Klarinet Archive - Posting 000099.txt from 2006/03

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Buffet R-13 to be replaced AND I LOVE BUFFET
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 12:33:23 -0500

Tom.Henson@-----.com wrote:
> Generally speaking, most companies will sell a product for whatever
> the market will bear. Europeans, I have a feeling, are used to paying
> higher prices for things in general and thus may be a reason why the
> Festival sells for the same as the Prestige models there.

Prices for clarinets do not seem so dissimilar, actually. If you take
WWBW's price, versus that of Howarth's in London, the list price for an
R13 on WWBW works out as maybe £50 less than Howarth's, while a Prestige
at WWBW is actually about £300 more expensive than the Howarth's price.

Bear in mind that the Howarth's prices include tax, so if you were
ordering from them and taking it abroad, it might be even cheaper.

I don't know why Buffet might want to sell the Festival at a lower rate
in the US, but here all the "top line" instruments (i.e. Prestige,
Prestige R13, Festival, Vintage) are the same price. Maybe the cult of
the R13 has penetrated so deeply into the American psyche that no one
will touch the higher-level instruments unless given incentives. :-)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org