Opaque piano prices

raagamuffin · 2025-04-21T14:10:51+00:00

I recently purchased a new piano and wanted to share (complain?) my thoughts on a particular aspect of it, namely pricing. I have read in many forums that pi...

twocats

raagamuffin I don't think it's a sure thing that just because you initially offer low that you'll end up with the best possible price. Negotiating is a delicate thing because you're dealing with a person (and every dealer has their own circumstances and business model), not an algorithm, and I don't think there's a "one size fits all" approach.

pianoloverus

raagamuffin As per @pianoloverus feedback, I've updated the number to be at least 30% to start with (pianobuyer says this also).
I don't know .why any dealer would take offense if one said they'd like it for 40% off SMP, let's say. They just have to say that they won't give that piano to you at that price.

Pianobuyer says a discount of 10% - 30% off SMP is reasonable which is not the same as at least 30%. There is certainly some kind of offer that a dealer would find offensive. To realize this is true, just imagine asking for 75% discount from SMP. I can't imagine any reasonable person making that kind of offer, but there's certainly some point at which a dealer could be offended.

pianoloverus

raagamuffin If buying store brands (such as Cunningham) understand that resale values will be non-existent.

It can be more difficult selling a piano from that's not so well known, but saying the resale value of that kind of piano is nonexistent is incorrect. Especially when the piano is considered good quality like a Cunningham.

Sgisela

raagamuffin my 2 cents — My instincts about this are that it will be challenging to come up with a set of general guidelines about how to approach piano shopping. As you’ve seen from this thread (and I’ve read a lot of other threads about people’s piano purchasing experiences), people tend to have quite different approaches and priorities when they start looking for a piano. I don’t think there’s one right way to do it, and as someone said upthread, it is also a pretty individual thing. And I think that in addition to the personality of the dealer, there’s also the personality of the buyer, and what each of us are comfortable with.

I also think we may be in an unstable moment with respect to the acoustic piano market, which makes it even harder to make generalizations. My impression is that from the early 2000s to a couple years ago, the Chinese piano makers were fairly ascendant for at least the last 5 or 10 years, and were making good instruments at very competitive prices. While the market for acoustic pianos in the US and Europe had been in steady decline for decades, there was a real boom for this market in China. However, I think that changes in Chinese educational incentives (no longer crediting piano studies in some kind of point system), as well as other issues related to the Chinese economy, may have really changed the long term outlook for the Chinese piano manufacturing industry, and by extension, the business models of a number of American and European piano makers that partnered with Chinese manufacturers to make their lower/mid level pianos. Now, on top of that, we have tariffs. I think this casts a lot of uncertainty in the near and midterm future around what pianos may be available and at what prices.

Anyways, I’ve participated in a lot of discussions with people who are interested in buying pianos. The decision about what piano to buy is a very big one. You don’t do it very often, the price tag is high, and it can be stressful. But what I’ve learned in these discussions is that people really have very different priorities. There have been a few times when I’ve felt the buyer has made a bad decision (often times with many, many warnings from other people that the piano should be avoided). But most of the times, I think people who come to these forums make pretty well-informed decisions that are in line with their priorities. It can take a while to sort through things and educate yourself about what’s available and what it is that will best suit your needs. That’s one reason that I think one of the most important pieces of (generalizable) advice is to take your time. A piano is definitely a discretionary purchase, and people should feel fully comfortable with their decision when they sign on the dotted line.

Again, just my 2 cents.

Gombessa

I think the "is this price offensive" question goes both ways.; I've seen dealers advertise well OVER msrp. If a dealer has some ridiculous listed price, but is quick to come down to something reasonable, are you, the buyer offended, in any lasting way? Perhaps some are, but others see it as part of negotiation.

In the same way, a buyer offering a low price in earnest is probably not going to sully the relationship with most dealers in any permanent way. In the end, if the dealer wants your money, he needs to make the sale. And he's a trained professional at negotiations in a way most consumers aren't. As a lowball offeror myself, my experience is that he's not going to be offended, though he may adopt any kind of attitude that he thinks will help move the price to where he needs it to be. I find the best dealers use that opening to try to educate, whether it is showing their wholesale cost, explaining what their lowest price is or why they can or can't move from a given price, if there are other factors like long distance transport, etc.

A good salesman will always prefer to turn a lowball initial offer into a reasonable finalized sale, rather than lose the sale entirely because they felt personally slighted at a low initial offer. There are definitely some idiosyncratic types in the piano sales business though, oftentimes to their own detriment.

My own take, which I think has served me pretty well in my last two piano purchases, is to not be afraid to ask for lower than you think the final sale might be, and not be a jerk about it. I've found I learned a bit about pricing and allocations from the good folks, and even in the many cases where I didn't finalize a sale, I think I still left on good terms.

twocats

Gombessa not be a jerk about it

I think whatever pricing strategy you use, this is really important!

