U.S. Piano & Keyboard Dealers in 2015 – A Snapshot

To get a more detailed view of the state of the piano and keyboard market in America in 2015, MMR spent time with three distinct retailers from across the country: Kim’s Piano in California, the Midwest/Northwest’s Schmitt Music, and M. Steinert & Sons in Boston.

Kim’s Piano

A passion for pianos drives the business at Kim’s Piano, a three-store Southern California chain co-run by David Kim and his son Benjamin. Catering to a clientele that loves acoustic pianos, but also bringing aboard digital brands that are gradually growing in favor, the company appeals to both the middle level and high-end piano market. And with the recital hall in their flagship Stanton store, Kim’s Piano offers both a forum for performance and a venue for networking.

David Kim began his career as a piano technician and began selling pianos out of a small Diamond Bar location in 1987. Four years later, he officially opened the first Kim’s Piano store in Garden Grove, California. A second store in the City Of Industry/Diamond Bar area opened in 2010, and their flagship Stanton store followed in 2013. Benjamin Kim joined his father in the business in 2000, and the duo works multiple tasks as they oversee 12 employees in their three locations. They also offer repair services.

Although the original store is approximately 6,500 square feet and the City of Industry location is 4,500 square feet, their recently opened store in Stanton is their flagship location. Benjamin Kim estimates the space between 60,000 and 70,000 square feet. “I believe it’s the largest showroom in the West Coast, if not in the whole nation,” he says.

Kim’s Piano does not offer lessons, but their Stanton location offers something special: a 3-4,000 square foot recital hall. “We do invite local piano teachers for recitals,” says Kim. “We also started to do some small concerts here in the flagship store. It keeps us in the loop with piano teachers and does create some traffic for us. We already had a few successful classical and contemporary venues at our recital hall. David Lanz and Kevin Kern performed here, and we are also planning to have some Blüthner and Kawai artists perform this year as well. We do really want to make a small cultural center in this area and make it very affordable so anyone can come.”

As far as acoustic pianos, Kim’s mainly carries Kawai, Shigeru Kawai, Estonia Kawai, and German manufacturers Blüthner, Seiler, and Samick (including the Pramberger brand). The used brands they carry include Yamaha, Steinway, Young Chang, Baldwin, and Story & Clark. “The only pianos we are missing are American pianos,” observes Kim with a laugh, referencing their love for Japanese and European brands.

Kawai verticals and grands are their biggest sellers, although they are steadily growing in the high-end piano market. “Blüthner piano has been great for us,” says Kim. “We took that line less than two years ago, and we had a fantastic first year.” He says their main brands are what works for them in the market, and that Kawai is popular because it is reliable and a great value for the money. “Kawai has been extremely good for us — teachers love them, and schools recommend them,” he remarks. They have received the Dealer of the Year from Kawai Pianos six times since 2004, the most recent being one at the NAMM show this past January.

On the digital side, Kim’s mainly carries Kawai Digital and have started to carry the new Blüthner digital line, which they are excited about. “The digital piano market has been steadily growing for us, but acoustic pianos are dominant here,” says Kim. “I know digitals are very popular in other parts of the market, but in Southern California a lot of our clients are Asian immigrants. They’re traditional and believe in acoustic pianos, and the piano teachers here promote acoustic pianos more than anything. We’re kind of conservative when it comes to pianos in Southern California.”

Kim acknowledges that the market was challenging seven or eight years ago, but they have seen steady growth in their piano sales for the last three or four years, and they are seeing an extension of the high-end piano markets at their stores also. “They’re exploring the market or coming to find us,” he remarks, noting how high-end customers in areas like Beverly Hills and Newport Beach do not get affected by the market. “I do see that for the middle lines it’s been somewhat challenging. We see more people are looking for more used pianos than ever at the moment. We just don’t have enough to sell. Middle class families are more value conscious nowadays.”

At the end of the day, the business at Kim’s Piano remains steadfast because it is a father-son endeavor, a union that has been going strong for 15 years. “Luckily we get along,” quips Kim. “He’s my boss, so we have our moments, but overall we get along okay. We take pride in the family business. Customers seem to like that, and it just puts us on the front line to make sure our customers are well taken care of.”

Schmitt Music

Music is the lifeblood of the nearly 120 year-old Minneapolis-based chain, Schmitt Music. Co-owners Tom Schmitt and his brother Doug represent the fourth generation of their family in the business, which has blossomed into 15 locations across seven states in the Midwest. They have continually navigated the changes in the marketplace, getting into the piano business over 60 years ago and now embracing the growing demand for digital pianos.

