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Fender Price increase overnight

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Exactly!!! Heck! That's why I put in for a tricked out Serek back in July! $3150 for a bass that is 100% tailor made for me vs being just another off the line! I'll take it! (Plus supply chain shortages are starting to restrict custom options as well)

And I'm speaking with a dealer in the EU about a custom about scale as well. Because Fender and others charge out the wazoo for instruments that aren't remotely the same quality or playability.
 
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They still have fixed costs and can only sell fewer units. They raise to price so they can sell less unit while still satisfying those fixed costs.

If that is their plan they are in big trouble. Somewhere there is a ceiling on what people will pay and there is always competition. The good news is that used prices are up although I can't say if people are paying those prices. A few years back the best offer I got on my US Fender jazz was $450. How things change.
 
My best friend lives here part-time and there (Nashville) part-time. He also owns several rental properties here (Eastern NC). I think your situation is rather unique based on conversations with him.

Nashville is booming like almost no other town in America right now. Tech companies, music of all genres, and other industries are migrating there in droves. Half of his musician friends are "coding" for a living now.

Oh it absolutely is!

I've been looking for a house for about a year, but they are snatched up often before they get listed. Most houses are bought before they are even built. I've been working with a couple of real estate agents and they tipped me off about the investment companies.

So yeah, it's a trendy, desirable place to live, so there's a ton of new people moving in, but there's also the competition from companies who buy out homes and convert them to rentals.

To give you some idea of the growth and demand for housing, I got my current apartment in 2017 for $900/month. Today, this exact same apartment would rent to a new tenant for $1600/month. Nearly doubled in price over 4 years. There have also been at least 5 brand new apartment complexes that have popped up within 2 miles of my place in the last two years. You can't drive a mile without seeing new condos, apartments, and/or townhomes being built.

And yes, it's definitely a tech hub as well. I've been writing software here now for almost 10 years, and the drummer in my band is a software developer as well. I actually interviewed him for the position!
 
The price will always be whatever the market will bear. So long as we're willing to pay, it continues. The New Year, Inflation, Covid, Supply shortages .... have "some" to do with it. But lets talk this thru here. The differences between a $400 and $2000 bass are very small.... The physical differences between brands is also very small.... Material costs are only 1/4 of the cost (if that). The rest is labor, overhead and PROFIT. So why do we continue to buy the most expensive basses? Its all the power of the mind. I mean, they don't even advertise well but there is still a notion that we "need" certain things to make us ...... what ..... sound better, look better, feel better. We will pay for those subtle differences that we PERCEIVE to be of value to us. So until our values change the madness continues. Ya either boycott..... change to another brand or "pay the man".
 
The price will always be whatever the market will bear. So long as we're willing to pay, it continues. The New Year, Inflation, Covid, Supply shortages .... have "some" to do with it. But lets talk this thru here. The differences between a $400 and $2000 bass are very small.... The physical differences between brands is also very small.... Material costs are only 1/4 of the cost (if that). The rest is labor, overhead and PROFIT. So why do we continue to buy the most expensive basses? Its all the power of the mind. I mean, they don't even advertise well but there is still a notion that we "need" certain things to make us ...... what ..... sound better, look better, feel better. We will pay for those subtle differences that we PERCEIVE to be of value to us. So until our values change the madness continues. Ya either boycott..... change to another brand or "pay the man".

And sadly the most affordable brand/budget basses are following suite with Fender *cough* Squier
 
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Looks like the Squier increase was $10. At least for the Squier I want. I knew there would be an increase after the new year but I didn't want to put money down on an instrument for pre-order that may never arrive.

Personally, I don't think new prices are ever going down. At some point the used market will crater, but today is not the day. So if you want to buy something new, and it's in stock, buy it. Even after the supply chain problems resolve themselves, there's no way companies will reduce prices. They'll just keep the profit.
 
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I have been buying NO new instruments for about 2 years. IF a price were to increase while an item was in my cart, I'd
look closely at just how badly I needed to deal with that instrument or that merchant. I don't like paying a "new price" for
old price stock...and yes, I fully understand how retail, ("parking" an item in a cart) and how FIFO and LIFO pricing works.

I am not arguing about is it "fair" or not: just saying exactly what I said. You make your own mind up, but for me, a really
nice, used instrument that has taken a depreciation hit for the first owner is where I look, anyway.

God Knows, I've helped far more than one retailer keep their lights on in my life, I'm just not in a hurry to do that anymore.
 
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If that is their plan they are in big trouble. Somewhere there is a ceiling on what people will pay and there is always competition. The good news is that used prices are up although I can't say if people are paying those prices. A few years back the best offer I got on my US Fender jazz was $450. How things change.

