Rickenbacker prices up 40%!

[Musky]

Rickenbacker seem to have found themselves the answer to their growing backlog of orders - up their prices dramatically!

According to Rick, the price rise is due to increased costs and to 'help create a better balance between demand and capacity'. In other words, so many people want Ricks they can afford to take the piss out of their customers. They've also decided to stop producing fretless basses for the time being. So if you want a new Rick, get in quick.

Way to go Rickenbacker - nothing like good customer service.

[url="http://www.rickenbacker.com/news_item.asp?news_id=54&news=recent"]http://www.rickenbacker.com/news_item.asp?...amp;news=recent[/url]

[markdavid]

[quote name='Musky' post='107578' date='Dec 21 2007, 12:23 PM']Rickenbacker seem to have found themselves the answer to their growing backlog of orders - up their prices dramatically!

According to Rick, the price rise is due to increased costs and to 'help create a better balance between demand and capacity'. In other words, so many people want Ricks they can afford to take the piss out of their customers. They've also decided to stop producing fretless basses for the time being. So if you want a new Rick, get in quick.

Way to go Rickenbacker - nothing like good customer service.

[url="http://www.rickenbacker.com/news_item.asp?news_id=54&news=recent"]http://www.rickenbacker.com/news_item.asp?...amp;news=recent[/url][/quote]

40% , Yeowch , Ricks are already expensive enough to stop a lot of people owning them , they are taking the piss

[Machines]

Wow - a great way to alienate people further. This will put the price of a new Ric at about £1600 ?

I can understand maintaining the product and not mass producing it, but this seems quite crazy. I can see 2nd hand prices going up too now..

[thumbo]

That takes the piss!

[Bassassin]

A message, then, for Mr John Hall of RIC.

It is this:



If that's what you want, then that's what will happen.

And those who can still afford, or aspire to the real thing will import, because no doubt US prices will remain about 45% lower than UK ones. And UK, and other non-US dealers will stop bothering to try & sell Ricks, and probably sell copies instead. Rickenbacker International Corp won't be very "international" any more. Not that it really is, anyway.

Jon.

[Roffa]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='107646' date='Dec 21 2007, 03:09 PM']And UK, and other non-US dealers will stop bothering to try & sell Ricks, and probably sell copies instead.
Jon.[/quote]

Where can I buy copy of a Rickenbacker? I thought that RIC had a strong copyright of their products......

//Roffa

[Lfalex v1.1]

In spite of their near-legendary status, they deserve to go under for this. What other basses can you get for that sort of money?

£1600?

Well....

In terms of 4 strings, almost anything!

Shuker
Sei
Iceni / Zoot
GB
RIM
Warwick (Thumbs & Streamers, etc.)
Fender (Deluxes and almost CS, plus NOS, vintage RI and Relics) Urges, and Roscoe Becks
Yamaha
Musicman (Fully loaded Bongo? Sterling with a Piezo?)
Steinberger
Status
Sandberg
Lakland
G&L

And that's just for starters...


They'll all play as well as a Ricky, if not better, and they'll all offer greater tonal versatility, too.

Edit for me & Ped; Sorry! Forgot Vigier!

Edited December 21, 2007 by Lfalex v1.1

[GreeneKing]

There's no ACG in that list, a glaring error in my opinion



I don't know when Ric last put there prices up and by how much but it seems to me that they are now pretty much on a par with US Laklands.

I know that Ric's are not everyone's 'cuppa' but imo they're well made with several fairly unique design aspects that must make them more expensive to build.

I don't think that saying 'you hope they go under' will serve anyone's purpose. If their market dries up, which I doubt, they'll have to either adjust their prices downwards or if they can't do that redesign a cheaper product/outsource manufacture abroad.

[SJA]

"the price rise is due to increased costs"

the cost of all the legal action against Rickenfakers...

[Bassassin]

[quote name='Roffa' post='107660' date='Dec 21 2007, 02:28 PM']Where can I buy copy of a Rickenbacker? I thought that RIC had a strong copyright of their products......

//Roffa[/quote]

RIC has copyright on all elements of its design & intellectual property. Only trouble is, those little Korean, Chinese & Indonesian guys really couldn't give a damn.

