Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Anonymous Database

Wouldn't it be nice if you could go to a website where everyone entered their piano brand, model, age, warranty, extras [edit], city, country, and final purchase price into an anonymous database?

People in the market could then visit this website, type in their zipcode and get an average final paid price of the desired piano sold in stores within X miles of travel. It would give you a starting asking price closer to what you would pay instead of walking in blind hoping for discounts from MSRP. It would also signal whether or not you can, in fact, afford a piano that would otherwise be too expensive at MSRP.

Of course, a dealer doesn't have to honor a price quoted from such a site, just merely use it as a reference (a'la Larry Fine supplements).

It could also display a dotted map and serve as a demographic tool. It would be interesting to see the concentration of new/old piano owners in cities throughout the world.

Call it ipdb.com for Internet Piano Price Database.

I've thought about it.

The reason I haven't done it is because I have not figure out how to weed out fake prices.

E.g., A competitor of Brand X can simply spoof many low ball entries for Brand X piano to wipe all margin for Brand X.

E.g., A Brand Y sales-weasle can also spoof many over-inflated entries for Brand Y to artificially give the impression that Brand Y is worth more than prevalent market value.

We don't need to weed out fake prices 100%, but at least I'd like to see a way to ensure that a good majority if prices I get into the database will be truthful.

Secondary issues include separating costs of delivery, tax, bench, piano cover, Dampp Chaser, extra trep/tunings, etc. from the base price.

Also, unless the data base were quite large it would be all too easy to tag pianos to individuals. Let's see, how many people on PW have bought a Yamaha S6 and live in Colorado?

This is being done on another level. PSS shows the Remington at below wholesale, yet is not a dealer for Remington.

All excellent concerns, Ax. One way of approaching fake prices would be to report only the median, which isn't going to be affected as badly by blatantly high or low fake prices.

Complicating the secondary issues factor is the trade-in. A lot of times people would quote me a price with my trade-in and I'd have no idea how they computed the value of the trade-in.

The digital forum has something along the lines of this database, but it isn't anonymous. Instead, it's a long-running "price paid" thread where people voluntarily report what they bought and how much they paid for it. The fact that it's not anonymous will surely affect the representativeness of the sample, but it would definitely cut down on the number of fake prices reported (as well as limit the number of fake prices any given member can contribute; we'd start to get suspicious after a certain poster reported buying 3 or more acoustic pianos. :rolleyes: )

Monica,

If you were to set up a "median" database it would require a significant number of prices for each item. So few of each brand/model/finish are purchased by active posters that it would make a median based system meaningless except for the Yamaha U1! [And then only grey market units!]

What other brand/model/finish has been quoted here more than say 5 times?

Also such a model could not distinguish between those sold in a crate and those with full dealer pre- and post-sale prep.

Well, when piano sales reach the level of automobiles, maybe there will be web sites and a dedicated press that keeps track of pricing and tracks "market" price expectations with at least the accuracy of something like an "Edmunds" (however accurate that really is...).

Otherwise, manipulation is just too easy.

Another interesting "bigger picture" issue would be the overall effect on the "market". Say such a pricing beast existed, would you expect then that the avg piano sale price would increase or decrease. I think the knee jerk reaction is to say decrease, after all, all it takes is for one person to negotiate a great price for others then to be able to latch onto it. But instead, will dealers take a harder line to pricing and offer fewer/smaller discounts to offset that effect? If the avg price indeed decreased, would that cause some of the "straggler" dealers to have to fold because they could no longer compete from a pure price perspective and/or could not survive the decrease in margins? Would it favour grey market importers who can already undercut official dealers?

The one thing you could do is require a site registration based on email address (or some other unique indentifier) so that if the sales weasels did want to do that, it would take more hours than it's worth to do it more than one time.

That would require a pretty hefty back end for the checks and balances.

The other possibility would be to put in a "failsafe" error message of some sort when a "customer" added prices that were well outside the usual and expected margin for a line of pianos (43%??)

Those you'd probably red-flag and kick out into another "exceptions" database.