When I was growing up, I lived down the street from a famous guitar shop called Mandolin Brothers. They dealt in high end and vintage stuff. If someone complained about his prices, he would just say "find another one." Unfortunately, due to supply chain, people can't find another normally available off the shelf item like they could two years ago.

This is literally whats been happening every day at work. Because other companies can't "find another one" either, is the only reason why I've kept clients.

I've been sending out emails since August saying to get orders in now since prices are going to go up. Even sweetwater sent out emails and people on here blasted them for it.

Something is gonna give eventually and I just hope we're all still standing when it does.
 
I do have an Economics degree and work in Global Markets for one of the largest financial service providers on the planet - definitely the largest Financial Data provider on the planet.

The USDX is not really an indicator of inflation. It is more for arbitrage and weighs the US dollar against 6 other currencies, each weighted differently in the calculation. Missing from that calculation are the currencies of the #2 and #6 largest economies in the world - China and India. In many ways, CPI misses the mark on true inflation - it does not account for price increases in durable consumer goods, insurance premiums, college tuition, used-car prices etc. It also is an aggregation of the whole country, not a regional number - and the US has many economic stratifications correlating to regions and sub-regions.

Quantitative Easing from 2009 through 2014 was a hyper injection of liquidity into the monetary system should have caused an immediate spike in inflation, but banks held onto the money as reserves to bolster their balance sheets for years - that money slowly trickled into the system and is a large part of why we are seeing inflation now. Of course, there are other significant factors. The pandemic and the responding legislation compounded the effects of QE and the absurdly long run of low interest rates. While we all understand the intention and there were absolutely people that needed the expansion of unemployment benefits, it was done in a way that is analogous to using a chainsaw when a scalpel is required. Compound that with the $1.9 trillion that was dumped into the system earlier in 2021 and we are in inflation soup (never mind the supply chain issues that are persisting far longer than anyone could have imagined).

Indeed. And the liquidity went on to further magnify and stratify wealth, e.g. we just had yet another year of record stock buybacks. Great for shareholders and executive teams, but doesn't create any lasting intrinsic value or jobs.

We are at a very interesting inflection point though. A five dollar gallon of gas (and a $1800 P bass?) presents a very substantial political liability. So the Fed is in the unenviable position of tapering and raising rates, knowing full well how precarious the house of cards has become, e.g. two basis points would render most debt unserviceable and would bring the whole thing down. Let's see if they can thread the needle.

On an interesting side note, gold has not done jack **** in the face of everything else going gangbusters.

I do think a lot of what we are seeing is pent-up demand and supply chain related, but it's really hard to sort out the whole thing, and really thoughtful people have differing opinions.
 
Another great reason to spend more time playing current basses rather than shopping for new ones.
Absolutely! I'm still so happy with my Adamovic custom bass (SuperNova) that I bought about 4 years back and with my EBMM Sterling that I bought new for around 1300 bucks 6 years ago or so.

Hey - could be worse.. Try buying a Rolex Daytona.. Can't find a new one and used ones are insanely priced.. Serious premiums over new. I don't get it - I can lead a happy life without a Rolex I guess :D

Regards
mark
 
Anybody recall someone posted about their Sweetwater rep warning them about this rising tide about six months ago and OP/SW got dragged? "Sweetwater rep is NOT your friend!" , "Mine emails me constantly with this garbage!"

Anyway, that sweet SS Gretsch everybody loved on lowendlobsters Best/Worst Basses of 2021 videos is still the same price as it was yesterday and available at...
 
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Anyone that pays $100K for an SUV is an idiot.
IMO of course.

Edit! It's been quoted so I'll leave the body of the post to avoid confusion. But the website I found for pricing cars was adjusted for inflation. Please hold for update.


My father bought the house I grew up in weeks after I was born in 1971. He paid $21,000 for it. Back then, anyone who paid the price of a house for an SUV would have been seen as an idiot. His last two pickup trucks have been almost $40,000...almost twice the price of the house he lived in for 50 years.

He sold that house weeks ago for a little over $180,000.

The red part is incorrect.

$21,000 is about 11.5% of $180,000. Factoring the same growth in automobile pricing, I found that a Ford Torino Station wagon (a fairly expensive car...and the closest thing to an SUV I could find quickly) back then was $25,000. A little quick math means that an SUV "should" cost about $217,000 these days, using the same growth rate as the house. (Yes, I realize cars and real estate are like comparing apples to tree houses. It was just a fun experiment.)

So the adjusted price should be around $65,000 for a new SUV.

All I'm saying is that a $100K SUV won't be sticker shock in the next few years.
 
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