end car industry.

Better yet, fly to the factory or the alleged Kentucky storeroom that allegedly has 2000 Steinways waiting for buyers and pick one out. Not sure what the sales tax consequences would be.

In this day and age of the internet, all piano dealers need to get a thicker skin when it comes to the actual street prices of pianos. Add a recession and I hate to tell you, but the prices are down. Period. Or the pianos are not selling. Period. Heaven forbid that someone actually hint at the Street price of a piano.

Damn, that felt good to get off my chest. You want a rant, just point me at the subject.





No secrets were divulged in the editing of this post.

Heck - they weren't even offering 10% off !!! It was more like 7% on the new B's.

What's the markup of a typical Steinway grand that sells for in excess of $80,000?

A Steinway that lists for $80.000, represents as much as $50.000, in markup.

It's no wonder Ori hates Steinway so much. He must seethe all the way to the bank.

You sure about this? If so, can you back it up? I'm genuinely interested.

If thats the case then I need to buy some Steinway stock right now.

Here is what the Steinway management said to investors during a Security Conference Call January this year:

Gross margins for New York Model B Ebony
– Normal wholesale margin ≈ 33%
– Retail margin ≈ 52%
– Retail margin from manufactured cost ≈ 68%

With a current list price of $81,200 for a B, you guys can figure out the mark up. I bought my new B three months ago at very close to the list price, did not really get much of a discount even in this economy downturn.

My bad, it was exactly 7%. I did not do the math.

New Steinway B on sales for 7% discount (75516/81200) = 93%. SN 585055

maybe they'll have a christmas sale

Wish I could have gotten that 7% discount
Since I love the tone and touch of my B, well just have to get over how much I might have been able to save on another one...

Were you able to avoid sales tax by purchasing out of state?

No, I purchased the B from my local dealer. Got to admit that saving some $$ was not really high on my mind at the time. I have been trying quite a lot of As and Bs for about 18 months and could not find one that I was very happy with. So when I finally found the right one (and the dealer knew that I love the piano), there was not much room for negotiation. I guess I listened to my heart and not my head. So I did not get a great deal in terms of $ spent but I did find a very lovely piano.

But the math needs to be done in reality. The dealer markup is not the total markup from factory. Also, there is a difference between margin and markup.

Anyway, clearly it is not too high because there should be enough to keep the factory going and for the dealer to pay their employees and make something on top. With dealers going out of business, clearly piano dealers -- even Steinway dealers -- are not sitting on top of a gusher oil well.

(disclosure -- when I was in piano retail, S&S was my competition.)

I hate to be the bearer of bad news.
If you purchase a taxable item out of state and have it delivered to your home state you are still liable for a "use tax" payable to your home state. So do not casually mention your recent out of state purchase at the annual Governor's ball.

Then what is up with buying things on Amazon.com and not paying sales tax?

States that have sales tax have use tax. If the dealer does not pay sales tax, you are supposed to pay use tax. A dealer who pays sales tax has the right to collect it from the buyer.

Technically the buyer is still responsible for paying the use tax to his state. Of course, few people actually do, since the tax collector has no way of tracking all the online purchases you make. That is why some states are bringing lawsuits trying to force Amazon to collect sales tax.

I was told by my Steinway tech (who spent his entire career with the company) that the mark up was 100%. When I bought my M in 1985 it was priced at approx. $17,000. The owner of the store had just received the Steinway Franchise and said he was willing to match any price. I offered him $10,000, thinking he'd still be making a nice profit if he'd paid $8,500. He came back with an offer to sell to me for $11,500. I then went to my home city and approached the dealer there with this price and showed them check book in hand that I was ready to buy but would rather buy locally and he matched the price + paid for several visits by my tech to get the piano regulated and voiced the way I wanted it. (My tech went with me to check it out before I made the final purchase and of course he knew the owner well.) I still have the piano and love it and feel that a paid a fair price and the dealer made a fair profit.

