Walking down memory lane this morning, and thinking about my piano shopping experiences back in 2019ā€¦

When I was piano shopping, on my first day of official piano shopping, the first piano I played I absolutely fell in love with. It was a used Feurich grand. But I wasnā€™t ready to buy, I hadnā€™t been expecting to find something Iā€™d like to much so quickly, and IIRC, I hadnā€™t really even measured my space and all of that. So I went home that day, pretty much convinced Iā€™d be buying that Feurich.

We went back the next weekend, and I played it again and was just like ā€œmeh.ā€ I was shocked, actually. Whatever it was that pulled me into that piano was gone. As you can imagine, I didnā€™t buy it.

But that experience lead me to make a rule for myself: I would not buy any piano on my first trip to play it. I would always absolutely ā€œsleep on itā€ and go back and play it a second time before committing. (I also implemented this rule when we started house hunting the second time, insisting on having more than one showing for every house we liked. That lead us to losing a house, but because we lost that house, we ended up in the house weā€™re in now, which in retrospect, is a better house! šŸ™‚ sorry for the thread drift!)

Anyway, I continued piano shopping after making that ā€œsleep on itā€ rule for myself, and one day, I played a Boston grand at a used dealerā€™s shop. It was beautiful, I loved how it sounded so much. The dealer told me heā€™d give me X discount (I donā€™t remember how much at this point) if I bought it that day. I donā€™t remember if he required a deposit but it was basically ā€œbuy it right now and Iā€™ll give you this great discount.ā€ I told him about my ā€œsleep on itā€ rule and he assured me that he would not give me that discount if I didnā€™t buy the piano that day, even if the piano hadnā€™t sold yet.

I went home. The shop was about a 2.5 hour drive from my house. IIRC, I thought I might go back and try to play it the next weekend, and I thought (naively) that if he still hadnā€™t sold the piano, he would give that discount. But since the shop was so far away, I called first.

No, he had not sold the piano yet. Great. Would he give me that discount? Nope.

We actually had a very unpleasant conversation on the phone where he got nasty about it and I told him he was being ridiculous and hung up.

I eventually bought my Yamaha C2 (Yay!)

And wouldnā€™t you know it, some months later, he called me to ask if I was still in the market for a grand piano. I was very happy to tell him that not only had I already purchased one, but even if I hadnā€™t, I would never buy a piano from a dealer like him.

Sorry for the long story, but thatā€™s why I hate pushy dealers. šŸ˜ƒ

    ShiroKuro I was very happy to tell him that not only had I already purchased one, but even if I hadnā€™t, I would never buy a piano from a dealer like him.

    What a jerk (but what a satisfying end to your story)! I think that if you found any issues, he's not the kind of person who would stand behind his pianos either. He just wants them out the door!

        Fortunately, I never encountered anything remotely similar, and I went to a bunch of different dealers before I too purchased a C2.

        twocats I think that if you found any issues, he's not the kind of person who would stand behind his pianos either.

        Oh definitely!!

        @pseudonym58 yes, fortunately, the other dealers I encountered were mostly all very lovely (except for one other guy who was so crazy, my husband and I had to run from the store because he wouldn't leave us alone! šŸ˜…

        BTW the dealer selling Feurich was wonderful. I would have been happy to purchase from them if they'd had anything I liked in my budget... Ah well, all's well that ends well, as they say.

          ShiroKuro I would always absolutely ā€œsleep on itā€ and go back and play it a second time before committing.

          I use the "sleep on it" rule a lot! Especially when I stumble across an ad on the internet that is appealing to me. Don't buy today, wait until tomorrow even if the item can be gone. Not buying impulsively has saved me a lot of money. šŸ˜Š

          *
          ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...

            ooooh Shiro, would love to get a hint of which piano dealer that may be! LOL
            feel free to private message me a clue (esp. since we lived near each other back then) or was it before?

            brdwyguy

            I will gladly PM you his name!

            7 days later

            • TLH21

            • Post #8
            • Edited

            I haven't experienced pushy dealers as such, but my general experience when shopping for a piano is the same thing when shopping for a vehicle (I literally had to get one sales guy to bend down on his knees and look at the wheels on one occasion to show him that no, this car didn't have the disc brakes I was looking for. Even then, he started trying to explain to me how the drum was actually a disc...)

            One of the dealers I visited, who gets rave reviews and was super helpful and pleasant to deal with on a person to person basis, showed me all sorts of pianos that were unsuitable and didn't meet the needs I'd described until we came upon one at the back of the store that he'd 'forgotten about'. He casually left me to 'play it a bit'. I very much liked it, but couldn't shake the feeling of it being subjected to a sales trick. I didn't buy that, or anything else from that store.

            7 days later

            ShiroKuro No, he had not sold the piano yet. Great. Would he give me that discount? Nope.

            We actually had a very unpleasant conversation on the phone where he got nasty about it and I told him he was being ridiculous and hung up.

            The game is to create artificial pressure to buy the instrument. If they communicate that it is the price generally available, then you won't feel pressured.

            I generally just walk out of a piano dealership when they try to create these scenarios. I had one claim someone had a deposit on a piano I was looking at, but if I bought it right then, I could have it nonetheless. This was a no-win proposition for the dealer-- either they were lying to me about the deposit, or they were willing to slime their other customer who had paid the deposit. You can guess which probably was the case.

                sweelinck I had one claim someone had a deposit on a piano I was looking at, but if I bought it right then, I could have it nonetheless.

                OMG! I would have walked out too!