Sgisela

Gombessa Good piano salesmen are probably good business people and ultimately interested in making a sale (as long as the terms are reasonable for them). My guess is that ‘offense’ is more likely if someone comes across as ‘knowing better’ — knowing that their offer is much too low for the dealer to accept, which is an indication that they are not serious about the purchase. In other words, I think that rather than being dismissed because they are offended, the dealer is more likely to write you off as an unserious client. There may be times when this is a miscalculation, but I suspect dealers interact with a lot of people who are not serious about purchasing a particular piano, and they do have to make this assessment.

I agree that there is a lot in the interaction with dealers that is about the dealer educating the client. Ultimately, I think the goal is for the client to feel happy with their purchase and the money they spent.

brdwyguy

Here is a piano offer experience that happened to me:
I know we are talking mostly, new pianos but I came to find out that Used/Rebuilt/Consignment Piano Sales is another whole ball of wax.

In my search I found a very nice completely rebuilt Steinway Model A I that was rebuilt and completely rebuilt buy a seller who was the retired/certified Steinway rebuilder. In 2021 he was asking $66k for the piano, I really felt that was a pretty high price for a rebuilt A1 - I liked the piano very much and hemmed and hawed over how much did I like it. (BTW - this was at a Steinway Dealership) I could only afford a New Boston 196 - they were also very nice but I was not in love with them.

I thought I would like to make a very low-ball offer for the piano and hopefully the consignment seller, who was a friend of the store manager, would make a counter offer back. I talked to the manager and told him I thought the price was #1 too highly priced and #2 needed to be more in my budget to be able to buy. I asked him would he be 'offended' if I began the offer at $36k? The manager said, 'it can't hurt to ask'?
So after playing the piano a little more, I decided I could live with this very very nice sounding/feeling Steinway.
So I made the offer - a week later I called the dealership back because I had heard nothing. The very nice salesman who I made friends with said " i think the seller is ignoring your offer, he would never consider that " I said 'not even a counter-offer?" Nope! Obviously, I walked away from the deal. THANK GOD I DID. Because the following weekend I went to Freeburg Pianos and saw a beautiful STEINWAY MODEL AII that according to the web page had a deposit/sold. When I got there Levi told me that they had 'buyers remorse' after thinking about it over night and backed out but he just hadn't updated the online web yet. WOW was I lucky
Note in the picture behind the Steinway in the foreground is a Brand New M&H A - that I also liked but at $56k I think, was just out of my price range but with a stretch, doable. But I would have to 'adore' it to spend that kind of money in 2021.
I also really liked a Kawai GX2 (special $28k) but really wanted a piano over 6' - we contacted the Kawai dealer and asked about a GX3 - the price ($43k) was more that the beautiful Steinway A which was right in front of me. I told them I would not buy a sight unseen piano at that price, unless they were willing to give me a good deal on the piano (I said this to the Kawai Rep on the phone) they turned me down and they lost a sale.
I immediately realized, I am buying the piano that I have right in front of me that I truly love (The Rebuilt 1996 Steinway A II- Refurbished in 2020)
So the price was $39.6k which was higher than I wanted to buy but very doable. To my surprise Freeburg's then calculated a trade-in price of $5k for my old Schomacher that was very bright, too bright for my small music room.
This trade-in brought my piano purchase down to $34.6k - I was totally joyful at that thought as it came right into my price range.

I didn't choose the M&H A for several reasons:
I didn't want to spend $50+ for a piano under 6'
The piano didn't seem to have the power when I played larger pieces, compared to the Steinway.

I was extremely fortunate, a found that very few people have the ability to compare pianos they want, side-by-side.
Note in the Steinway picture the M & H is just in the foreground and the Kawai GX2 I considered was just around the corner, so I was able to jump back and forth and back and forth from piano to piano to see which was the most appealing.
Ironically, I really was an M&H fan and disliked all the Steinway's I ever played over the years, until I played this particular piano.
It had a full sound - one of the asst tech's in the store who happen to be in the showroom that day said to me, it's basically a Steinway that play's more like the old Golden Age M&H's (which was what I had hoped to find but during COVID was not existent in any of the showrooms.)

So that was my full saga.
Hope you enjoyed listening and hearing what happened to me price wise and why I became a fan of Steinway and
Freeburg Pianos.
brdwyguy

PS - I must say tho, if I was buying the piano today - i would have aimed for the new M&H's as they have many more to choose from now in their huge new showroom 😉

Gombessa

brdwyguy I thought I would like to make a very low-ball offer for the piano and hopefully the consignment seller, who was a friend of the store manager, would make a counter offer back.

I think that is the key difference. Consignment sellers are in the end just regular Joes/Janes like you or me. They're not professional salespeople. So they may absolutely take low offers personally, or otherwise not take the more business-minded, disinterested approach that an experienced salesman would.

For you the buyer, waiting let you see much more of the market, and it sounds like it was well worth your time!

