Cheap Gear

So as you hopefully know now is that I just started a new job working at a great company downtown, which is filled with musicians and engineers. It is absolutely a great work environment! But I am not here to talk to you about that, I am here to see if I can save you some money. So usually when you to Guitar Center or any big box store and you see the instrument or gear you want and you go to the check out and you try and haggle a little bit and then the store employee pretty much just laughs in your face because you can’t do that at a big box store. Most of the times the price on the tag is what you get and get changed no matter how hard you try. Couple of great things I have found out working with this new company if you do any kind of phone orders with them you can actually do so haggling with the sales repressive. Al you really have to do is say hey I saw this cheaper from guitar center or sweat water etc. can you give me a better deal on this gear most of times the sales rep will lower that price for you or you can even price match as well which is really cool. Anther great initiative to purchase with this company that I have not seen with any other is there payment plans. So it almost like getting approved for credit for this site without having a credit card and not having to front all the money on one payment, how great is that!!  Try it out and see how it goes!!!

Taxing

So here are some interesting facts supporting those online shoppers out there. So lets say you finally have that income to finally build your own home studio or just see some really cool instruments or you are just in need of new hardware. Buy online especially if you know already what you need and you really don’t have to look at the equipment or even test it out, depending where you are purchasing your item from you can actually save some money. If you’re wondering how, it’s because you will not be taxed on your purchase. Depending where you are living some states don’t require for you to pay a tax, as long as the company you are purchasing from does not have a physical presence in your state. For example they don’t have a warehouse where they ship their entire products from or have employees working in your state. There has been an act that is trying to be passed currently to all the states called The Marketplace Fairness Act and with this act in place it will allow your state to tax you on your online orders no matter from what source you a purchasing from and or where they are located. Now some states have not passed this yet. For example in Connecticut the Commissioner of Revenue said that any Connecticut shopper must still pay their 6.35 percent even if the website did not charge them for tax. Also states such as Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont passed a so called “Amazon Tax” law this requires online retailers to still collect sales tax even if they do not own any property in your state or have any in state employees. If The Marketplace Fairness Act was implemented on every state the government could collect well over 1 million in tax Internet sales annually. You be surprised to find out that Amazon is actually on board with this act, but may people still feel that it is just something else for our government to collect money from us. How do you guys feel about this?

Online Audio!

Hello everybody!!! Well know that I have that off my chest (if you read my previous blog).  I was talking about how people are just going into stores now to get all of their product knowledge and then going home to just buy online. Well not that I have a problem of shopping online but I feel people are becoming a little lazy about shutting down their computers and having a little bit of human interaction. So how does this tie into audio equipment you ask? Well good question, I am actually starting to do some research on people who prefer to shop online than in a store with real people. The main focus that I am trying to get to is about musicians, Recently I applied for a job that is a sales position for a company that just sales musical equipment online.  Does it make it a really big difference to people to shop for all their audio gear online than in a store? As a fellow musician who plays the drums,  I definitely prefer to try out the equipment I am about to purchase , see it in person so I can make the best judgment call on if I should buy it or not. I don’t know if you agree with me on this but I would really feel like it is such a hassle if it’s the wrong product I bought or if its not compatible or if when it gets delivered it is just all damaged.     

Internet Junkies

   

Over time I have noticed how much our world has been changing. It's crazy to think how it used to be just only 10 or 15 years ago. I remember as a kid on the weekends I used to love heading over to Blockbuster and renting out the latest movie or video game. Now we can just instantly stream them right to our TV, video game system and or computer.  Now it is also the same with shopping; I work for Best Buy and I used to remember that there was always foot traffic in the store, sometimes my friends and I would just go there to hangout.  But now a day it is pretty empty and some people are just going to the store to just get knowledge on the product and then go back home and shop online.  Before I really get started with my whole blog here, I guess I am just really wondering about how many hours people are spending on the Internet per day? And I find it a littler weird because personally I do not use the Internet as much as probably someone my age should or does. I really want to get to the bottom of this Internet craze. I bet you are wondering what this all had to do with audio equipment , I promise we will get their on the next blog but for now if any does respond, I would just like to know how many hours are you spending online and what kind of things are you doing online( as long as you can say it in front of your mother)?