Unfortunately, most people are not that fortunate, and also the Steinway fans do not work together to influence the price. People give up easily and willing to pay the MSRP.

People who buy expensive pianos are either rich and feel that they must have them so it is a passionate buying. Both ways are good for piano dealers....that is why they can keep their price high. People who do not money and need a functional piano to practice will be unlikely to pay MSRP. They will shop around.

Again, SS is not a commodity piano like Yamaha or Kawai.

A lot of misunderstanding of the money made in the piano business. Gross margin is the difference beteween the basic manufacturing cost (materials labor, factory direct overheads) and the sell price from the manufacturer to the retailer. Manufacturers gross margin of 33% is not abnormally high and not equal to profit ( or earnings),because all of the general expenses of the business are still to be deducted ie marketing, R and D , engineering, accounting, finance costs ( ie debt)etc etc. So gross margins in the thirties for are about as low as you want for this kind of business to remain healthy and investable. The guy who wants to rush of and buy Steinway shares because the dealer mark ups are high is way off the mark.
Retail mark up is not going to Steinway, it goes to the retailer. It may seem high but from this the dealer has to maintain a high end store, staff, local marketing costs,invest in some very expensive stock, finance his working capital and many other costs. And he does not sell Steinways at a high rate of knots! I'm not crying for either Steinway or the dealer, but neither do I see it as a gravy train. Probably not the first place I would look to invest my hard won money.

What a laugh... Steinway stores, not to mention a multitude of other businesses, are closing their doors left and right across the world and the best Steinway can do is a lousy 7% discount. That's hairy armpits crazy! Look, I don't want to think the people at the factory haven't worked hard and their efforts aren't worth anything nor the people at the sales and dealership divisions but really... 7%????

Well at least they haven't stooped to using 10 year old slave labor in China to make a profit... cuz that's what music and instruments are all about right guys?




Oh yeah... here's my p.c. disclaimer. Steinway pianos are awesome, and I mean it!

Your opinions are interesting in that they have nothing to do with the real reasons for margin. The cost of simply keeping a showroom open, base on long-time industry averages is ~40% of the selling price.

Retailer have to pay rent, payroll, advertising, cost of tuning, etc. in ordre to do business. Add to that the cost of maintaining a $500,000 - $1,500,000 inventory and provide for a return on the dealers investment.

The reason so many dealers are closing their doors isn't that they have too high a mark-up. It is because their simply aren't enough current buyers to pay the overhead.

Understood... and i am not a Marxist with a lack of an education or appreciation of what it takes to run a business, i am a small business owner myself.

but there are smarter ways to keep companies like Steinway alive.

For instance finance incentives like 10% off or more and use that credit as a margin for reduction or elimination for a down payment based on the appraised new value. Get more companies involved in financing or do factory financing... obviously this applies to all makers not just Steinway.

At least in america there should be a lobby that involves congress to urge or give incentives to banks to loan to consumers under preservation of the arts programs.

Come on, if we can support over 900 military bases worldwide and spend trillions on unconstitutional wars we can help a family get a steinway, schimmel, yamaha.... to enrich our civilization.

As much as I'd love to see more acoustic pianos sold, the bottom line is that the closer digital pianos get (in the eyes of the general public) to an acoustic, the less acoustics sold because most people feel they can get close to an acoustic at a fraction of the cost. It's almost a catch 22. The Yamaha place where I'm buying my AvantGrand N1 probably only sells a couple grand pianos a month at best, but they sell tons of DPs.

I commend Steinway for not using cheap labor to bring down their cost, and instead continue sell a fine piano that keeps them in business. I'm buying my AvantGrand N1 for higher than I could buy it elsewhere, and the sales tax here is steep- 9.25%, but I know in doing so, I'm helping to keep the doors open at a place that can service the piano, and is there for me to shop at in the first place.

Not quite, but close.

According to current price lists I happen to have...