ShiroKuro

brdwyguy Wow! Although I knew about your purchase, this is the first time I've heard all these details. I loved reading about it. What an amazing process!

brdwyguy

Gombessa Yes, you are correct.
Up to that point I had spent from Nov 2020 - Jan 2021 doing only online research.
I had already read Larry Fine's Book and completely read thru his Web Site.
PianoMart was nice but I wasn't going to travel around the country trying to find the right piano tho.
Ironic that I found the right one, right in my own back yard (5miles away from my home)

My only regret in all this is I have learned so so much in the last 4yrs about pianos and the technical aspects. I wished
I had known what I know now but not sure I would have made any different choice as the availability was just not there back in 2021. Tho I may have waited a little longer. But hey, that's water under the bridge now! LOL

brdwyguy

ShiroKuro it was an 'amazing process' but you don't even realize it's a process when you are going thru it, at least I didn't!
I just kept thinking, maybe I should wait and see if there is something out there what I would like better.
So when do you draw the line and say. THIS is what i've been looking for! THIS is what I like! etc etc etc
B

brdwyguy

I wish more people would talk about price and considerations, when talking about buying a piano. It would make it so much easier for the new buyer to read what other everyday Joe's experience when buying a higher-end piano. I know it can be 'crass' to talk about money, but in this situation, I am trying to help other prospective buyers to see/understand what many of us go thru when making that lifetime purchase of a Grand Piano.
B

raagamuffin

I enjoyed reading the stories of members of the community buying their pianos.

Price is a major part of the purchase. But there are others, and I've tried to list the other areas that should be considered when acquiring a piano. (More should be added here, hopefully some of you will contribute).

As for the price issue, the sentiment here seems to be that it is an individual purchase, akin to art. I will deviate from that sentiment, because I feel it is more like a car purchase. There are price points that piano dealers will sell at, even across the board, that fall within a certain range of percentages under the SMP.

I agree with @Gombessa, lowballing is unlikely to be an issue with anyone as long as it's done with an eye towards approaching an acceptable price i.e. serious buyer. It perhaps goes without saying that it doesn't make sense to diffuse any negotiating capital by offering random prices as a casual buyer.

LifelongBeginner

This reminds me about the difference between maximizers and satisficers. If I remember, there was research questioning whether all the extra effort maximizers do actually leads to better decisions. It's hard to say because even though maximizers put in a lot more prep and fretting beforehand than satisficers, they also experience more regret afterward.

And what's a bad decision in buying a piano? I guess two kinds: 1) buying a product that's defective or bad for you; and 2) paying more than you "should" have for the product. I'd probably maximize for #1 (reading too many reviews, being paralyzed, letting a few bad reviews outweigh several good ones), but once I've chosen, #2 is only worth so much energy. I have a friend who always asks how much something cost. likely so he can judge whether you got ripped off. Why? Life's too short to impress those folks. Enjoy your purchase, and tell yourself, "I made the best decision I could have made at the time, and that's that."

sweelinck

pianoloverus

If the typical discounts to SMP vary by brand, then you still have to know what the typical discount is for a particular brand or piano, whether it is expressed as a discount to MSRP or a discount to SMP. This has in the past led me not to see much value in the SMP.

But when shopping for a piano and looking at the SMP's carefully, I noticed that even within a brand there is variability in the magnitude of discount from MSRP represented by SMP.

So if the average negotiated discount expressed as a percentage is constant or closer to constant expressed as a percentage of SMP than if expressed as a percentage of MSRP, then SMP is still more useful.

Ultimately, I concluded that there are 4 distinct prices in play:

MSRP
SMP
Dealer-advertised price
Actual purchase price

I found that the best use of SMP was to eliminate from consideration brands with significant discrepancies between MSRP and SMP.

pianoloverus

sweelinck I found that the best use of SMP was to eliminate from consideration brands with significant discrepancies between MSRP and SMP.

I think the flaw with that approach is that it assumes that for those pianos the selling price will end up being a small discount from SMP and thus not a good deal or less fair. The whole idea of having an SMP is so one doesn't use the MSRP at all.

Yes, it would nice if the PB could give "typical discounts" for each brand but that kind of information was apparently unavailable or not within possible scope for Larry Fine. And because of so many other factors that Fine discusses that can affect discount from SMP, the typical discount for each make may not even exist.

sweelinck

pianoloverus I think the flaw with that approach is that it assumes that for those pianos the selling price will end up being a small discount from SMP and thus not a good deal or less fair.

That isn't my assumption. It is that I place less trust in a supplier that over-inflates MSRP for the purpose of claiming one is getting a bigger discount and better deal when it then is discounted more.

I did make a point of trying a piano before looking up the SMP, though.

pianoloverus

sweelinck That isn't my assumption. It is that I place less trust in a supplier that over-inflates MSRP for the purpose claiming one is getting a bigger discount and better deal when it then is discounted more.

That's reasonable although I think a maker's pricing/ethical decisions may or may not reflect their manufacturing and warranty decisions. I once started a PW thread asking if there was any reason why a maker would choose to have an inflated MSRP other than what you mention. I don't think it got many replies but I don't remember anyone offering alternative reasons.

sweelinck

raagamuffin Are there strategies that you have for other first time buyers that can help them with getting a fair price?

I think the best you can do is to try to investigate what others have recently paid for the particular model of piano, and then decide on your maximum purchase price, and preferred price.

pianoloverus

sweelinck I think the best you can do is to try to investigate what others have recently paid for the particular model of piano...

I don't think one can find much or even any information about that. Were you able to do so?

« Previous Page Next Page »