Still kind of amazes me.. Ukes MIA

Bill1 said:

How many ukulele groups does Portland support? The lack of product range is a reflection of the lack of a market. Shop owners and franchises are looking at sales figures all the time, if a product starts selling it will get stocked. If you want to see the ukes in the shops you have to be prepared to buy them, which comes first, orders from ukulele players or the shop takes a huge financial risk on stocking the ukuleles without orders?
The Magic Fluke Company and Asian companies started selling ukuleles into the USA market in the late 1990s, almost 20 years ago. People have been buying them and learning about ukuleles for almost 20 years now. They mostly went through a buying spree to find out which one they like, now they happily own ukes which will last the next 50 years or more and don't need to be buying new ukes every week. All the cast-offs are available to circulate to new players by word of mouth through uke groups and local classifieds. The soldiers in the first landings on D day carried enough stuff for three men, so the story goes, so the stuff would be there for the soldiers who followed, that is what has effectively happened in the ukulele market in the USA. Millions of ukes have been sold into the USA, almost everyone who wants one has one or can get one by word of mouth, they don't need to go to a shop.
I suspect there are a lot of ukulele players in Portland, and they are buying and selling ukuleles all the time. I suspect if you do some word of mouth searching you can find almost any ukulele you would like to buy, possibly in used condition, all you need to do is plug into the scene and find where the action is, which may be evident if you can find the right social network page, but wont be evident anywhere else on the internet.

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Rllink said:

Good point. I wonder how many ukuleles have been sold right here in Marketplace?

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Ziret said:

I can see that saturated market point, but if that were really true, the gun industry would be out of business. Guns don't wear out, and there are guns enough for everyone in the entire country, but they keep selling. If you want to be able to buy good ukes at Walmart, all we have to do is form the NUA and start telling everyone that the government wants to take your ukes every time someone plays Tiny Tim.

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lfoo6952 said:

After following this thread, it appears that city culture, population sizes, and saturated markets, are not the sole factors that drive a successful retail ukelele business.

I'm going to throw in another factor for consideration. In San jose where I live, there is a store that sells only ukuleles, the Ukulele Source. They have been in business for 8 years and appear to be thriving. They carry all the K brands and a variety of other lower priced brands. The population is much smaller than Portland. Another factor may be at play, which might be household income. San Jose residents have an average household income about $90K, whereas Portland is about $60K. What do you think?

Incidentally, within 30 minutes drive of San Jose are 2 other shops that sell higher end ukuleles: Gryphon in Palo Alto and Sylvan in Santa Cruz. They sell other high end acoustic instruments as well. So there is no lack of competition in my area.

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Ziret said:

If you want to be able to buy good ukes at Walmart, all we have to do is form the NUA and start telling everyone that the government wants to take your ukes every time someone plays Tiny Tim.

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Ziret said:

I can see that saturated market point, but if that were really true, the gun industry would be out of business. Guns don't wear out, and there are guns enough for everyone in the entire country, but they keep selling. If you want to be able to buy good ukes at Walmart, all we have to do is form the NUA and start telling everyone that the government wants to take your ukes every time someone plays Tiny Tim.

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lfoo6952 said:

After following this thread, it appears that city culture, population sizes, and saturated markets, are not the sole factors that drive a successful retail ukelele business.

I'm going to throw in another factor for consideration. In San jose where I live, there is a store that sells only ukuleles, the Ukulele Source. They have been in business for 8 years and appear to be thriving. They carry all the K brands and a variety of other lower priced brands. The population is much smaller than Portland. Another factor may be at play, which might be household income. San Jose residents have an average household income about $90K, whereas Portland is about $60K. What do you think?

Incidentally, within 30 minutes drive of San Jose are 2 other shops that sell higher end ukuleles: Gryphon in Palo Alto and Sylvan in Santa Cruz. They sell other high end acoustic instruments as well. So there is no lack of competition in my area.

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JackLuis said:

Craigs List can be your friend. I got a nice O/S OU4 for $20, but it needed some fixing up. Some glue and new stings made it very nice uke for less than $30.

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