Norbert

An older restored would probably sound better, but that depends on who restored it. They say the new ones don't sound as good. Just saying.

I don't know about grand Steinway, but my friend bought an upright K52 with 25% discount 9 years ago in Orange County, CA

The dealer in Orange County, Ca is Fields. I promise that they did not sell a new Steinway with a 25% discount. I can testify that I did buy a new "B" from them in Los Angeles in 2006. Yes Virginia, a deal can be done....15% off NY list. I paid $57,300. NY list at the time was #67,300!

Steinway report that the average buyer of a Steinway has income above 300k/ annum, and that their biggest competitor is used Steinways. So how many sales swing on 5 or 7 % discounts. Top end luxury brands like Steinway are seldom price sensitive, ie a price reduction is unlikely to generate sufficient additional volume to compensate for loss of revenue and margin. So margin reductions and discounts would probably be the fastest way for a company like Steinway to get into financial trouble, not out of it. It might help the dealer to be able to negotiate, but probably not Steinway. We all love to negotiate great discounts, but on top end brand leaders like Porsche, or Steinway it seldom happens because its not what drives most sales.

Just so everyone is aware, this is a pretty old thread, and the OP was permanently banned. So, there's no real point in continuing it. Just sayin'...

i couldn't disagree more mikf. i make good money, but deal with a lot of people that make much more and price is always a negotiating point on just about any product.

i cant tell you how many times i see customers at the different high end car dealers i service, especially in the orange county area, where although they will pay cash or half and then finance for only a year for a new or even used 750, they will negotiate the price or go to another bmw dealer, or for that matter another brand. bmw dealer's biggest competition is other bmw dealers, because unlike steinway, dealers can discount as much as they want. i have even seen customers that will drive from san diego to fletcher jones mercedes in newport beach to save $500 on a new e class.

cars, furniture, jewelry, clothing, expensive vacations..... any smart person, wealthy or not, is going to keep from spending too much if he doesn't have to, period.

There are many BMW dealers in SoCal, but I think only two Steinway dealers. That is why it is impossible to pit them against each other. Not like Yamaha, there so many Yamaha dealers. In addition, most piano people in SoCal know the price of U1, and C3. If a Yamaha dealer tries to keep their price high, that dealer will definitely lose their sales to other Yamaha dealers. It is better to earn less money than not to earn at all. Not like in the Midwest, very few Yamaha dealers. They can act like Steinway dealers. In addition, people in the Midwest are not as informed as people in SoCal when comes to buying Yamaha or Kawai pianos.

I always wonder who buys Steinways. I know many of people whom I know bought Steinway not because they are rich. But because they really want to have one. It seems all my friends who are piano teachers have a dream that they must have a Steinway before they die. It appears that having a Steinway makes their life complete. They make monthly payment like paying house mortgage. I think if this makes them happy, they should do it.....

Good point Ronald, but i think that mikf's statement was that price was not an purchasing point with the $300,000 and up buying segment was totally not accurate.

I agree that some people will buy that coveted object at any price if they want it bad enough and even if they can't afford it, but my point was that a savvy person doesn't blatantly spend money like that.

Despite the economy, we have more millionaires in this county than we have ever had, and yet it seems every several months there is another piano store closing, especially shocking is the steinway store closures.

People with money are simply holding on to it longer now to see what will happen with the economy.

In addition there is more solid true competition for steinway then ever.... and buyers know that.... and those companies will deal and discount... unfortunately, steinway still doesn't.... so more steinway stores close.

Personally i don't blame steinway, i blame crooked politicians who havn't protected the american companies and the economy for decades and have allowed such unfair and unethical competition.

We need the gold standard, reinstate the equitable tariff on imports and protect american companies so they can pay people a living wage and be able to afford the products that they build at the very factories they work at.

That is what will save companies like steinway.

Is it safe to assume you live in SoCal?

