[pianotech] Costco/Yamaha

[Kerry]

Please forgive my cynicism, but I'd be afraid that this would provide those
dealers who are already so inclined an opportunity to slide out of even more
service responsibilities (with them and Costco pointing fingers at each
other on the more expensive warranty issues). Sounds like even more
desperate times ahead in the piano business.

 

Kerry Kean 

www.ohiopianotuner.com <http://www.ohiopianotuner.com/> 

 

 

  _____  

From: wimblees at aol.com [mailto:wimblees at aol.com] 
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 11:00 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Costco/Yamaha

 

Costco has some sort of "executive membership" plan. It requires a merchant
to buy a certain amount of merchandise from the store. In exchange, the
merchant gets to advertise with a banner, and in some cases, actually bring
merchandise into the store to sell. So I would presume that your local
Yamaha dealer probably has that agreement with Costco to sell the pianos in
the store.
 
A piano dealer here in Hawaii had an arrangement with one of the Costco
stores. All Costco did was take the money. The dealer was responsible for
everything else. 


I tried to get them to put up a banner about my tuning service, but the
store claimed they were not going to promote local dealers any more. I guess
it was their way of telling me I wasn't a big enough merchant.

Wim

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Kurta <mkurta1 at comcast.net>
To: Pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Sat, Jun 13, 2009 3:16 pm
Subject: [pianotech] Costco/Yamaha

    Wandering through our local Cosco's "aisles of beauty" this morning I
was attracted to live piano music coming from the middle of the store.  It
was eminating from a new Yamaha baby grand (couldn't see the model) with a
Disklavier doing the playing.  Price was $16,999.  What was surprising was
the assortment of 6 other various Yamahas.  Another baby grand w/o player
and several studios and consoles were displayed.  They attracted a lot of
attention, but I don't know how many actually were sold.  No sales person
was in evidence.  Looks like warehouse clubs are into the piano business big
time, at least ours is......

    Mike Kurta, RPT

    Chicago chapter

 

  _____  

Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy
<http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000003>  recipes for the
grill. 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090614/f999c201/attachment.htm>