Keep It Local :.

With the Australian Dollar being the strongest it has been in decades and the reluctance of some local distributors to pull their pricing in line comparatively to overseas , mostly the USA , for many the option of bypassing the local market and buying overseas is attractive to say the least.

I fully understand that sentiment , I actually have been one of the loudest voices against the pricing disparity as it has often felt like I was fighting with one arm tide behind my back when I failed to service a client purely because I couldn't come close to a price that they can get from the U.S. There are various factors involved that can raise the cost for the local distributors, added freight costs , wharf and duty charges, quantity buy pricing , etc, and I'm sure you have heard them all before, but the bottom line is that the onus is on the distributors to compete on the global market , so taking all of the above into account , it still doesn't explain some of the over zealous pricing disparity that has been prevalent over the years.

So What Now ?

The recent market climate has been the catalyst for more and more local distributors to take the incentive to pull the pricing into line so that we the dealers can compete with the overseas dealers on a more level playing field. In short, a lot of music/audio products are now close if not equal to pricing offered by the US dealers. That has a few advantages , one being it keeps the money local and benefits our economy directly , also in the rare cases of warranties , you at least have a local agent to take care of that instead of shipping the units back to the US and arm wrestling on overseas's dealer, who in many cases will not place any priority on the repair/warranty, especially if they have transshipped the unit outside of their designated market.

I am not going to go into any long winded dialogs with analogies that some have tried to associate to the current climate. I have always believed that although we maybe at the other end of the globe, with the current media and internet technologies we are all part of a single Global Village and tho we deal locally for the most part, we must think globally. I have worked in this industry from all levels, dealer, wholesale, product support,etc, so I have a pretty good grounding of the M.O. My primary commitment is to the clients who are after all the lifeblood of any small business, so I have no qualm butting heads with local distributors if they are not allowing us to deal from the same deck.

Some distributors will be slower than others to navigate to comparative pricing , some no doubt will resist kicking and screaming , so there will be times despite all the best intentions and effort when I can't match a price, but at least contact me and give me the opportunity to arm wrestle the local reps to see if we can match or come close to the overseas offer.

While this seems like a new incentive on my part , and one already offered by other dealers, for those clients that have known and dealt with me over the years, they will know that this has always been something that I have tried to offer in my usual method of operandi , I am simply making a public statement to draw more attention to the situation.

Lets Keep It Local !

Vin Curigliano