I used to live in SoCal for 12 years. I know that the Asian community are very well informed about piano prices. They know how much Yamaha U1 should be, and Yamaha C3 should be. So most piano dealers cannot really rip them off easily. Anyway, they are the biggest buyers of Yamaha Piano in SoCal. Those U1s sells like peanut. Not like in the Midwest, piano dealers are king, most people are not well informed in the Midwest. Feel sorry for the families who want to buy their kids Yamaha U1 and needs to pay tons of money.

So we should impose tariff's sufficient to level the field in this country to Steinway's self-imposed, unwavering price point? How many folks would be able to participate in the piano community then? Certainly this place would then echo like an emptied house.

Some might well argue those very tariffs you advocate corrupt the system or that such protections allow them to be non-innovative and non-competitive. When they close their last dealer, I'm pretty sure that will be the reason. See your first paragraph quoted above. (Noting the Vogel and Kawai in your sigline... )

Calm down hot rod... you think you found some gotcha moment but you haven't.

Without going into a long winded argument on economics, going on the gold standard alone would negate the need for a tariff as it would automatically deflate the currency of the competing country therefore negating any advantage their slave labor built products would have.

However that wouldn't matter much as going on the gold standard would remove the problems of currency inflation and would reward american workers by a huge pay increase. Although most think a pay increase would bankrupt a company but actually the increase would allow the very employees to buy the products at that higher price, so it doesn't matter.

In addition if the domestic products are favored then they will buy american products, the money stays in the country and therefore pianos for all.

This may sound crazy to some but at one time this actually is what we did in America and we had the greatest period of economic prosperity of any time in any county in history. It was called the gilded age.

BTW, Japan restricts imports like crazy... actually for the longest time they didnt even allow new import cars into the county... don't know what their doing now but probably the same.

We regularly refer to the following updated buyer’s guide:

http://www.pianobuyer.com/current-issue/acoustic-prices-steinway.html

Per current prices, a Steinway D is priced between $148,000 and $207,000. While all D models are the same size, there is a number of finishes to choose from.

New Model B pianos are priced between $99,800 and $150,000.

In the UK the model D is £139145 and the B is £82350

Both in Ebony High Gloss, and both Hamburg models.

Not sure what that's supposed to mean.

From my experience and IMHO Steinway's 'biggest' competitor is "everybody else" out there.

Adding up the number of pianos sold by those makers in tier group 1 and 2 would certainly tell the story.

We see this especially with one particular make we happen to carry ourselves. Virtually every customer we are getting these days has enough money to buy a Steinway - and has yet made the decision for something else.

Sure same is true for others as well.

And the Fazioli store here in Vancouver B.C. has long become world's No 1.

Norbert

If the new ones didn't sound as good, most people would buy rebuilt ones. Some buyers prefer rebuilt Steinways either for their sound/touch or for the lower price. But I think your "they" includes quite a few rebuilders.

Since this thread is from 2011, and Aliwally has not been online since 2013, a reply is not likely.

"Their biggest competitor" means their biggest single competitor for performance grade pianos. Adding up the total number of pianos sold by the non-Steinway Tier 1 and 2 makers is irrelevant.

The average Steinway buyer earns more than $300K annually? Yikes !!

The opposite is true.

Outside 9' concert grands for concert stage perhaps, there's all kinds of competition going on between tier 1 and tier 2 pianos on market today.

In many cases of course including Steinway.

With the proliferation of many high quality "competitors" available to buyers in today's market, there are far more to count than simply 1+1= same make.

Norbert

..

I suggest that you go back and read your first post and my response. I never said that there were no other competitors to Steinway other than Steinway rebuilds...that idea goes without saying. There is a world of difference between the concepts of Steinway's biggest competitor and "all of Steinway's competitors". When talking about Steinway's biggest competitor, discussing all their competitors is not relevant.

Which may help explain a little better why you bought yourself a Mason Hamlin....

Norbert