Currently, Oriental copies branded as Rockinbetter, Shine Fernandes & Johnson can be found if you're prepared to dig around a bit, and closer to home, builders like John Birch (UK) & Sandberg (Germany) will sell you a lovely hand-built Rick-shaped bass, for prices that are starting to seem quite reasonable compared to the "legal" version. Or you could always go to your friendly local luthier & see how much they'd want to build you a Rick clone.

And there's a plethora of vintage Japanese copies out there, like mine. You have to be patient, they do come up on Ebay, just contact the seller before the auction gets pulled, and you might be able to do a deal. Of course, all this means the copy & vintage copy prices will be driven up too - cheers John.

J.

[Old Horse Murphy]

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='107683' date='Dec 21 2007, 03:14 PM']There's no ACG in that list, a glaring error in my opinion



I don't know when Ric last put there prices up and by how much but it seems to me that they are now pretty much on a par with US Laklands.

I know that Ric's are not everyone's 'cuppa' but imo they're well made with several fairly unique design aspects that must make them more expensive to build.

I don't think that saying 'you hope they go under' will serve anyone's purpose. If their market dries up, which I doubt, they'll have to either adjust their prices downwards or if they can't do that redesign a cheaper product/outsource manufacture abroad.[/quote]

It's actually a retrospective increase Peter.....ahem

[GreeneKing]

Gulp

[Musky]

I don't think there's any danger of Rickenbacker going under. They pride themselves on being a small company that still uses a lot of labour intensive build methods - they could quite easily go the Fender route and use more automation, as well as set up an offshore facility, but they don't seem to think of themselves as that kind of company. As has been pointed out they also use expensive design elements, and that all contributes to a relatively expensive instrument.

But this price increase smacks of greed.

So their order books are full (an enviable position to be in), but I'm not sure that necessitates this kind of price increase to 'cut down delivery times'. They are just making the calculation that they'll still be busy even if they do piss off a number of their loyal customers.

It seems to me that RIC care less about their customers than they do about their precious product - sod you if you'd like a replacement for your pricey but cracked truss rod cover, you'll have to hand it over before they'll deign to sell you a (basically worthless) reproduction. They'll tell you that it's to protect you from fakes, but the reality is it's another attempt to protect their trademark.

I'd really like to see some more copies out there - it might actually give them the kick up the arse they appear to sorely need.

[Bassassin]

I'd hate to see Ric go under, despite John Hall patently being a *breach of all of the following: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=10171"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=10171[/url] *, as I've said before, the world would be a poorer place without Rickenbackers. I'll leave the obvious puns about that sentiment to you lot.

It's a bloody strange business model, though - a successful manufacturer of a high-end product finds itself unable to keep up with the market's demand for its product, so what does it do? Expand production facilities to accomodate the market's demand? Outsource some areas of production in order to be more efficient? No - let's just make the product unaffordable to half of our potential customers, so they will just bugger off & leave us alone! Insane!

I'm starting to wonder if Hall hasn't lost it altogether - a part of me would like to see him forced into the position of having to sell - He & his wife currently own RIC outright, no partners or shareholders - in order to keep the company afloat.

J.

[stevebasshead]

Hmmm...tough one. Obviously if I was saving up for a Ric (and hadn't already placed a pre-order at the old prices) I'd be pretty upset, it is quite a hike up from the price I'd have been saving towards. But there seems to be more to it, particularly the amount of time that's passed since they last raised prices (they being Rickenbacker as opposed to whatever the distributors and dealers independantly decide to do.)

I'm not informed enough on RIC's business plan nor the other factors that affect them so I'm not taking sides here, but there's a couple of interesting points in the following posting that I've lifted, just for information, from a similar thread on the Rick Resource forum. This was a posting by John Hall himself (RIC's CEO) and may balance and/or answer some of the points raised above. (Full thread [url="http://www.rickresource.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=378475&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=60"]here[/url].)

"[color="#0000FF"]I need to jump in here, if only briefly, before I return to my "no post" policy.

We don't raise the price on guitars that are already on order, in fact we still have many on the books awaiting production that will still be shipped at the 2001 prices.

