danielsanderson
07-19-2003, 02:52 AM
I visited the Yamaha U.S. piano dealer from which I bought my CVP-207 last weekend, and I noticed a large, framed notice on the wall. It appeared to be an enlargement of a short article that supposedly appeared in a trade journal (I think it was "Piano Technicians Guild," or a similarly generic name), though I wouldn't be surprised if said journal was hard to find. It included a picture of a Yamaha U.S. official of some kind, the purported author of the text.
The article was Yamaha's statement on "grey market pianos," pianos purchased overseas and shipped into the U.S. at a lower cost than local dealer prices. It began quite sanely as a statement about how Yamaha U.S. does not provide warranty support for such pianos and wants to curb such purchases in the name of reducing customer confusion that tarnishes the brand. Fair enough, I thought, certainly potential buyers need to know about the lack of warranty coverage.
The text made some questionable statements near the end to attempt to appeal to people willing to risk the lack of warranty to save money. If I recall correctly, the article claimed that pianos manufactured for sale in Japan account for local conditions such as humidity, implying that they would be inferior products if used in the U.S. to their manufactured-for-the-U.S. counterparts. I might actually take this seriously if the article were about acoustic pianos, and to be honest I don't quite remember if it discussed digitals specifically or not. Are people buying acoustic Yamaha pianos from Japan and shipping them to the U.S.? I knew I should have asked for a copy of the text for reference... When applied to digital pianos, the latter claims leave me highly incredulous, and a tad offended.
I'm only interested in this little statement as a curious response to an interesting global market phenomenon. At least without a copy of the article in front of me, I don't have any hard accusations of an attempt to mislead consumers with marketing tactics. It does remind me of when I mentioned grey-market pianos to my dealer when I was negotiating a price, and how the salesman tried to tell me a horror story of a guy who did that and had a bad experience and how the guy said for the salesman to give his number to anyone considering purchasing overseas so he could talk them out of it. I knew I should have asked for the number. I believe I overpaid for my CVP-207 (I paid $6000 in May 2002), and it has soured the purchase experience and made me not trust my dealer (which has a geographical monopoly in my area).
My own take on the "grey market" deal is that it probably isn't for everyone, but I wouldn't expect the kind of problems Yamaha U.S. is describing to scare customers. It wasn't for me, and it still isn't, despite my lack of trust in my dealer and Yamaha U.S. The most important thing, of course, is that the more I explore and use the CVP, the more I feel like it is worth the money I spent.
Does anyone know more about this article/poster hanging on my dealer's wall?
-- Dan
The article was Yamaha's statement on "grey market pianos," pianos purchased overseas and shipped into the U.S. at a lower cost than local dealer prices. It began quite sanely as a statement about how Yamaha U.S. does not provide warranty support for such pianos and wants to curb such purchases in the name of reducing customer confusion that tarnishes the brand. Fair enough, I thought, certainly potential buyers need to know about the lack of warranty coverage.
The text made some questionable statements near the end to attempt to appeal to people willing to risk the lack of warranty to save money. If I recall correctly, the article claimed that pianos manufactured for sale in Japan account for local conditions such as humidity, implying that they would be inferior products if used in the U.S. to their manufactured-for-the-U.S. counterparts. I might actually take this seriously if the article were about acoustic pianos, and to be honest I don't quite remember if it discussed digitals specifically or not. Are people buying acoustic Yamaha pianos from Japan and shipping them to the U.S.? I knew I should have asked for a copy of the text for reference... When applied to digital pianos, the latter claims leave me highly incredulous, and a tad offended.
I'm only interested in this little statement as a curious response to an interesting global market phenomenon. At least without a copy of the article in front of me, I don't have any hard accusations of an attempt to mislead consumers with marketing tactics. It does remind me of when I mentioned grey-market pianos to my dealer when I was negotiating a price, and how the salesman tried to tell me a horror story of a guy who did that and had a bad experience and how the guy said for the salesman to give his number to anyone considering purchasing overseas so he could talk them out of it. I knew I should have asked for the number. I believe I overpaid for my CVP-207 (I paid $6000 in May 2002), and it has soured the purchase experience and made me not trust my dealer (which has a geographical monopoly in my area).
My own take on the "grey market" deal is that it probably isn't for everyone, but I wouldn't expect the kind of problems Yamaha U.S. is describing to scare customers. It wasn't for me, and it still isn't, despite my lack of trust in my dealer and Yamaha U.S. The most important thing, of course, is that the more I explore and use the CVP, the more I feel like it is worth the money I spent.
Does anyone know more about this article/poster hanging on my dealer's wall?
-- Dan