slow times

[James E DeRocher]

LIST:

>From this Technician/Dealer the answer is that piano sales in general
are slow,
and that acoustic pianos sales are slower than digital sales.  The
reasons
being IMHO that the prices of digitals are lower and that the perceived
advantages
of digitals (to the buying public, if not to piano techs) are greater.  I
feel sorry for
the dealers whose income depends solely on piano sales; If we didn't have
a
thriving band/orchestral business we would go tummy up.  My quasi rural
area has FOUR dealers and that's too many by anyone's reckoning.  Aside
from the expected consequences (too many fishermen chasing too few fish),
the the strange (and to me inexplicable) policy of piano manufacturers to
award
exclusive dealerships has the unexpected rresult of causing some dealers
to
be bottom feeders whn it comes to obtaining new pianos to sell.  Who in
his/
her rright mind would want to buy and sell some of the crappe coming in
from
Europe and Asian?  It seems to me that manufacturrers are very
short-sighted
in this regard.

Jim DeRocher