Gary
05-04-2012, 01:16 AM
A tiny discussion started budding in the For Sale/Wanted section, which (so I'm told) isnt the right place for discussions to bud...so, I'm bringing the generics of the discussion out here.
There are of course, lots of places to buy your next piece of "Must have" DJ gear from. You could choose to get it from round the corner, or down the road, maybe from that place on the road to...
Similarly, you could double-click your new shiney from somewhere 200 miles away, 500 miles away, or 3000 miles away.
For me...I thought I was being all so clever a few years ago when I bought some items from America. I saved about £300 on a bit of kit which would have cost me £1400 in the UK. The item arrived, with the courier, with a customs bill of £75. OK, I was still £225 up on the deal. Then the bit of kit went wrong - it kept losing its DMX patterns. It was at this point that I found out that there's almost no international warranties. The warranty was valid, at american service centers only, or I could get the unit repaired in the UK as if it were out of warranty. It was cheaper to ship it (insured) back to the states and have them fix it - but two way international shipping with insurance took £140...so, thats £85 up on the deal, but I was without the kit for 10 weeks. Take off £30 for a decent voltage stepper and...well, it just wasnt worth it - I could have probably got a UK retailer to "knock £100 off" and not lost the unit for weeks when it needed a repair.
Similarly, on the more domestic front...different UK dealers. I truely love the ethics behind walking into a local DJ retailer or two, sharing some time with them as we both get to know the "item of interest" and then I reward the retailer for his/her time, by purchasing the demo'd bit of kit from them, rather than buying the demo'd bit of kit from A.N.Other Boxshifter.com for 10% less than the local UK dealer had the shelf ticket written up for.
However, even with my ethics...money is money (past a certain point). If the best a local retailer could do was say...£5000, and I could double click on the item for £4000...well, Danké (click click).
In more realistic terms, I also take into account the "Hassle" factor. If I'm buying something "cutting edge" and suspect that I'm going to have trouble setting it up, I'll happily pay "slightly" over the odd from "double-click deals" just to have the knowledge and reassurance that if I get stuck on page 188 etc of the manual, I can just walk the bit of kit into my retailer and we can stratch our heads simultaneously until we work it out. However, I did say that I'd happily pay "slightly" over the odds for that reassurance - how about the rest of the forum members? Is price the sole consideration? does face-to-face service and expertise still hold a tangible value in your buying process?
There are of course, lots of places to buy your next piece of "Must have" DJ gear from. You could choose to get it from round the corner, or down the road, maybe from that place on the road to...
Similarly, you could double-click your new shiney from somewhere 200 miles away, 500 miles away, or 3000 miles away.
For me...I thought I was being all so clever a few years ago when I bought some items from America. I saved about £300 on a bit of kit which would have cost me £1400 in the UK. The item arrived, with the courier, with a customs bill of £75. OK, I was still £225 up on the deal. Then the bit of kit went wrong - it kept losing its DMX patterns. It was at this point that I found out that there's almost no international warranties. The warranty was valid, at american service centers only, or I could get the unit repaired in the UK as if it were out of warranty. It was cheaper to ship it (insured) back to the states and have them fix it - but two way international shipping with insurance took £140...so, thats £85 up on the deal, but I was without the kit for 10 weeks. Take off £30 for a decent voltage stepper and...well, it just wasnt worth it - I could have probably got a UK retailer to "knock £100 off" and not lost the unit for weeks when it needed a repair.
Similarly, on the more domestic front...different UK dealers. I truely love the ethics behind walking into a local DJ retailer or two, sharing some time with them as we both get to know the "item of interest" and then I reward the retailer for his/her time, by purchasing the demo'd bit of kit from them, rather than buying the demo'd bit of kit from A.N.Other Boxshifter.com for 10% less than the local UK dealer had the shelf ticket written up for.
However, even with my ethics...money is money (past a certain point). If the best a local retailer could do was say...£5000, and I could double click on the item for £4000...well, Danké (click click).
In more realistic terms, I also take into account the "Hassle" factor. If I'm buying something "cutting edge" and suspect that I'm going to have trouble setting it up, I'll happily pay "slightly" over the odd from "double-click deals" just to have the knowledge and reassurance that if I get stuck on page 188 etc of the manual, I can just walk the bit of kit into my retailer and we can stratch our heads simultaneously until we work it out. However, I did say that I'd happily pay "slightly" over the odds for that reassurance - how about the rest of the forum members? Is price the sole consideration? does face-to-face service and expertise still hold a tangible value in your buying process?