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re: Is the SH550/575 really hot right now or what? |
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 Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:01 pm |
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| Inventory may be lower in both ends of a cycle |
While this is true, it's not hard to guess what cycle we're in now. When every order from all sources can be started immediately, this necessarily means there are people waiting around for work to do.
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| I also think the more orders Carvin is getting, the lower the GIS should be. They have orders, they don't need to stock as many "spec's". |
From Carvin's point of view, GIS guitars ARE orders. Just because the factory receives GIS orders as well as custom orders doesn't mean they're not ordered from the factory.
If the low GIS count reflected brisk sales, this would mean a fairly rapid turnover in GIS. But we see from regular examination that the same guitars are sitting there, and new ones aren't being added very often. Remember, so long as X% of Carvin's buyers purchase stock items, then Carvin must allocate X% of their capacity to meet this demand.
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| I can see Carvin maintaining a certain level of raw blanks at the factory based on sales history. I don't know how much farther you can go when every X "custom" order pretty much, to us the buyers delight, stops being something you can inventory. White bursts/option 50's/a zillion color combinations and top choices etc. |
Making the blanks requires manufacturing resources. These resources are then not being used to fill custom orders, one of the reasons for the longer build times when sales are brisk. If the GIS are not moving, then there's little reason to build more, and the blanks go toward filling custom orders faster. Internal orders (stores and GIS) also make good use of the zillion options, and order them.
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| A GIS is mostly not a good thing for Carvin I think. |
I like to think the Carvin folks have a good handle on what they're doing. There are enough customers for whom the GIS are close enough and want to receive it right away, so that Carvin knows from sales history what the optimal ratio is of GIS and custom orders. I really do think profit is maximized by keeping this ratio constant, because the mix of "I want it now" and "I want it custom" sales is pretty constant.
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| Holiday season, I hope Carvin's employees and owners are just too busy making guitars for customers to stock up the GIS inventory I sure do see a LOT more people mentioning Carvins and the desire to own one at the couple of other forums I drop in at. |
No doubt. Yet we notice that when times are good and custom orders pour in, what happens is BOTH (1) GIS expands accordingly, and (2) Build times increase accordingly.
I'm fairly confident that from the factory's point of view, every order that comes through is a custom order. Even if that order was designed and placed by a store or by the GIS department, rather than from you or me. After all, the GIS are all different and have a wide range of options - they're not all alike or all base models.
Like you, I think Carvin makes fantastic products at a good price, and I want them to weather the lousy economy and see business boom. But right now, the indications are that Carvin is in the same boat as everyone else, sitting on the bottom waiting for the tide to return. |
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re: Is the SH550/575 really hot right now or what? |
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| Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:18 pm |
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but, um, yeah,.......the SH550 is a hot guitar! |
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re: Is the SH550/575 really hot right now or what? |
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| Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:41 pm |
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You can say that again! When I got my SH-575 a week ago, I quickly yanked the Elixirs and put on Chrome 10-48 Flatwounds. Within 24 hours the neck moved a bit, so I had a setup done. Now I am blown away. The guitar is not only incredibly beautiful and well-built, but I have about .75mm clearance between E string and frets the entire length of the neck, without any buzzing anywhere. I am amazed.
Granted, by the time the dust settled this thing cost nearly $2500 not counting the synthesizer to play it through, but at that price it's a bargain, no doubt about it. Just using the magnetic pickups, I can dial up exactly the tone I always dreamed about. And so many other tones nothing can match.
So my main problem now is, what do I do with all these other guitars I got in search of what the 575 does, that just don't measure up? |
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Re: re: Is the SH550/575 really hot right now or what? |
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