LeftyBassist.com

I was at southpaw today getting my Roscoe appraised when I spotted a beautiful lefty Ric 4003 in natural. They offered to trade my Roscoe plus $1,200 for it. I didn't have the money so I had to pass. But boy, was that a beautiful instrument. Definitely hard to say no.

Do you mean $1200 from you, or they'd give you $1200?

Yes, that's what I'm curious about too. If it really was a 4003, and not a highly sought-after pre-1972 4001 or anything, I don't think the price would have to be that far above the trade value of your Roscoe

And FYI, Ric fanatics never speak of 'natural' finishes . They call it Mapleglo

Huh! I'd have asked for the $1200, not the other way around.

Well, I'm not a Ric fanatic, so I will still call it "natural"

They wanted $1,200 on top of it. My Roscoe is from 2002 and is a bit worn, whereas the Ric was in perfect shape. They put the value of my Roscoe in the $2,000-$2,500 ballpark. If it had been I direct trade, I probably would have taken it.

So they valued the Ric over $3,000? Personally that trade seems offensive to me, that's a serious price gouge on Southpaw's part. Not cool.

Unless your Roscoe is seriously trashed (which it isn't), I don't see any way that a Roscoe for a new Rick 4003 is anything beyond a straight trade.

+1. If you really want a Rick, then sell your Roscoe and buy one for roughly the same price. Only make sure you don't buy it from Southpaw.

WOW.

I would have laughed in their face.

I've worked at several music stores, including Guitar Center, and I can guarantee they're trying to gouge you.

Look at it like this... markups on used gear at music stores is generally 100%. So, you can guess that a dealer has 50% of any used item's selling price invested in the item (e.g., a $100 used amp ended up costing them $50). The same goes with pawn shops.

If they're putting the "value" of your Roscoe at $2000-$2500, then they're probably "giving" you half of the low end of that for a trade-in value. So you'd be getting $1000 credit.

If they're going to charge you an extra $1200 on top of that credit for the Ric, then then they're valuing the Ric at $2400... if they're valuing it at $2400, then they probably have half of that into it... so $1250.

So, basically, they're then going to charge you $1200 cash and break even on the Ric, take your Roscoe, and then sell it for $2500... and that will be almost pure profit, because they essentially only have $50 invested in it.

I hope that makes sense... and everyone should be aware of how that works, because trading in an instrument on ANYTHING is a HORRIBLE idea, and I used to see it ALL of the time.

Addison,
that was a wonderful explanation of how a store makes a profit on used and trade-in gear. I'm going to burn that one into my brain-cells.

Thanks for the heads-up guys. I'm woefully unexperienced when it comes to these kinds of things. As I said, I was only really interested if it would be a straight trade. I guess some part of me knew anything else was a raw deal. Southpaw's never tried to gouge me like that before, but I guess that's the way the world works.

Rumor has it the southpaw is really struggling these days, and the recession is componding an already difficult situation.

THIS. A mod should thumbtack this for all to see. Trading in instruments is like trading in a car.

yup - and the root of why I don't take instruments in trade (with very rare exception) ... I don't want to be tagged as utilizing used car salesman tactics in my bass selling activities.

I recently had a very tempting trade offer (still kick it around in my head), but the only way to have made the deal work from a business perspective would have left me offering a near insulting trade-in value on the very collectable bass being offered as part of the trade

all the best,

R

Should have been more or less a straight swap, no Ric other than a rare Lefty 4002 should be that price.

That's very cool of you to keep that kind of integrity, even when you know there are people out there to be "had."

The almighty dollar can make us do weird things.

I once saw an old lady bring a MINT Gretsch "Western" amp, complete with the original amp cover, into a store where an employee told her that "The store wouldn't be interested," wrote her a personal check for $40 and put it into the trunk of his car... he later sold it for over $4,500 on eBay.

I never said anything about it... was younger and naive when it happened...

But, on the other side of things, Greg from Rocket Music (click for link) will simply sell your bass for you and put 100% of the money towards your purchase. He will list it on eBay, take photos for you, and pay for shipping if it sells. Granted, your bass has to sell before you get the credit... but there are many people out there who feel a lot more comfortable purchasing from an established "e-tailer" with a storefront website, etc.

Damn straight! And then I would tell them that an account of their pathetic business practices was going to be on the internet, especially on lefty-focused boards as soon as I could get to a computer!

!(*^%^%)%!!!

Stores need to make a profit, they are not charities. That said, Southpaw prices have always been astronomical. I never understood why anyone shopped there. I once drove through Houston and considered for a brief second stopping by, but then my better judgment kicked in.

It's always better to sell things yourself.

Making a solid profit is fine, and I don't think that anyone involved in this discussion has a problem with that.

However, purposely low-balling someone on a trade and attempting to take advantage of them during a weak moment of GAS is a shady practice that I don't approve of.

If you've ever been involved in any type of "traditional" sales training (think methods that were developed by door-to-door salesmen in the 50's), then you know what I'm talking about.

Pulling the wool over people's eyes has even spread across the board to new products... MSRP on products has become horribly overinflated in proportion to actual manufacturing costs, and with the current "standard" 50-60% or more in profit margins across all parties involved (manufacturers, to distributors, to dealers), a product that might cost $5 to manufacture winds up with an MSRP of $50. And that's a best-case scenario.

That's why I have so much respect for Mesa/Boogie, and that's why a lot of dealers hate them. Their MSRP is an ACTUAL MSRP. It's not an overinflated arbitrary "value" set by the people who made the thing... it's what the thing is actually worth based on reasonable profit margins added to overall manufacturing costs. I've seen dealer cost on M/B products and I've seen relative manufacturing costs too, and the profits to be made are frankly quite modest... but definitely fair.

The only reason why people get so upset that they can't get a "deal" on an M/B product is because they're trained to feel like they should be getting a deal, since they "feel" that way when they buy everything else. There's this imaginary room to move on the price everyone has become accustomed to. "Hey, look at that tuner!!! The MSRP is $99.99, but it's on sale for $49.99!!! I need to buy that thing!!! It's HALF OFF!!!"

Little do they know, dealer cost is $18 and manufacturing cost was $3. But as long as the customer feels good about the purchase, then everybody is happy, right?

Ok.... rant over.

That story makes my blood boil!!

But - little old ladies aside - for the vast majority of us, to trade in anything in this day and age of Craigslist and Ebay is pretty unnecessary unless there is some kind of time constraint/chemical addiction involved. Even with negotiating prices in a private sale you still come out way ahead.