you might recall that Rose Caccamice bought out Rolands entire
"old/new stock" of FR7's and FR2's at one point in time (mostly the Chromatics)
when they "retired" those models from the line and wanted to clear their inventory
after Rose passed, at least part of Roxy's accordion stock was liquidated
to Liberty B, and this was when they first offered "new" Rolands for sale
as some if not all the last of the 7's went to them
whether or not LB considered becoming a dealership, as Rose had, i don't know
(i signed Roxy's up originally with Roland) they did have the merch legitimately
and i would think those units were covered by the Roland USA Warranty
eyond that, many Music retailers have back door collaborative
stock shifting with other retailers in the biz.. for example, we had Jackson
Charvel and Kramer guitars and a friend dealership in New Jersey had
Fender so literally both stores were able to floor at least a "few" models
of the borrowed brand, and any other color they needed to sell we just
sent one over or went and got what we needed from their stock
the "floor" baseline cost to become and remain a "Dealer" can be
quite steep with some companies who, like Roland, want you to carry
a lot more than just accordions. When they began to market the V
they were't so difficult as they needed every square foot of retail floor space
they could get to legitimise and show the product, so Rose, even though
she was a long time Peavey and Yamaha dealer, had no difficulty with them.
Some dealerships tie in the discount to the specific order, quantity, total invoice,
while others like Kawai have their base discount, and at the end of your fiscal year
your Volume earns you a sort of "retroactive" better percentage discount
that you get as a dollar for dollar credit toward next years orders. What this
does is allow smaller dealers to special order single items withut any more penalty
than normal shipping costs. Without this, smaller dealers can never compete
with the big order dealers, and which feeds into the back-door swap system
as some big dealers are pseudo low margin Distributors in reality
Some retailers who have deep ties as distributors with Accordion brands
may age and become less active directly at retail, but it is much easier for
a new start-up accordion dealer a state or two away to strike a private deal
and just piggyback on someone like this for their first 5 or 6 years in biz
it can be complicated, but some years it is hard to survive in Retail
and you do what you have to
the main thing is, any serious retailer needs to invest in a legit
repair/service department, so this is what you need to ask about or
peek behind the great and wonderful Oz' curtains..
