July 3rd, 2010 8:33 pm
I have done some importing from China, with fairly good luck, and for a while, I had a fairly brisk business selling violins and accessories via the internet. I have pretty much dropped trying to import violins lately, for several reasons.
First of all, it is a pretty labor-intensive undertaking, since I just refuse to sell the type of junk you typically get on eBay, and every violin I got from China needed some basic setup. For instance, none of them ever arrived with properly-fitting pegs, not even the higher-end models. I bought a peg hole reamer and a peg shaper, and after quite a bit of practice, I managed to get to the point where I can fit a set of pegs properly in about 15 minutes. Changing out the horrible strings that come with the violins, installing a Don’t Fret, fitting the pegs, and installing fine-tuners takes me about 30 to 40 minutes. Occasionally, I discover that there is something else needed that I don’t have the tools or the skill to fix (like the occasional badly-warped fingerboard), which causes me to chunk the whole thing in the trash because it isn’t cost-effective to repair (that eats up any profit I might make on the next several instruments). This is the sort of thing the typical eBay merchant expects the end-user to do, and all too often, the end-user has to spend $200 or more to get a $150 violin set up, just to find that it’s worth less than $150.
Importing was an adventure, too.
In order to get the shipping costs from China down to a reasonable level, you have to order about $6,000-$10,000 worth of stuff at a time. Then wait about 60 to 90 days, hoping that most of the shipment will turn out ok. Especially since there is no hope of doing a return on anything. I dealt with four different vendors in China, and with each one, I got a fairly good (but expensive) sample order, only to find that when I placed a regular order, there was something missing or not per my specifications. With no recourse, naturally.
While I learned a lot about setting up violins, and I learned a lot about the import/export business, it just hasn’t been enough of a money-maker to hold my interest over the past few years, especially since I was able to find a good day-job writing software. I still have several violins, and my wife is starting to make noises about wanting me to get them out of storage and get rid of them. I have been selling them to my students (and occasionally to other local folks), just as an alternative to the risk of getting an expensive piece of violin-shaped firewood from an eBay vendor.
These are not world-class violins, and anybody claiming that an under-$250 violin is a “great” instrument is simply lying. They are, however, suitable for a beginner. After a couple of years, a beginner who is serious enough to practice diligently will want to get a better instrument. At that time, the student will also have a much better idea of just what he or she wants, too. Occasionally, I will sell one to a more experienced player who just wants a “rain-fiddle”, or something to perform on outdoors or in circumstances that might be an unacceptable hazard to a really expensive violin.
I have been offering a fairly generous trade-up and buy-back offer, but relatively few of my buyers has taken me up on that over the last 5 or 6 years. Usually, the student wants to keep the original instrument as a back-up, or in some cases, another member of the same family will get it as a hand-me-down.
I have performed publicly on some of these violins myself. In one performance, I took my Drozen and one of my $170 fiddles and switched out for the cheap one after the first break — and nobody except me noticed. The main things I noticed were that it was a bit more effort to get a really good tone from the cheaper fiddle, and the dynamic range wasn’t quite as good.
Any rate, with my wife wanting me to get rid of the current stock, I guess I’m going to have to do an inventory, and start getting them ready to sell. I’m thinking about taking some down to a local instrument store and placing them on consignment. I will probably stop dealing in violins after the current stock is gone.
Unless, of course, I find a way to make it more profitable. I expect that I will still deal in accessories like strings and fingerboard decals, which I can get in smaller quantities, and the shipping doesn’t cost a fortune.