edo83 said:
Hi,
Just want to say that the below is a plausible senario, for your to understand better.
For online distribution, like music123 and musicianfriend, theirs is a warehouse based operation, selling close to wholesale price. This is because, they don't order tens or hundreds of a single item. They order thousands at one go on one model. Thus they got leverage to push the manufacturer price down. (Note: They have 'distribution rights' which means the major brands tie them to distribute locally only, they cannot ship to foreign country, violation of distribution rights)
Geographically speaking, we cannot adopt their online style, a lot of their customers are very far from large music shops, living in small satallite town. Imagine central USA map, how much bigger than Singapore. So people there take to mail order in a way hundred or even thousand of times bigger than what we can. Singapore, so small I can reach any music shop on any part of the island within an hour, so why bother to order online?? I can see, touch and even try the actual product. I have a sales person waiting on me. This is the difference.
For local distributor, they distribute for local or regionally, but volume is definately a fraction of those online stores. When they order, they are limited by what a container can hold, so they spread the models according to demand. Sometime one model they can order like a few pieces only. Each shipment could be 3 or 6 or 12 months apart. So when they run out of a model, depending on the brand turnover, the next order could be soon or long time ahead.
Shipping the 'out of stock item' by single carton order, will push the shipping cost very high, making it not viable. Example, by shipping as part of container load, a 15watt guitar amp may cost under S$10/pcs to ship, but to ship just 10pcs of the same item as a one off order the shipping may raise to S$30/pcs or more. If just ship 1pcs one off, the shipping may cost S$80/pcs or more.
So they normally wait till they need to put in the next order than ship together as a whole container. Sometime the manufacturer side also out of stock when its time to order.
There are still a lot of other factors to consider too. The above just a possible senario. Hope you appreciate my time to explain, and can understand better. Do help to explain to other newbies, who don't understand too. Help fellow softies. You can quote the above on the forum too.
