Sell FRACTAL at Sweetwater.

and what about the technical support ? i'm in europe and if a problem occurs , a quick e mail or even a phonecall can solve any problems . i doubt sweetwater would be able do do that.
I would imagine they would steer you to G66 prior to purchase.
 
NO WAY. Bad idea, sorry.............. Sweetwater is NOT what they were years ago. sorry. I have shopped at Sweetwater most of my online life as a musician. I have the Plat card. Yes good store. Still, not a good idea imho!
 
Cut out the middleman....It's the American way (i.e. Capitalism). Beats the heck out of socialism...or communism! Competition and Innovation are better for the customers, owners, etc.
So American companies have cut out the middleman? Uh, not quite. Many hands get a slice of the pie of consumers money.
Fractal is not in the majority of businesses. Yes, cutting out the middleman would be great. Ain't gonna happen for most businesses besides mom & pop shops.
Medicare and soc sec are forms of socialism. That's not the problem.

I do agree that the middleman is a huge part of the. problem.
 
FAS seems able to distribute and support their products pretty well, not sure there is a problem here to solve, or what SW would add to my own user experience ;)
 
For Fractal in the US the only benefit to buyers would be the ability to try a Fractal unit in store. But since Fractal offers a return period this is not very useful and would mainly increase the price of the units over their direct sales model. Plus trying any complex modeler in store is a terrible way to go about it when just figuring out how to operate it would take enough time unless there's a sales rep to work it for you.
 
So American companies have cut out the middleman? Uh, not quite. Many hands get a slice of the pie of consumers money.
Fractal is not in the majority of businesses. Yes, cutting out the middleman would be great. Ain't gonna happen for most businesses besides mom & pop shops.
Medicare and soc sec are forms of socialism. That's not the problem.

I do agree that the middleman is a huge part of the. problem.
Not disagreeing with you here as much as I would like to elaborate. The only mistake @favance made was implying it was present tense (which you did acknowledge). The American way “was” about individual proprietorship and being the best you could be and competing as a solitary entity. Bearing in mind nothing is ever perfect. Now to reiterate what you basically said, but with huge emphasis on the “was” part. The reason America is such a sh*t show lately is because of our drifting away from fundamental free market principals and the individual being paramount. Middlemen can be useful and helpful in certain situations, but today much of the middle men are not about serving the customer and all about serving themselves. Worst of all is when a society adopts a economic model that meshes the government and business. Nothing, absolutely nothing is worse than the career political class who have never produced anything of value in their lives being the middlemen! Then making laws, regulations and under the radar deals that favor only those who will keep them riding the gravy train in perpetuity.

I had to laugh, for whatever reason when I typed “gravy train” the word prompt replaced “gravy” with “grabby”. I corrected after proofreading, but thought to myself that “grabby train” is much more appropriate in more ways than one.😁
 
FAS has to employ people to sell and distribute their product in-house. That's the tradeoff. Do you do it yourself or outsource. Obviously, FAS feels it's to their benefit to do it in-house. It shouldn't raise the price of the product by much, if any, to sell through Sweetwater. Someone has to be paid for selling the product, either internally or externally. I was a little surprised that FAS sold direct only. However, I've known about their product for years before buying one and the reputation it has for being the best.
 
FAS has to employ people to sell and distribute their product in-house. That's the tradeoff. Do you do it yourself or outsource. Obviously, FAS feels it's to their benefit to do it in-house. It shouldn't raise the price of the product by much, if any, to sell through Sweetwater. Someone has to be paid for selling the product, either internally or externally. I was a little surprised that FAS sold direct only. However, I've known about their product for years before buying one and the reputation it has for being the best.
Outsourcing is an internal expense, and a company still controls their margins. Not the case with SW, or any distributor/retailer, as they apply their own margins to anything they sell. If FAS was middle of the pack in terms of its product, or if they had 100 new products a year like Fender, they would actually need a marketing/distribution service. I suspect other companies envy this successful business model!
 
I am all into being a hard@ss, in life, but Fractal really should take after Empress, Strymon, Meris, and SELL TO SWEETWATER.

I have been to the Sweetwater building and its a beautiful place out in the country of Indiana... maybe Fractal could visit.


I hope to once again own a fractal either FM9 or the FM4TURBO..... But I hope Fractal distributes through this fantastic AMERICAN company Sweetwater, and Cliff can retire in the Bahamas and sleep on his Dumble pillows.

Or maybe he already is but regardless............ ..... please share fractal with the world and distribute thru Sweetwater.

They are a class act.
Whats the value of having SW put a shipping label on a FAS box? Fractal has been doing this for almost 20 years.
 
and what about the technical support ? i'm in europe and if a problem occurs , a quick e mail or even a phonecall can solve any problems . i doubt sweetwater would be able do do that.
This is the one difficult area. Shipping a unit from Canada to the US is expensive… especially if not under warranty. Sometimes there’s a hardware issue.

Sean Meredith-Jones
 
I would think being in the musical instrument business that you have reached the pinnacle when you can sell direct to the public all over the world.
With the internet and all of us sales reps (Fractal users) working for free (well, we do get perks- Free FW updates) it seems he is on to something.
 
FWIW, if I had been able to try out a Fractal AxeFX back in 2014 when I was in the market for a high end modeler, I would have probably gone with that. I initially wanted a Fractal unit. But the only Fractal products I have ever seen in person was two on a stage a few years ago, and my FM3 (purchased a few months ago). What sold me back then on a Kemper was going to a concert where the guitarist used one, and we talked at length about it after the concert. Some of his tones were staggeringly good with the Kemper as well. I was able to purchase a Kemper through distribution and felt comfortable with the price and return policy, so I went with that.

In my case in 2014 the rarity and lack of in person examples of the tones, plus not knowing any owners, sent me to Kemper in place of Fractal. Not that this justifies Fractal going through distribution, but I just wanted to point out I would have probably gone with Fractal if I could have had these factors back then. I know that Fractal has a return policy, but not being able to hear one live and talk to a user made me reluctant to spend the money that way.
 
FWIW, if I had been able to try out a Fractal AxeFX back in 2014 when I was in the market for a high end modeler, I would have probably gone with that. I initially wanted a Fractal unit. But the only Fractal products I have ever seen in person was two on a stage a few years ago, and my FM3 (purchased a few months ago). What sold me back then on a Kemper was going to a concert where the guitarist used one, and we talked at length about it after the concert. Some of his tones were staggeringly good with the Kemper as well. I was able to purchase a Kemper through distribution and felt comfortable with the price and return policy, so I went with that.

In my case in 2014 the rarity and lack of in person examples of the tones, plus not knowing any owners, sent me to Kemper in place of Fractal. Not that this justifies Fractal going through distribution, but I just wanted to point out I would have probably gone with Fractal if I could have had these factors back then. I know that Fractal has a return policy, but not being able to hear one live and talk to a user made me reluctant to spend the money that way.
Understood, I've never bought a guitar I haven't played, for instance.

OTOH though, a modeler as deeps as Fractal stuff would be exceptionally crappy to demo in the racket and ignorance of GC, and SW is only local to a few of us. (Fractal itself is a resonable drive for me, I picked mine up in person, but that's also irrelevant for most people.)
 
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