But like Steve said, it would require a fairly large database of a lot of cusomers to get a true reading.

And the numbers would swing wildly when you looked at the "internet" category.

NAMM should build it!

Price Price Price - The art of buying a piano. The Fine book. How would you make it easier? What did you pay? How much? Is it reasonable? Nobody wants to feel like they have been taken to the cleaners or even cheated. Buying a new piano is an extreme adventure some enjoy. I was totally unprepared. But after my first visit to a local KC dealer I knew the game was on. (Note: I don't play, but was told by a good friend; that if you have to buy a piano buy a 6' + grand - I was looking for a family piano, yes for the kids and one that would not break the family budget approx. 10K is a figure that I had in mind after a little research.) The first store had a Hamilton 6' grand that was listed at $15,500 sale price to $13,500. I told salesman that was too much and I let it slip I did not want to spend more than 10K. Low and behold I got a phone call two days later offering me that same piano for less than 10K. I had picked at a couple of that stores floor models and more than one had keys that stuck. Not the sign I was looking for. Another local dealer had a kid as a salesperson who knew less than I did after a week of googling around the web about pianos. Hey I found you guys.. Another store had a "house brand piano" in my price range. I thought I had to buy used.. But even here I ran into problems as every piano I sent inquires on or responded to when listed for sale on websites seem to have already been sold. AAAGH. Conveniently most dealers had new in that price range just slightly more. The focus on price is understandable we all want to be good stewards of our treasure. But what we really want is a match. Your budget - to the available pianos. How a about a piano matcher.com website. Fill in your likes, dislikes, traits and a budget and out pops a list of pianos.. PS. I found a a website the promised to do this for me. They did not respond.

Now I want to learn how to play and find a good piano tech in KC..

Price Price Price - The art of buying a piano. The Fine book. How would you make it easier? What did you pay? How much? Is it reasonable? Nobody wants to feel like they have been taken to the cleaners or even cheated. Buying a new piano is an extreme adventure some enjoy. I was totally unprepared. But after my first visit to a local KC dealer I knew the game was on. (Note: I don't play, but was told by a good friend; that if you have to buy a piano buy a 6' + grand - I was looking for a family piano, yes for the kids and one that would not break the family budget approx. 10K is a figure that I had in mind after a little research.) The first store had a Hamilton 6' grand that was listed at $15,500 sale price to $13,500. I told salesman that was too much and I let it slip I did not want to spend more than 10K. Low and behold I got a phone call two days later offering me that same piano for less than 10K. I had picked at a couple of that stores floor models and more than one had keys that stuck. Not the sign I was looking for. Another local dealer had a kid as a salesperson who knew less than I did after a week of googling around the web about pianos. Hey I found you guys.. Another store had a "house brand piano" in my price range. I thought I had to buy used.. But even here I ran into problems as every piano I sent inquires on or responded to when listed for sale on websites seem to have already been sold. AAAGH. Conveniently most dealers had new in that price range just slightly more. The focus on price is understandable we all want to be good stewards of our treasure. But what we really want is a match. Your budget - to the available pianos. How a about a piano matcher.com website. Fill in your likes, dislikes, traits and a budget and out pops a list of pianos.. PS. I found a a website the promised to do this for me. They did not respond.

Now I want to learn how to play and find a good piano tech in KC..

That may be an easy one to help with. Try Robert Winney in Shawnee Mission, Ks. [bobwinneysr@yahoo.com]. He is a reputable technician in your area.

Also, look for apple* (her display name) here on pianoworld. She teaches and lives in the Kansas City area.

If schedules don't work, I amn sure each can recommend others. Good luck.

Steve's right. We do already offer a great service for customers to price compare.

Excuse my ignorance, but why do prices have to be secret or anonymous? I know that flaunting the fact that you got a lower price than another person on the same piano is lowbrow, but if someone asks you what you paid for a particular piano and you have no problem telling them ... then this site seems to accomplish the task.

This database already exists. Just ask any Chinese shopper, buyer, owner.

What does a persons ethnic group have to do with anything?

Oh, please!