[Harp-L] Re: Another Hohner price increase

[Michael Easton <diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 20, 2010, at 7:26 PM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:31:29 -0500
> From: joe leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Another Hohner price increase
> To: Michael Easton <diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Harp L Harp L <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <02AB482B-BE48-423B-9076-C5CB63BE4078@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
>
> On Jan 20, 2010, at 5:13 PM, Joe Leone wrote:
> > I've decided to stop carrying Hohner products for obvious reasons
> > but will still fix them while I have the parts in stock.
>
> Why would you drop them. In my lifetime, I have never seen anything
> go down. Always up. It's a natural phenominon.

It's an issue of Hohner products not moving off the shelf even though  
my prices were dirt cheap.
I ended up giving away part of the inventory to charity and stripping  
down some of the other stuff
for parts.  The remainder was bought off by some harp customizers.

> > Hohner is slowly driving the independent repair guys out of
> > business due to the cost of replacement parts.
>
> I don't thin they are doing it on purpose.

Maybe not on purpose but when the new CEO came on board I lost my  
business discount for parts.
It made it possible to keep my repair prices low and make a little off  
the part I was selling.
Now unless I purchase a minimum of $100 in parts at a time there is no  
price reduction.
I just sold a lever for a CBH for $22!!  That's Hohner's price.  I  
make nothing on the sale because the part is too damn
expensive to begin with.  Same with the other parts.
Call it inflation or whatever.  I'm not hurting as bad as my fellow  
techs since I have a large stockpile of certain parts but
it's made it impossible to keep certain parts on hand.  Business now  
gets tied up having to order parts then wait for them.
Players are getting sticker shock with repairs and I don't blame them  
for complaining.

> > The reason my rep. gave for the price increase is the increase in
> > the Euro value and something to do with the Chinese economy.
>
> This is a red flag. It tells me that at least 'some' of their stuff
> is being made in China.
> > Also Hohner is has decided to market their products in blister card
> > packs now to have them out on a rack rather then behind glass in a
> > case.
> > They want product visibility.  Word from the rep is vendors aren't
> > happy with that move.
>
> Having them in the open makes them succeptable to heat cold and
> sunlight.

I hope they at least package the hinged case along with the harp.
>

Michael Easton
www.harmonicarepair.com