The brothers’ great grandfather Paul A. Schmitt came to Minneapolis from New York in 1890 when he was asked to run the sheet music department for Century Piano Company. After quitting their employ six years later, he bought the sheet music business from them and opened his first store in downtown Minneapolis (their full name is actually the Paul A. Schmitt Music Company, Inc.). That first store moved locations as it grew and evolved, and eventually their grandfather Robert A. Schmitt took charge.

Once the Schmitt’s father Robert P. Schmitt returned from the Korean War in the early 1950s, “the postwar economy was taking off, shopping centers were being developed, and everything was on the go-go track, and he wanted to be a part of that,” recalls Tom Schmitt. “His vision was he wanted to have a Schmitt Music center within 10 minutes of every customer in the Twin Cities. Then after that, he started acquiring companies in other areas around the upper Midwest and covered the state of Minnesota.”

Schmitt Music got into the piano business by the early 1950s and became a Steinway dealer in 1960. Currently they have two locations (Kansas City and Denver) that exclusively sell pianos, keyboards, and organs. Throughout the chain they sell Steinway, Boston, Essex, Kawai, Roland, and their own brand, Lyrica, which they import directly from a manufacturer at the Pearl River in Guangzhou, China.

The fifteen Schmitt Music stores vary in size from 2,500 square feet to their combined warehouse, office, and retail space headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis, which encompasses 50,000 square feet. “It’s actually funny, the first shipment of pianos that we brought in from China for our own brand were sent to Brooklyn, New York instead of Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis,” recalls Schmitt. “It wasn’t funny at the time, but it’s funny now. The most typical store size that we have for branch stores is about 4,000 square feet. If there are pianos included in the store, which we don’t do at all of our stores, then it’s more like 10,000 square feet.”

The company has approximately 175 full-time equivalent employees, not including teachers. Schmitt says that they teach about 4,000 children per week in their stores on all types of instruments. The most popular lesson types are piano and guitar, followed by band and orchestra instruments. They offer instrument repairs in all of their stores.

Schmitt says the company has always liked the piano business and admitted that “it was pretty tough sledding there from about 2007 until 2011. The market basically hit the reset button.” But they have adjusted to changing circumstances. “There are fewer piano stores now, and the stores that we have are somewhat smaller. We’ve tried to size our footprint and inventory investment to meet the size of the market. We like the piano business and are optimistic about it for the future.”

He mentions that some national news outlets have reported about the declining number of piano stores in the nation, but from what he has seen plenty of children are still eager to learn how to play. They just might start on something digital or smaller keyboard models rather than vertical acoustic pianos. “There’s no shortage of people who want to learn a play keyboard instrument,” says Schmitt. “But we have to be a good conduit to the market and show that we have the kind of instruments that people want to be playing. Our vertical acoustic piano business is sort of over, particularly for beginning students and advancing students, but the digital piano business is really good.”

In analyzing the current piano market, Schmitt sees a few different types of consumers. There are beginning and advanced students, serious musicians and teachers, the “aspirational buyer” (a professional with a passionate love for music as a hobby), and the luxury buyer, many of which boosted Schmitt Music sales in the late ’90s and early ’00s boosted as such wealthy people sought items to furnish their homes with. That latter consumer is less common for them these days.

The institutional market is also a growing market segment. “It’s a very slow sort of sales process that takes a long time, but there are a lot of colleges and universities out there that are good prospects,” explains Schmitt. “In addition to that, you’ve got the whole K-12 market and the houses of worship market. You just keep expanding the definition of the institutional piano market. We’re investing resources in that business, and it has been paying off pretty well for us for the last couple of years.”

A newer buyer that Schmitt is excited about is the music listener that loves to listen to piano music but does not play or know how. “They buy the QRS devices, the piano technology out there that digitizes songs and adds orchestration,” says Schmitt. “You can tie them into your home entertainment system and use a video screen in your home, and you’ve got Diana Krall playing in your living room. I think about 35 percent of our grand pianos are going out equipped with those systems now. It’s pretty good and a nice add-on sale, and it also has great potential for distance learning because of the record strip features. It really opens up a different kind of market, and we’re excited about it.”