However, you can argue both ways about the dealers raising prices now. On the one hand, there's an argument that instruments currently in stock (or on order at protected old prices) should be sold at prices reflective of their actual cost. But you can also argue that the cost to replace that item in inventory is the proper cost to base pricing on.

Obviously, as a consumer I would prefer the first option but if I operated a shop I'd tend to favor the second. It's a tough call either way, but it's a call the stores make, not us.

This might be a good time to point out a couple of other things that have been overlooked or misstated, especially on one other forum in particular. This last price increase was, on average, just under 20%, plus or minus a bit due to rounding. Including this most recent price change, the total average increase is about 34% as compared to 2001. I don't hear anyone remembering now all those years that we didn't increase prices. (There were a couple of model-specific exceptions where there were extraordinary cost increases or a need to reposition certain models in the line.)

Another point totally overlooked is the fact that it will probably be at least a year before the first instrument goes out the door at the new prices, so in effect this is really a late 2009 or early 2010 price increase. Similarly, as I said earlier, a large percentage of our current backlog will be shipped at the same prices we charged for these items in 2001.

North American customers probably think they don't care about this but we have a large export business; these clients are currently enjoying a huge windfall due to the weak dollar exchange rate. (None have lowered their dealer prices in response to this.) We're trying to recapture some of that and use it to offset our increased costs for parts, especially imported ones, for example, Gotoh and Schaller keys. That indirectly benefits the domestic consumer.

Speaking of costs, consider these facts:

Solder increased 116% in the last 15 months alone.

Case costs have risen 20% in the last 12 months.

Copper has almost doubled since 2005, affecting brass components as well.

The price of zinc is up about 59% this year although large quantities of Chinese zinc is helping to keep the price down.

I don't have to tell anyone what's happened with oil, which directly affects cost of the coatings and plastic we use.

The good news is that quality Maple has held very solid, although charactered premium Maple has become overly expensive, mainly through the manipulation of specialty wood brokers.[/color]"

Interesting point about the export clients - our prices should have been more or less stable since 2001, bar currency/shipping/tax variations, so anything over and above the shop price now and the shop price in 2001 would be outside of RIC's control. I bought my 1st RIC in 2002 when (IIRC) they listed at £1200 but you can find them on the net now for £1400. If the £200 increase is solely down to shipping and tax I'll eat my hat. Can't be the exchange rate as that would favour a decrease in price. Rip Off Britain springs to mind...

Steve.

[SJA]

can Rick charge whatever price they want, and the market will bear it?

the old "reassuringly expensive" appeal of exclusivity.
veblen goods, as wikipedia puts it.

despite solder, copper, brass etc. prices going up, how come korean and chinese instruments just get cheaper and cheaper........

[Chopthebass]

Perhaps when their profit margins increase they could invest in some radius cutting router bits and do something more interesting with that body shape!

[The Burpster]

Up 40%........?

whatever.......!

Didnt want one before, certainly dont want one now.....!

Still not a patch on Mr Smiths finest offerings!

[Chopthebass]

So how much will one of these basses cost now?

[GreeneKing]

Twice as much

[GreeneKing]

Of course to some the body shape is good. I'ts more subtle imo than it 1st appears.

Too many bleedin fender shapes around anyway

I thought that John Hall put across a good point. Not many are so straight forward and responsive to critisism. Look at the MM forum

Given that there's more than a fair amount of 'sucking up' going on on the Ric forum too.

Edited December 21, 2007 by GreeneKing

[Adee]

It will also have an effect on used prices too and probably drive them through the roof !

[elom]

What Ric have done is not exactly subtle is it? Yet, it's just business. If the demand massively exceeds supply then they can make more money by charging more and that ultimately is the job of any commercial enterprise, not making guitars but making money.

Does this now make them overpriced? In my opinion yes but there are plenty of people who will still want one at this price. Whilst they continue to sell everything that they produce I doubt that our protestations will have much impact.

[Sean]

Jacking up your prices by that much in one go can only have a detrimental effect on your business in the long term. What other kneejerk reaction changes are they likely to make? Now I view RIC as a rip off narrow minded and blinkered company. I wonder what Tom Petty would have to say about this...

[fleamail]

A well known ebay seller from the states (olivia's vintage) that lists mostly vintage rickenbackers has canceled all her rick auctions today! Coincidence?