MIMF

Gordon - congratulations on the sale!

As I was looking closely at that beauty and drooling all over my keyboard, I noticed that you might have done a backstrap - if so, did you do that in padauk to match the FB?

Just out of curiosity, where do you price yourself to compete with factory guitars?

Steve:

No back strap on this one.

Brian:

To get my product out there in the hands of musicians, I have priced myself a bit lower than I would like.
This guitar went for 2000.00 Canadian.
That is one heck of a deal for a handmade custom guitar.

I think that is a good price for that guitar, too. Right about where I thought it would be. Less than you probably want, but more than the equivalent factory guitars from Godin, etc. I am reminded of the story that Ken Parker told about trying to sell his handmade, over the top archtop to a famous jazz player. He was only offered around $1200, because the jazz guy could buy a factory guitar for that much. Now he gets $30K.

A luthier I met a few years ago who makes mainly basses and some guitars told me his instruments weren't selling well because he priced them too low - in the $2000 range - so he was going to have to raise his prices to appeal to a higher end market to sell more of them. I don't know how that worked out. He designs and builds beautiful instruments, so I hope that ploy was successful.

Peter Wilcox wrote:A luthier I met a few years ago who makes mainly basses and some guitars told me his instruments weren't selling well because he priced them too low - in the $2000 range - so he was going to have to raise his prices to appeal to a higher end market to sell more of them. I don't know how that worked out. He designs and builds beautiful instruments, so I hope that ploy was successful.

In marketing this is referred to as the "Chivas Effect". Package, present and price something as "premium" or "exclusive", and if you can execute that well, it can indeed lead to more sales and (obviously) higher margins.

I tell the students at the guitar program at Palomar College the same thing:

Build a $6,000 guitar. If you can't justify $6,000 for your guitar, keep working at it. You cannot compete with $1,000 guitars from China.

I have now sold 4 guitars, all in the same price range.
Lowest was 1800, highest was 2500.
All of the owners are really happy with them.

In my opinion, my guitars are built better than the "Custom Shop" guitars built by the large companies.
I have worked on those, and truly they are not a lot better than the MIM guitars.

The large companies have done a wonderful marketing job, though haven't they?