M. Steinert & Sons

A lasting relic of what once was known as the “Piano Row District,” M. Steinert & Sons sits firmly at 162 Boylston Street in Boston and has since 1880, making it the oldest existing music store in the United States. “When [the storefront] was built, it was the anchor of Piano Row; everything over here was music,” comments Jerome Murphy, treasurer of M. Steinert & Sons. The Piano Row District encompasses two blocks of buildings facing the Boston Common at the corner of Tremont Street and Boylston Street. The strip became commonly known as “Piano Row” for the high concentration of music-related businesses, especially piano showrooms. “To get into the piano business back then,” says Murphy, “There were very few barriers to entry.”

The whole M. Steinert & Sons journey began with one man: Morris Steinert. Bavarian-born Steinert migrated to New York City in 1850 at 21 years old. All he had to his name was a craft for making eyeglasses and optical goods (learned from an uncle), a proficiency in piano, organ, and violin (learned at a monastery in his home town), and ten francs. Steinert – after limited success in the optical goods industry due to his poor English – joined a traveling minstrel troupe as a violinist. This group took him through Connecticut, New York state, and as far west as Cincinnati before he settled (briefly) in Baltimore. He attempted to set up a business teaching music lessons, which failed due to a lack of students. Steinert was then recommended by music publisher G. Schirmer for a clerk position in a retail music store in Savannah, Georgia. His duties included selling and repairing pianos, violins, accordions, banjos, and guitars. The owner of that retail store introduced Steinert to the Whitaker Square Baptist Church, where he was hired as the organist. Steinert, now comfortably settled and financially stable, had his fiancé, Caroline Dreyfuss, come to Savannah, where the two were married in 1857.

In 1858, M. Steinert became M. Steinert & Son, welcoming his first child into the world. In 1860, Steinert and his wife welcomed a daughter, and another son in 1861.

Around the mid to late 1860s, Steinert started going to New York to visit Steinway & Sons, soliciting their agency, and after three refusals, was granted agency on his fourth try in 1869 (with a lot of help from his wife, who impressed the Steinways). Skip ahead a few years to 1878 – Steinert was now a father of nine and in dire need of greater income. He took his sons Henry, 19, and Alexander, 17, to Providence, Rhode Island, where they rented a store. The success of this Providence location led Steinert’s eyes toward Boston, where, in 1880, he opened M. Steinert Sons. The family attempted to open a few satellite locations, none really inspiring the same customer loyalty as the East Coast locations. The decision was made to move the headquarters to Boston in 1883 when Steinert’s son, Alexander, took charge. Steinert Hall was built in 1896 at 162 Boylston St., which is where the store remains today.

M. Steinert & Sons brands itself exclusively as a Steinway premier dealer, carrying Steinways, as well as two additional Steinway lines of pianos: the Boston line and the Essex line. The store also carries Roland digital pianos and is a Rodgers institutional organ dealer. The company not only offers consultation regarding Steinway restoration, but also purchases Steinways that are in need of restoration for re-sale. At roughly 24,000 square feet, Jerome Murphy sees growing opportunities for this big space. “I’m kind of encouraged by the current state of the market because we’ve got a good economy right now,” he says. “It’s not as dire as some have reported it. I see good growth opportunity for us.” The company just opened a 7,000 square foot store in Natick, Massachusetts last year – a new investment Murphy says is meeting expectations and doing quite well. “We had the opportunity to take a big space for a great cost,” says Murphy of the new location. The expanded Natick showroom features a new performance hall, which enables M. Steinert & Sons to host live piano performances. That additional space also allowed the company to provide additional showroom display space for their Steinway, Boston, Essex, and Roland pianos, as well as expand its Piano Academy teaching program. Piano lessons are offered at both the Natick and Boston locations. Though the Natick location is smaller – housing only six employees as opposed to 21 employees at the Boston location – Murphy has a good feeling about the venture. “We feel good about the future and present state of the market. Recreational music making is creating a whole new group of customers that we probably haven’t cultivated ourselves.”

Over the next six months, Murphy sees that positive trend of growth continuing: “I’m seeing a continuing increased interest in quality instruments.” Murphy explains that M. Steinert & Sons has been entertaining bids to sell the building, or lease part of it. The Boylston Street space will be renovated by the new owners and M. Steinert & Sons will come back into a 4-5,000 foot space, according to Murphy. He speculates they will open up an additional presence in another part of Boston. Murphy apparently has two ways to tell if the economy will benefit the store. “There’s an enormously active housing market in greater Boston, driven by low interest rates. This is an encouraging statistic to see for someone in the piano business. Greater housing activity equals greater sales.” And the second telltale sign? Traffic jams! “The worse the traffic, the better the economy,” he says, laughing.