Getting Keyed Up – Piano & Keyboard Retailers Discuss the Market

“Slow and Steady Wins the Race,” goes the old adage and there are some signs of hope that such maxims can prove true when applied to the piano & keyboard market. Seven months ago, in a survey similar to this one before you, 34 percent of retailers reported that sales within this segment of MI were up, while when we look even further back to March of 2012, only 33 percent of piano & keyboard dealers claimed sales were on the rise. Compared to spring of 2015’s nearly 42 percent (41.7) noting an upwards trend in units sold, that’s a not-too-shabby uptick of nearly 10 percent within less than half a decade.

So, while piano sales are still nowhere near the numbers that veteran dealers fondly remember from the salad days of years gone by, we may have truly turned a corner.

Other, perhaps predictable, trends are borne out by this month’s poll results: digital consoles continue to provide more features and more “realistic” feel and sound and, consequently, are appealing to more and more end-users; while such sales are certainly welcome, they don’t represent the same profit margins as acoustic pianos. As Colton Piano Gallery’s (San Jose, California) Dave Gatt lays out in easy-to-digest numbers: “Digital [represents] 70 percent of the units [sold], but only 30 percent of the dollars. Acoustic is 30 percent of the units, but 70 percent of the dollars.”

The results of this issue’s survey, sent out to over 300 dealers, are below – read on…

Compared to this time of year in 2014, piano & keyboard sales for your store are:

Up: 41.7%

Down: 25%

Level: 33.3%

“Overall the trend has been slightly up but supply problems during the holiday season left us with fewer units available to be sold for that period.”

John Parker
The Music Loft
Greensboro, N.C.

“2014 was an outlier, banner year in digital pianos for us. 2015 is comparable to the numbers of 2013.”

Brad Jahn
Dorsey Music
Nampa, Idaho

“Digital pianos are hot right now! Yamaha Arius YDP240V is our more expensive best seller at $2,000 and lower-end, weighted keys Yamahas are doing great, too. Customers are interested in simple and elegant consoles rather than ‘busy’ boards with lots of buttons. At least that’s what we are seeing.”

Anthony Mantova
Mantova’s Two Street Music
Eureka, Calif.

“Total sales [are] up, including new, restored, and digital.”

James Reeder
Reeder Pianos, Inc.
Lansing, Mich.

What’s the breakdown, in terms of percentage, of total sales for your operation?

100 percent acoustic: 4.8%

100 percent digital consoles: 30.2%

Close to 50/50: 20.8%

Mostly acoustic: 20.4%

Mostly digital: 25.4%

“In our opinion, nothing compares to a quality grand piano in the keyboard industry – at least not yet. Digital pianos have improved a lot, but I don’t see how they are ever going to compare to a quality acoustic grand.”

Richard Robitaille
Robitaille’s Pianos Sales Service
Turner, Maine

“Digital is 70 percent of the units, but only 30 percent of the dollars. Acoustic is 30 percent of the units, but 70 percent of the dollars.”

Dave Gatt
Colton Piano Gallery
San Jose, Calif.

“Units are 50/50, but revenue is 75/25 in favor of acoustic.”

Peter Sides
Robert M. Sides Family Music Centers
Williamsport, Pa.
 

With respect to pianos & keyboards, what price points are doing best for your store?

Low: 30.2%

Intermediate: 58.7%

High-end: 11.1%

“Actually, It’s been a mix of all three. We have seen more movement in the Intermediate price point than last year for sure!”

Buddy Shirk
Summitt Pianos
Chattanooga, Tenn.

“We are lucky to have a store that is able to restore used pianos and keep them at a respectable cost while giving families a great piano to bring into the home. New piano sales are still doing well, also.”

Steffanie Vaugeois
Don’s Piano Place
St. Albert, Alberta
Canada

“New uprights [sales are] very slow. Used grands and uprights dominate the vast majority of sales.”

Tony Leonard
Playground Music Center
Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

What brands are the strongest sellers for your operation thusfar in 2015?

Yamaha: 57.1%

Kawai: 11.1%

Korg: 17.5%

Roland: 30.2%

Hailun: 6.4%

Casio: 27%

Steinway: 9.5%

Boston: 7.9%

Nord: 4.8%

Lowrey: 3.2%

Mason & Hamlin: 1.6%

Petrof: 1.6%

Pearl River: 6.4%

Samick: 4.8%

Schimmel: 3.2%

Young Chang: 3.3%

Kurzweil: 4.8%

Hammond: 3.2%

Bluthner: 1.6%

Suzuki: 1.5%

Baldwin: 3.2%

“Other”: 17.1%

* Amongst those indicating “other,” the most frequently mentioned brands were, in order: Essex, Ritmuller, Galileo, Hallet Davis, Kohler, and Knabe.

What larger trends have you been noticing with respect to the piano & keyboard market?

“Weighted keys and 88-key keyboards are more popular than ever before.”

Tom Olsen
Draisen Edwards Music
Marietta, Ga.

“The acoustic market, as predicted, still has a small loyal following, but digital pianos continue to garner more of the total sales each year.”

Mike Guillot
Mississippi Music, Inc.
Flowood, Miss.

“Digital Pianos seem to get better every year with better entry price points for the beginning student. Most of our keyboard sales are to our student base.”

Spidey Mulrooney
The Music Shop
Southington, Conn.

“From our small window on this world, all I’m qualified to say is the market for us (digital) resembles technology at large – i.e., increasingly more features for less money.”

Nick Rail
Nick Rail Music
Santa Barbara, Calif.

“Better educated consumers. They’ve already fully researched [prior to their purchase], to the point where their questions require our sales staff to know more than is just the information available on the manufacturers’ websites and to have spent more time with the instruments, individually, than used to be required to effectively sell them.”

Kathryn Irving
Sound of Music
Abbotsford, British Columbia
Canada

“People use the Internet for everything, whether for good or ill. It is extremely useful to harness the good elements of online research versus the bad elements. PianoForums do a lot of speculating and spread a good amount of heresay if you are not careful – same with Craigslist. Pianobuyer.com is the ultimate resource for controlling inaccurate information.”

Thomas Solich
Solich Piano & Music Company
Columbia, Ohio

“During the 1950s almost 100% [of sales were] pianos. In the 1960s organs started creeping in and by the 1970s organs became a very big player in our market. The by the mid-1980s organs declined and, by the mid-1990s, were out of the picture, still leaving the acoustic piano as king. In the early 2000s digital pianos started their upward trend and at the present time they exceed acoustic pianos, in terms of sales volume. It looks, at the present time, like digitals may still have a bit of a run.”

Chris Murphy
Richards Music Co.
Stafford, Ariz.

“Because private pianos teachers have allowed beginning students to ‘start’ with a portable keyboard, they as traditional teachers are now threatened with YouTube teachers – as in ‘free.’ You Tube teachers are a viable alternative to traditional lessons.”

Jack R. Melvin, Jr.
Keyboard Connection
Jacksonville, Fla.

“Acoustic pianos have no rebound in sight and will definitely continue to become more and more hard to find, as their obsolescence is expanded by higher build quality in digital models.”

Parker Daniels
Springfield Music/Funky Munky Music
Shawnee, Kans.